Demanding Ransom (34 page)

Cora:
You’re a sucky liar. Seriously, get your pretty little ass out there and all up
on him. What is the point in wearing that skirt if you don’t?

Me: I
was just asking myself the same question—why am I wearing this ridiculous
skirt?

Cora:
The only thing that is ridiculous is you. Don’t text me until you’ve danced
with him. I mean it.

Me: Whatever.

“Hey Maggie.” I lift several inches off my
seat, startled by the sound, and drop my phone onto the table. I fumble to pick
it up quickly, but it slips between my sweaty fingers. I swallow my heart back
into my chest where it belongs. Ran crosses his arms and rests his elbows on
the table’s edge. He hovers his upper body forward, leaning toward me. “You
gonna come out on the floor or sit here and text your boyfriend all night?”

I give him a puzzled look. “I’m not texting my
boyfriend.”

“So you’re texting someone that’s not your
boyfriend. Don’t you think he’ll have a problem with that?”

The techno beat that rattles the frames on the
walls surrounding the secluded booth morphs into a slower pulse, and everyone
in the club shifts their swaying movement to account for it. I look up at Ran
and just shake my head, trying to find words, but forming them feels like I’m
relearning the entire English language. I can’t make sense of anything when I’m
with him. This is such a weird conversation.

Ran rubs his hands over one another. “Alright,”
he huffs, sifting his fingers through his dark hair. “If you haven’t picked up
on it yet, I’ve tried two different ways now to ask if you have a boyfriend,
Maggie.”

My eyes shoot up at him. “What—?”

“I’m asking if you have a boyfriend.” He cocks
his head slightly and draws closer. “So, do you?” Damn. I can smell that clean
scent of his like they are pheromones and it disorients my senses.

“No,” I stammer. “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

Ran
looks pleased with my answer and nods his head slowly. “Good. Because we
already went over the whole you not liking your boyfriends dancing with other
girls thing, so I figured it would go the other way too—your boyfriend
not liking you dancing with other guys and all. That was, if you had one.”

I drop
my eyes back to the cherry stem. I can’t look at him. I can’t listen to him
talk about boyfriends, girlfriends…relationships. I can’t do this. I twist the
stem ferociously between my fingers, trying to knot it, trying to occupy my
brain and my energy elsewhere. Anywhere else.

“Here.”
Ran slips his hand across the table and steals the stem out of my grasp. The
brief contact of skin-on-skin jolts my entire body, even though just the tips
of our fingers touch.

Ran pops
the stem into his mouth. His lips move sideways, pursing and twisting across
each other, and I can tell that his tongue is working hard on something behind
them. My stomach clenches and I hold in all my breath, because if I continue
breathing right now it would be humiliatingly shaky and unsteady. After about
ten seconds, Ran draws the stem out and waves it in front of my face, teasing
me with its perfectly knotted center.

“Is this
what you were trying to do?” he smirks and tosses it at me. It sticks to my
shirt and I peel it off quickly. I run it between my fingers unintentionally,
and when I realize it’s been in his mouth and how unreasonably faint that makes
me, I wrap it up in a cocktail napkin and shove it to the side of the table. “I
can teach you how to do that sometime if you like.” The way Ran smiles his
devilish grin makes my breath spill out all at once, unable to stay trapped
inside the confines of my ribcage any longer. He stares me straight in the eye.
“Do you wanna dance, Maggie?”

“No.” It
fires out of me so quickly I’m not sure if it’s me saying it or if it’s some
prerecorded voice.

“You
mind telling me why?”

“I’ve
been watching you dance with all those other girls all evening. I don’t think I
can keep up.” I’m a little mad at him for stealing my stem because I really
need something to occupy my focus right now. I settle on my empty glass and
swish the half-melted ice cubes back and forth in it so they clink quietly.

