Too Lucky to Live by Annie Hogsett

Author:Annie Hogsett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, Inc.
Published: 2017-01-21T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirty

The Marriott Grand Ballroom was vast. And mostly empty. A small crew of hotel staff had begun to set up for a banquet. Round tables. Rows of stacked up chairs. The chandeliers were amped down to a romantic, electric-bill-saving glow. The sound system was playing “Tequila Talking.”

The workers were moving slow. Folks with no urgent deadline and no bosses around, late in the evening, getting out ahead of tomorrow’s game plan, listening to a little country on this quiet night in the big hotel, just to ease the time. The mood of the room, its dreamlike, unhurried pulse, called out to me like the longing for peace.

Tom and I had taken a late evening stroll through the quiet, public spaces. It was after ten p.m. on a Monday night. Not rush hour at the Marriott. Our aimless feet had brought us here to a beautiful tall-windowed corridor that buffered the entrance to the ballroom. I guided Tom through the open doors, taking in the grand space through my newfound experience of what it’s like to let all your senses that aren’t sight tell you everything you need to know.

I closed my eyes. The room was cool, the air still. Our steps were hushed by carpet. There was the fragrance of Murphy’s and well-buffed wax from the dance floor. The papery perfume of wilting flowers from the last party they’d had. Lonestar was winding down about the guy being so drunk he’d accidentally told his ex-girl he still loved her. The way the sound echoed in the emptiness was telling me that the room was bigger than life.

“Where are we, Allie?” Tom’s voice was low. “A large space—Ballroom? It smells romantic.”

“You’re right,” I whispered back, opening my eyes, seeing it for Tom. “It’s the ballroom. There are a few people here, setting up for a party of some kind. The lights are low. The air conditioning is on. That romantic smell, though…that’s all me.”

The tequila had stopped talking and a few slow chords signaled the intro of the Trisha Yearwood version of “How Do I Live.”

The longing in the music, the heartbreak of a cello in there, drew me to Tom. I took his hand and led him out into the middle of the big dance floor and put both my arms around his neck. “Let’s dance,” I said. “There’s no one to run into. We can both close our eyes.”

“Sounds good to me.”

How do I,

Get through one night without you?

If I had to live without you,

What kind of life would that be?

It was all there in the song. The sweet attraction, the elemental passion, the bonds we’d been forging between our bodies and our minds. Knowing, learning, discovering each other. I felt the sorrow of comprehending, too late, that I’d put my own heart into someone else’s body. And that person now had the power to take me away from me. He was a good dancer, too. For a man who always danced in the dark, he knew how to lead.

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