Marvin and Dizzy said a few words over the mic before Billy and Daniel did the same. Each man only spoke for a minute or two before handing the mic to the next person. Daniel was the last person to speak, and he introduced James as his guest and told us all to make him feel welcome.
James waved when Daniel introduced him, and everyone clapped. As he was taking his hand out of the air, it came down on me. He rested it on my back in a possessive gesture, giving me a little tug toward him. I smiled at him as the applause died down.
Daniel continued speaking, but I could feel that eyes were still on us. James hadn't touched me at all since we were dancing earlier, and I wasn't expecting the public contact, but I went with it, smiling and leaning a little closer to him.
I could smell him and feel him, and this closeness was amazing. I reckoned it was just Marvin's soap I was smelling, but it was James who was wearing it, and it was mixed with the natural smell of him. I had to resist the urge to lean into him even more. The crowd laughed at something else Daniel said, and I smiled just to seem like I had heard, but I hadn't. He could have been talking about me for all I knew. James's hand was on my back, and that was all I could think about at the moment.
***
It was an hour later when Tess came up behind me as I washed my face in the women's restroom. "Are you okay?" she asked.
I had on some makeup, so I was trying to strategically splash cold water on my face without causing black mascara to run down my cheeks. "Yes," I said. "I'm fine. I'm good."
"What happened?" she asked, since it wasn't normal to find me washing my face in the ladies room.
"It's just James," I said. "We've been in there dancing, and he's… I'm… I can't help but get a little… I wasn't expecting James to be here tonight, and I wasn't expecting to react to him like this. I can't think straight."
I dried off with a paper towel that I took from a nearby dispenser. I stared into the mirror, wiping my face strategically so I wouldn't smear anything.
"It's nothing bad," I added, seeing her come up beside me looking concerned. "It's just crazy seeing him here. I had been talking to him so much on the phone, that I had sort of formed a different image to go with the personality, and now that we're here, and we're talking and dancing and everything. I'm just overwhelmed by it all."
"Do you like him?" she asked as if she honestly couldn’t tell.
"Yes, I like him," I said. "I'm scared of how much I like him. That's why I'm affected like this. I'm terrified that I'll do something to mess this up. I don't even know why he's still here, trying to see me after I spent all that time complaining about Michael and not even acknowledging that he was right there…" I trailed off when I realized that there was no use finishing that sentence. "I guess I'm just realizing how much I like him, that's all."
"Like my sister with your brother?" Tess said.
"I guess so," I said, nodding thoughtfully.
I had been mad at Abby when she first came around to liking my brother. I didn't understand how someone could just flip a switch after being aloof. But now I did understand that. It had happened to me, and it was completely out of my control. My switch had been flipped. I imagined I'd need to apologize to Abby for giving her a hard time about it. I didn't say as much to Tess, though. I just nodded when she said that.
"Yeah," I said. "I get it. I just keep thinking back to the things James told me when I couldn’t see him."
"Good things?"
"Yes. All good. I just had myself talked into assuming it could never work between us, and now that he's here, and we're having fun and looking at each other. Gosh, I don't know, Tess. I like him so much. I'm just in here trying to cool off so I'm not so obvious all the time. Don't tell him I said that. Don't tell him I said any of this."
Tess laughed. "I don't need to," she said. "I saw him right outside of here, and he's acting as torn up as you are."
"What do you mean?"
"He said he was in love. He asked me why I gave you that dress to wear, and I told him it was my sister's dress and not mine."
"Wait, wait, wait, back up. What'd you say before that?"
"I don't know, what'd I say?" she asked.
Several women came into the bathroom together, but we just kept talking.
"You said he said he was in love."
"He did say he's in love," Tess said.
"No, he didn't. What'd he say?"
I was so excited and tense that Tess laughed. "Go ask him yourself," she said. "I just asked him if he was having fun and he said 'yes' and then I asked him if he liked you, and he said, 'I think I'm in love'."
"He said that? Was he being serious?"
She looked into my eyes. "Do you really not know? Billy told me Daniel said he's got it really bad for you. How are you still nervous about it? The two of you have been inseparable all night."
I shook my head absentmindedly. "I guess I just had myself talked into thinking I couldn't be with him like that. You know, with him living in Georgia and everything. My feelings are just all over the map with him being here. I'm so surprised at how I reacted to seeing him."
"Is he staying through Christmas?" she asked.
"Yes." I nodded, rinsing my fingertips one last time and drying them off before heading back to the party.
Chapter 8
Two days later
Christmas Eve
My brother went to Louisiana this morning with Abby and her family like they always did on Christmas Eve. James was staying at their house, so they invited him to go with them, but he stayed back with me in Galveston since that was my normal routine.
Daniel and Abby were always gone, but I stayed home with my parents and grandparents and some of our extended family and close friends from the hardware store.
During his trip, James had been sleeping at my brother's house every night, but otherwise we were together. It was currently 8pm on Christmas Eve, and we had just left my friend Jessica's house where we had eaten dinner and played a game with her family.
They always played a game where they traded white elephant gifts. I had come home with an ashtray and an old, leather-bound Bible, KJV. It was an odd combo, but there was no accounting for Jessica's Aunt Paulene, and hers was the gift I happened to pick.
James chose a goldfish in a fishbowl, which was equally as weird as my combination of gifts. His was an actual living goldfish with rocks in the bottom of a round glass fishbowl. Jessica's cousin, Mark, had brought that one. He kept saying, "Careful, careful, careful," as James was opening it.
"I like my Bible," I said to James as we were walking out of the party.
"I hope you like little Jimmy, too, because, I don't think he's making the trip to Georgia," James said.
"Oh, do you mean I get to keep the goldfish? Is that his name? Jimmy? It would have helped if they would have included some food," I said, peering into the fishbowl as we walked.
James would have been holding my hand if our hands weren't full. Hand holding was something that happened between us quite a bit in the past couple of days. He had only kissed me twice, and both of them were light and fleeting, but he held my hand quite a bit. He had been holding it just now while we were in Jessica's house. My hand still felt empty from when he let it go. I was officially in love. There was just no other way to say it. I fell in love with him over the phone, and every single moment I spent with him did nothing but make me more certain that it was love, love, l-o-v-e, love.