He leaned down and laid a gentle kiss on my lips. I kissed him back, letting my body fall in against his, and his arms encircled me and it was like breathing, as if I’d been holding my breath until we kissed.

He pulled away with my lipstick on his lips, but it was a good color for him. He smiled down at me, his eyes sparkling as if he was on the verge of laughter. “Ma petite.” That was all, just my nickname, but it seemed to hold years of I love yours.

The lights flashed. It was the signal to get to our seats before the curtain went up. J.J. was standing so that Jean-Claude could help me into the seat beside him where she’d been sitting. She smiled and said hi. I told her I was glad she could make it. “I wouldn’t have missed seeing Jason dance again,” she said, and her face lit up as she said his name. She was pretty, always, but in that moment she was beautiful. She had the same spring-blue eyes that Jason had. They both had the soft good looks that sometimes goes with blond, blue-eyed coloring. They looked enough alike to be siblings, but then they shared a common great-great-grandfather. A lot of the kids from their school looked like siblings. Apparently Great-Great-Granddad had been a busy boy.

Something made me turn and look back to Micah and Asher at the head of the aisle. Asher had tried to give Micah the same greeting he’d given me, but Micah had pulled away. Asher sat down laughing as Micah eased past Jean-Claude and me to sit on my other side by J.J. Jean-Claude patted Micah’s back, as if saying, It’s all right. In private Jean-Claude and Micah greeted each other pretty intimately, but Micah had made it clear that he wasn’t food for everyone. Asher had taken it as a challenge to see if he could seduce Micah, and when that hadn’t worked, he seemed intent on embarrassing him. I loved Asher, but he had a sadistic streak in him that I wasn’t always crazy about.

If he didn’t stop pushing, he was going to be on Micah’s shit list permanently.