Someone tossed a napkin in his face and booed, but Erin laughed. He sent her a smile and winked.
“Is your drink okay?” He slid it closer to her and she took a sip, welcoming the calming effects of the rum.
Shots were passed around and they all said something in Gaelic and tossed them back with a cheer. Giovanni slung his arm over her shoulders as if there was nothing strange about her presence. The conversation slowly picked up and then they were basically ignored, which was a relief.
Every now and then, Mallory leaned over to include her in a bit of conversation, but Erin was too self-conscious to say much back. She was blown away by how incredibly nice Finn’s wife was and regretted all the nasty things she might have thought about her over the years to make herself feel better.
Finn’s sister Sheilagh held everyone’s attention as she told a story about her parents. Her siblings and their spouses laughed, falling into each other even though some of them claimed to have heard the story before.
“You should have seen her, carrying on like a banshee. Sheilagh, where are my dolls? You better not have lost them! I told you not to play with them,” Sheilagh imitated her mother’s Irish lilt to perfection. “She looked for those damn Russian nesting dolls for two hours!”
Erin stared as Finn laughed, smiling at Mallory, as he casually brought her hand to his lips for a kiss.
“I hate Russian nesting dolls,” Giovanni whispered in Erin’s ear, startling her and stealing back her attention. He grinned once he had her full eye contact. “They’re so full of themselves.”
At first she thought he meant Finn and Mallory, but then she realized he was making a joke. Once she got the punch line, she laughed. “Buh-dump-bump.”
He lifted her hand, much like Finn had lifted his wife’s, and pressed a kiss to her fingers. Only, at the last second, he licked between her fingers and bit her knuckle.
Her breath hitched at the promise in his eyes. Leaning closer, he brushed the hair away from her ear. “Did I mention I’m the jealous sort? I like to be the focus of your attention.”
She had been watching Finn a lot. Mostly because she envied his connection with his wife, but also because she realized she felt nothing aside from platonic friendship for him after all these years. She was truly happy for him.
Giovanni tugged her under his arm, keeping her back to his chest and a loose grip on her hand as they sipped their drinks and listened to the conversation at the table. She leaned into his body, appreciating the support.
Some of the girls got up to use the bathroom and the boys took the break as a chance to squeeze in a round of darts.
“Do you dance?”
She glanced at Giovanni. “When I’m at a wedding.”
“Only weddings?”
She shrugged. “Where else do people dance?”
He angled his head toward the open floor. “Let’s pick a song.”
She twisted and pressed her back into the chair. “No one’s dancing.”
“So?”
“So, I don’t like being the center of attention.”
“No one’s looking at us.”
“They will if we start dancing in the middle of a bar when no one else is.”
“So let them. Come on.”
He tugged her up from the table and dragged her to the jukebox. “We need to pick a good song since it’ll be our first dance. Then we can say cute shit like ‘aw, honey, they’re playing our song.’” He sorted through the suggested listings.
Erin stared at him, unsure if he realized how much the permanence he assumed about their relationship terrified her. Little by little, she’d been trying to open herself up, but it wasn’t in her nature to care for others. The truth was, the more her feelings grew, the more she feared him walking away. She didn’t like having so much to lose.
She often wondered what he might say next or how he might think or feel about something she said. It was exhausting investing so much into someone else. There were a lot of sticky emotions to process and she didn’t want those feelings sticking around if he chose to leave.
But what if he chose to stay?
She shut the door on the thought, refusing to get ahead of herself. Right now, this was where she was. Giovanni made her feel good. When the good feelings went away, so would she. That was it.
“Perfect,” he said, sliding a dollar into the machine and pushing a few buttons.
He pulled her toward the open floor and she dug her heels into the wood. He ignored the tension in her limbs and lifted her arm to his shoulder, holding her other hand hostage in his.
“I don’t know if you’re ready for these moves. My Nona made me dance with her every Sunday when I was a kid.”