The Unseen Read Free Page B

song.
    “What?” Kari asked.
    “This is the theme song of the dance,” David said. His voice sounded defeated.
    “Well, we better dance to it then,” Kari said. The steps were wide enough here that Kari hardly had to use David’s shoulders to steady her as she stood up. David lowered the ice from his cheek and looked up at Kari in disbelief.
    “Right here?”
    “Yes. Now get up,” Kari said, staring down at him. She wasn’t sure whether to glare at him to let him know it wasn’t negotiable or to smile to try to convince him to dance with her. She smiled. David shook his head and set his ice pack down on the stairs and pulled himself to his feet. He brushed his tux off and then bowed slightly and offered Kari his hand.
    “May I have this dance?” asked David.
    “I already asked you to dance.”
    “Fine, you may have this dance.” David grinned and stepped toward her and started to wrap his arms around her waist.
    “Wait!” Kari said, causing David to jump slightly. Kari reached down and pulled off her custom printed heels and tossed them into the bushes off to the side of the stairs. “All better.”
    David wrapped his arms around her waist, and Kari placed her hands behind his neck. The music was fainter out here, but in a way it set a better mood. A couple of the drones that were carrying the Japanese lanterns buzzed by them unnoticed as David twirled Kari around slowly. When she finished spinning, Kari found her eyes locked with David’s, and for the first time in her life, found herself in a piece of reality that felt too good to be true. David leaned in slowly, and Kari closed her eyes.
    “Whoa! Love is in the air, Jack!” one of the security guards at the top of the steps yelled out to his friend. Kari and David both jumped and stared up at the audible intruder on what they had thought to be a private moment. Two guards at the top of the stairs were laughing as one of them nudged the other.
    “I can feel it, Steve! I can feeeel it!” The two guards had another laugh with each other as they watched Kari and David dance a dozen steps below them.
    “Don’t,” David said.
    “What do you mean ‘don’t’?”
    “Don’t say anything back,” David said.
    “Oh, I’m the one with that problem? You were the one who started the third civil war inside a few minutes ago.”
    “This is different,” David said, returning his attention to Kari and the dance. “You see, it’s not for their sake that I’m saying that. I have purely selfish motivations.”
    Kari cocked her head and looked at him strangely. Sometimes you don’t make any sense, David.
    “It’s because you are absolutely terrifying when you get mad, and you’re intimidating enough to dance with as it is,” David said.
    Kari couldn’t help but laugh at the unexpected explanation.
    “I’m not that bad, am I?”
    “Are you kidding? I’m pretty sure Terrence will never get within a hundred miles of me again after tonight. What was it that you said to him after we got kicked out? ‘I want to remember you’? That gave me chills!”
    Kari wasn’t able to keep dancing as she laughed, pulling herself even closer to David.
    “Well, it’s true,” Kari said after she’d recovered enough. “I like to remember the worst people I meet, just in case we meet again.”
    “I get it, but, man, when you said that, I thought Terrence was going to wet himself.”
    “Kiss her already!” shouted one of the guards from the security checkpoint at the entrance to City Hall. Kari shot them a warning glance, but the guards just chuckled and egged them on anyway.
    “Fine!” Kari yelled back to them.
    “Fine?” David asked, equally both curious and surprised.
    “Yeah . . .” Kari said, turning around. David kissed her. Chills raced through her body as she felt David’s soft, warm lips on her own. She hadn’t grown up dreaming about her first kiss like most girls, but this moment was perfect. Kari kissed him back, and the security guards