“Does it
bother you that I’ve been dancing with other girls?” The club’s lights flash
rhythmically and colors dance across the walls. The blue in Ran’s eyes is every
bit as intense as the bright bulbs that reflect around the room, and they’re
just as entrancing.

I shrug
my shoulders and slide an ice cube into my mouth. “You’re welcome to dance with
anyone you want, Ran.”

“I’d
like to dance with you,” he says, pressing in even closer over the table
between us. “But I think you’re going to make that very difficult.” Ran
wrinkles his nose like he’s thinking through some strategy. “What if I don’t
dance with anyone else this evening?” He cocks a brow and I furrow mine,
completely confused by his proposition. “It sounds like you don’t like guys
that spread their attention too thin, so what if I give all of mine to you for
the rest of the night?”

I choke
on the ice in my throat and am grateful that it melts quickly and doesn’t lodge
there permanently. “You don’t have to give me any attention. This night is for
you. Go celebrate.” It’s an unnatural gesture, but I wave him toward the floor.

“I want
to celebrate with you, Maggie.” His eyes implore me. “Will you please dance
with me? Or are you going to make me beg?”

“It
sorta sounds like you already are,” I tease, snatching a glance up at him. His
eyes are fixed on me, unfaltering.

After
looking at me, expressionless, for several seconds, Ran slides out of the booth
and stands at the edge of the table, his hand outstretched. I look at
it—at his strong fingers, the ones that I had the right to hold just a
few months ago—and my own fingers tremble at the thought of linking with
them again. Following a short pause, Ran dismisses my attempt at avoidance and
yanks my hand out of my lap, tugging me out of the booth and onto my feet.
“Dance with me, Maggie,” he breathes against my ear. I wonder if he knows that
by doing things like that, he leaves me no choice. My body reacts even when my
mind wills it not to.

We snake
through the hordes of people that move as one element as they rhythmically
stagger to the fast tempo blaring from the sound system. The energy of the
crowd sucks everyone in, like an anchovy in a school of fish, flitting and
moving just like the others—many small parts that make up one larger
entity. But it’s as though Ran and I stand out. Like we swim upstream while
everyone else morphs together and heads the opposite direction.

Ran’s
fingers grip onto mine tighter as he guides me toward the far wall to a pocket
that opens up into a section of empty dance floor. “This good?” He rotates his
head over his shoulder and doesn’t wait for my response before he swings me
into him, his hips pressed against me. I gasp. What the hell is he doing?
Tonight isn’t supposed to go like this. I shouldn’t be here. My frantic eyes
rove over the room, trying to locate the EXIT sign.

Ran
drops his hands further down my waist and I lock every joint in my body. I know
he can feel it. He has to. We’re so close that I’m sure he can even count every
staccato beat of my racing heart just from the echoes of it against his thin
gray t-shirt. Ran’s body moves to the music and my rigid frame shifts
awkwardly, not at all in sync with the sound that thrums around us, or with his
body that is closer than it should be.

“How’s
your brother?”

I snap
my head up. “What?”

“Your
brother,” Ran says again, pulling my hips closer to him. “We transported him
that night when he couldn’t stop vomiting.”

“You
remember that?” I ask. “He’s okay.” While I’m answering, someone from behind
clocks me between my shoulder blades with their elbow and I stumble forward,
slamming my cheek onto Ran’s chest. A cool liquid spills down my back and pools
at the base of my spine. It reeks of alcohol and now I do, too. “Ugh,” I groan,
completely annoyed.

Ran peels
the layer of fabric off of my skin and pulls at it, fanning me. “Want me to
beat him up and demand money for dry cleaning?” he teases, holding up a fist
like he’s ready for the punch.

“Nah,” I
smile. “This is Cora’s top anyway.”

“Cora?”

“My
roommate.” Ran hasn’t loosened his grip on my waist, and my previously gawky
movements start to mesh with his, my body following his rhythm because we’re so
close together it doesn’t have room to do much else. “At the dorms.”

