🏐Connect - Chapter 10 preview 🏐
After 84 years it's almost done!!
Zoey pulls a face though the smile never quite leaves her. “Was it that bad?”
Rumi tilts her head instead of answering. “You didn’t answer the question. Also, you just drank the same thing.”
“Yeah but I don’t mind the taste…” Zoey says as she studies her for a second, rocking back on her heels. Then she makes a vague, rolling sound in her throat. “I don’t know. You did it.” She lifts one shoulder. “I’m a sheeple— sheep-person— sheepson— I’m easily influenced.”
The next song bleeds into the room, bass thudding hard enough that Rumi feels it echo through bone. Someone whistles. Someone else shouts the opening line. A few people grab at hands and sleeves, tugging each other into the open space at the centre of the living room.
The music gets louder. The room loosens.
Bodies move without hesitation — clumsy, joyful, off-beat. Laughter spills freely, openly. People dance like no one’s watching, or like they’ve forgotten that watching is even something one could do. Rumi watches it all with something tight and aching lodged just behind her sternum.
“I don’t think you are,” Rumi says at last, voice softer now. From the corner of her eye, she catches Zoey’s eyebrow lift — a small, thoughtful tic. Rumi’s gaze drifts between Zoey and the crowd gathering in the middle of the room. “What?”
Zoey rocks gently on her heels, gaze unfocused for a beat. “Sometimes I am…” The words land, but her voice doesn’t quite resolve — it hovers, like she’s about to add something else. There’s a fraction of a pause. A breath she doesn’t take. Then she smooths it over. Rumi watches the way Zoey’s mouth presses into a line that’s almost a smile, the way she tucks her hands into her pockets like she’s decided something internally.
Rumi narrows her eyes. “What is it?”
Zoey shakes her head. “Nothing.” The dismissal comes too neatly. Before Rumi can press however, Zoey tips her chin towards the crowd, grin back in place. “Wanna join them?”
“Not even a little,” Rumi says, not missing a beat.
Zoey laughs under her breath and reaches out anyway. Her fingers brush Rumi’s like she’s testing the temperature of the moment. The light dances in the pinks and purples around her eyes, turns them softer somehow, almost luminous.
“Come on,” she says. “It’ll be fun!”
Rumi looks up from their hands just as Zoey’s big brown eyes find hers. There’s a question in the look they share. When Rumi doesn’t pull away, Zoey’s fingers curl around hers more fully, the way ivy takes to old brick.
Rumi shifts her weight from one foot to the other, the familiar itch of self-consciousness rising. She clears her throat. “I don’t really dance.”
Zoey’s smile doesn’t fade. Instead, it settles into something gentler. She gives Rumi’s hands a small squeeze. “Just follow my lead,” she says, “I’ve got us.”
Rumi draws in a breath, glances past Zoey’s shoulder at the blur of bodies and movement, the easy confidence of people who belong to the noise.
“No one will be looking at us,” Zoey assures quietly, stepping closer. Then she adds, “they’re too busy grinding on each other anyway,” and winks.
It successfully pulls a snort out of Rumi. But her feet remain firmly planted where she stands.
Zoey’s voice dips then, softens. “We can also stay right here if you want. That’s okay too.” A beat. Then, lighter, hopeful. “But it would be fun.”
The light from the room flickers in her eyes and her hands are so warm against Rumi’s skin and when Zoey takes a step back and air starts to fill the space between them again Rumi sighs. Resigned.
A nod. “Okay.” Then, “lead the way.”
