Because the Night

who else but me?

"Oh," said Lily. Luckily that's all she said. Because here's a glimpse of what she was thinking: Who else would it have been? Gah! What other girls have you been inviting over? See, this is why he wasn't expecting you! You're a girl, not a woman! I should drive back down the mountain and leave a trail of my humiliation like slime on the road! Mom won't notice!

She was right on the last part — Annabelle, at that moment, was sipping a glass of white wine and staring at the lake with Al, and probably wouldn't have noticed for a few hours if her daughter slipped away down the mountain.

Everything else? Well — less cut and dry.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I was expecting you! I invited you. Of course I was expecting you. Come in," he said. "And let me put on a shirt." He walked ahead of her. Even if he put on a shirt now, the damage had been done. Earlier that day she had pressed against his hard chest. Now, she knew what that chest felt like. Certain things you can't unsee, and the ripples in his back were some.

Diego's room was the same layout as the suite she had with her mom on the other side of the resort, but both sprawling rooms were his. She waited in the living room area as he sauntered into the bedroom, where Lily could only imagine there was, indeed, a bed. Lily! Stop thinking about beds! She thought, instead, of the Queen of England and her corgis. Nice thoughts. Tame thoughts. Put those thoughts on leashes. But the Queen's corgis aren't on leashes, so...she had to stop those thoughts again.

And then – she heard a noise. Was she hearing things? No, he was definitely humming. A melody so sweet and aimless, not one she'd heard before. Like the music had been trapped inside him after all that dancing, and he was letting him out.

"Hey, actually, why don't you come in here?" he said, his voice muffled from the wall. "I promise I'm clothed."

He walked out to the area that separated the rooms wearing a burgundy shirt. "See? Totally decent. It's just that I keep the dresses in the closet. It'll be easier to choose what you want."

"The dresses?" She asked. That's when she saw them. They took up half his closet. Dresses of all different patterns, colors, and materials. All of them united by their beauty. These are dresses made for being the center of attention. "Oh. These kind of dresses."

"Yeah, they were my old dance partners'. I'd bought them for her. So I kept them. And now they're just sitting here. I'd really like for someone to wear them,and if you're going to be my guinea pig for the class..."

He trailed off. She wasn't listening, anyway. She was holding a silver glitter dress closer toward the light so it sent rainbows flying. "It's like a disco ball sewn into clothing," she said.

"That's a good one to wear at the end," he said.

"It's a nice idea. But there's no way I can fit into this dress. Like, no way." She rubbed the fabric between her fingers. This is a tight fabric. You know, one of those dresses that craved the curves of your body. Stuck to you. Squeezed you. No, she felt squeezed enough just by his eyes. She didn't need a dress reminding her of her own surface area, thank you.

She felt Diego watching her, his eyes measuring her body. "I don't know about that," he said. "My partner had a body just like yours. Well, almost." He didn't elaborate. Almost? What was different? She thought of her hips. That. That is probably what was different. And partner? What does a partner mean, in this sense? "But I can guarantee that it would fit you."

She sighed, then took the dress off the rack so she could see it straight-on. The dress ended in a flowy skirt, but the bodice was tight. How would it look?

"Why don't you try it on?"

"Here?" she asked. The room was stuffy. The room was full.

He pointed his thumb to the bathroom. "Here would be nice. But in there is probably safer."

She brought the dress closer to her, so now it was covering her body. "What did that mean?"

"Go try on the dress," he said, instead of answering, and it was an order. So she went. She tried on the dress. If Ariel the Little Mermaid had a human cousin, she'd look like the reflection Lily saw in the mirror. Hair frizzy from a day of walking, curling up and around her shoulders. Cheek flushed from nerves, and from the shock of seeing herself look — well — beautiful. Sure, the dress hugged her in parts that she normally was not hugged.

She walked out, expecting a compliment. Or a word. Or something. He stared at her, instead. Seriously stared. Like he was reading her body. Scanning her body, but for what? His eyes were hard.

"Well?" she asked, after a while.

"I was right. It's great. You'll wear this one, or another one, I don't care, tomorrow. This is great," he said. "Though anything would be an improvement over those jeans. What were they? Made for painters?"

No, You're so beautiful? No, See, you are a goddess after all. Still, he was looking at her.

"Oh, so you were checking me out, then?"

He laughed. "I'm simply observant. Take as many as you want," he said.

She stood in front of the closet, still wearing her dress. There were too many for her to carry in her arms. He stood behind her and starting telling her about each dress. The burgundy, good for winter but not June. The orange, that's good for June. He was so close that she was hyper-aware of the space between them.

The space between them was a long two inches. She could not travel the distance.

So when Emma let herself into the room, she saw Lily with her head in his wardrobe, holding a stack of dresses.

"Fresh meat, I see," Emma said, in that classic slow drawl of hers. No one knew where she got her twang, considering she was raised outside of New York. No one knew where she got her mischief, either.

Lily, shocked by the intrusion, dropped her dresses on the floor.

"Emma, this is Lily, my dance partner for the week. Lily, this is the devil. She's only here to make my life difficult."

If Lily thought the distance between her and Diego had been far before, she was now Australia. Far away from everyone else she dreamed of going. Emma was there. They had that easy intimacy of people who had been places with each other and now, they kept secrets.

"I'll see you later, Diego," she said, walking out of the room. Whatever he said next, she didn't hear. But she could've sworn she had heard laughing.