“You’re
in school,” Ran says, more like a statement than a question, like he’s
confirming something he already knows to be true. The DJ starts another track
and the beat picks up tempo, transitioning from dazed and drawn out into a
faster pace.

“Yeah,
first year.”

“I know
that, Maggie.” I look up at his face, at his perfect mouth, and the nerves that
creep into every inch of my body feel just as electric as the atmosphere in the
club. “I do remember you, you know.” He draws up one eyebrow to a point.

“You
do?”

“Mmm
hmm.”

I gulp
nervously. Ran didn’t miss a beat when the DJ rolled this new track. His body
has crazy good rhythm and it’s so distracting because it makes me think things
I shouldn’t about it.

“What do
you remember?” I stutter, looking down at my feet like I’m commanding one to
move, then the other. It’s pretty much what I
am
doing, because any dancing skills I might have been able to
claim were left in that booth back there. I have absolutely no control over my
body when it’s in Ran’s arms.

“You
might be surprised by what I remember,” Ran whispers into my hair. My scalp
prickles and a shiver races down the length of my body.

“Tell
me.”

“Well,”
Ran starts. His body is pressed so close to mine that I have to remind myself
that we’re in a heavily populated, public location. Everything in me craves
feeling him even closer, and I shove those thoughts out of my head. We’re
dancing. Just dancing. He danced with many other girls earlier this evening.
This is no different. I need to ingrain that in my memory. “I remember the
night of your accident,” he continues. “I remember giving you the balloons and
you not-so-politely thanking me for them on the way to the hospital with your
brother.” His hands on my hips are burning. “I remember you saying you liked my
lips. Or was it you wanted to lick them?” He curls his mouth up on cue. “And I
remember not being able to sleep at night because all I could think about was
how badly I wanted you to experience that.”

My heart
stops.

“It’s
weird, Maggie,” Ran says softly. I’m surprised I can hear him above the roar
from the speakers, but it’s as though all that exists in this moment are the
two of us. Like the frantic bustle of the rest of the world continues while Ran
and I decelerate to slow-motion speed. “I have memories of us, so I know
there’s more than you’re letting on.” I bite down on my lip and try to avoid
his eyes, but he won’t let me as he dips his head to stay connected. “But it’s
hard to tell where my memories with you end and where my dreams begin.”

I
really
wish he hadn’t said that.

I glue
my eyes to the floor, because even though every other inch of me is in contact
with him, my eyes are the one thing I have control over. I can’t look at him. I
can’t be drawn further into the depths with him that way, the way I usually see
his soul through those big, bright eyes.

“Maggie.”
Ran slides his finger under my chin and pulls it up. “Were we ever together?” I
feel his chest push harder against mine. Everything in me aches.

“How
so?” I don’t know what he’s referring to, and I’m too embarrassed to ask in
detail.

“Together,
in any sense of the word.” I almost wish I
had
been drinking tonight, because I’d gladly trade the electrifying buzz that
shivers under the surface of my skin with an alcohol-induced one. At least that
one would wear off in a few hours. This one that Ran creates by holding his
body on mine probably won’t ever go away, and that could be quite a problem
considering the fact that I’ve promised to avoid him at all costs.

“No,
Ran,” I choke out. “We weren’t together.” As we’re dancing, we bump into a
couple at our left, and they’re shamelessly making out, their tongues slipping
in and out between their open mouths. It flusters me and I shake my head and
look back at Ran. “We were just friends.”

“Damn.”

“What?”

“It’s
just…it
feels
like there was more.
Every inch of you feels familiar to me, Maggie.” Suddenly my arms, my legs, my
chest—anything in contact with Ran’s skin—is a thousand degrees.
It’s like he’s set me on fire. “So I’m guessing I have a pretty good
imagination if I dreamt all of that up.” Ran leans closer and breathes deep.
“How your hair smells like vanilla. How your warm fingers feel in mine.” He
draws up my hand and squeezes my fingers between his. “I must have an
incredible imagination.”