Firefly Nights

CHAPTER 15.66

I closed my eyes. Let the truth of it settle deep.

Something in his tone caught, pulled at me like a thread that had been waiting to unravel. We were close—close enough that I could feel the breath between us, warm and steady, tinged with whatever it was that lived only in him. Beer. Dust. The faint, lingering memory of cedarwood soap and sweat dried into cotton. It was heady in the quiet way that sneaks up on you, not like fire, but like sun on bare skin after a storm—something you didn't realize you missed until it was there again.

Then the song ended.

The room shifted, like breath being held and then let go. The next track spun up fast, something brighter, something not meant for slow hands and whispered memories. I felt the pivot in the floorboards around us—boots picking up pace, couples breaking apart and reforming with fresh laughter.

For a moment, I thought he'd step back. That he'd let the tempo carry us somewhere safer, somewhere further apart.

But he didn't.

Colt adjusted, easy as breath, and made his own rhythm. He ignored the beat like it had nothing to do with him. One step back. One to the side. Measured. Unhurried. It wasn't grace—not polished or smooth—but it was grounding. Like walking fence lines barefoot. Like knowing every dip in the land without needing to look.

I stumbled once—my boot catching his. Just enough to jolt me.

"Shit—sorry," I breathed, flustered.

But he just grinned. That quiet kind of grin that barely touched his mouth but lived somewhere in his eyes. Then, without warning, he spun me.

I let out a breath of surprise, half laugh, half gasp, the world tipping and catching again. My hair slipped loose across my shoulders as I came back to him, blinking, smiling wider than I had in weeks.

He steadied me with both hands, one still low on my back, the other curling briefly at my waist like he hadn't meant to let go in the first place.

"Having fun?" he asked, voice low and close, like a secret just between us.

I bit my bottom lip and nodded before I trusted myself to speak. "More than I thought I would," I said softly, and I meant it.

It wasn't the tequila. It wasn't even the music. It was this—being moved and held and looked at like I wasn't something broken he was trying to fix, but something whole he wanted to know better.

Colt's grin deepened, but it didn't sharpen. It stayed soft, like dusk sinking into the skin of the sky. "Good," he said. "Then maybe we oughta make a habit of it."

I tilted my head at him, playful. "What, the dancing? Or the whole 'saving-my-night' bit you seem to have perfected?"

He shrugged, eyes steady on mine. "Whichever keeps you smilin' like that."

I looked down at our feet, at the quiet pattern they were still drawing into the floor. Then back up at him. "Careful, Langmore. I might start thinking you're sweet on me."

His eyes didn't waver. He leaned in, the edge of his breath brushing the shell of my ear, sending a shiver down the line of my spine that no amount of tequila could've caused.

"Stick around," he murmured, and something in his tone—gravel and gravity—hooked into the softest parts of me. "You'll figure it out."

I swallowed. Hard. My fingers were still laced behind his neck, and I could feel the heat of his skin where the collar had slipped low. I didn't want to break the spell. But I wanted to know if it was real.

"Maybe I'm just easy," I said, not quite teasing.

Testing.

Colt didn't laugh.