When she reached for it, Qadir leaned back and drained the glass. Loulie shoved his shoulder, but she was laughing. The wine made everything so pleasant.
“Dry no longer,” Qadir said as he set down the glass.
Loulie wiggled her brows at him. “I dare you to get absolutely drunk.”
“I dare you to not.” Qadir sighed. “I would rather not have to carry you to the inn.”
“I can walk just fine.” She stood. And swayed. When Qadir reached forward to steady her, she grabbed his hand and leaned forward with a conspiratorial smile. “Dance with me?”
“I’ll pass.”
“You’re a grumpy old man.” She pried her hand from his and twirled away, into the crowds. At first, she could hear Qadir calling her name, but then his voice was just a thrum beneath the drums.
A current of ululation rippled through the room. Loulie saw women flipping their hair, men clapping their hands. There were a few people at the center, performing a debka line routine. She recognized one of the men. Prince Mazen. He was smiling—he’d been smiling for hours—and twirling across the ship with surprising grace. Midspin, he caught her gaze.
His smile grew brighter as he held out a hand. Loulie did not realize she’d rushed forward to take it until their fingers were pressed together and they were circling each other.
The prince pulled her toward him. “Are we still rich?”
Loulie grinned. “Criminally.”
He laughed, and it was the raw, unchecked laughter of a child. Loulie was awed by him, by this strange man who smiled even when his world was falling apart. He looked at ease here, every bit the handsome, bright-eyed storyteller who’d opened up to her in the souk.
Handsome, ha! It’s a good thing Dahlia isn’t here to suggest marriage.
She gripped his palm. “Please tell me you know how to dance.”
The prince grinned. “Of course. What kind of decadent would I be if I didn’t?” He shifted his hand so that their palms were pressed together. Then he raised their joined hands in the air, and they danced. More than once, Loulie nearly tripped on his feet.
“Are you sure you know how to dance, al-Nazari?” The prince’s grin was a slash of mischief on his face. Loulie had not known he could smile like that, with a challenge in his eyes.
His words sparked something in her: a fire usually only Qadir could call forth. When they next spun, she purposely overstepped and stomped her foot down close to his instep. The prince stumbled back, mouth open in a comical O. She batted her lashes and said, “I think you should watch your own feet, Prince.”
He quickly recovered his composure. The next time they spun, it was he who jutted his foot out, trying to catch her off guard. It continued like that, their movements less a dance and more an intimate obstacle course in which they both tried to avoid each other’s feet. Loulie stopped swaying and started dodging, making the world tilt with every step.
By the last pluck of the oud string, she was too exhausted to anticipate the prince’s last movement: a sweep that, to everyone else, looked like a bow. Instead, he swept her off her feet.
Loulie fell against him. She felt the rise and fall of his chest as he laughed, the warmth of his hands at her hips as he steadied her and said, “I think this means I win?”
She stood there, fingers bunched in his shirt as she struggled to hold herself upright. As she became aware of the prince’s heartbeat and of the contours of his body against her own, she wondered, suddenly, what it would be like—to be able to lean on someone without feeling vulnerable. To trust someone implicitly, not just with her heart, but with her body.
For the second time that day, her fuzzy mind conjured an image of Ahmed. She imagined him sitting beneath the stars, smiling softly as he raised a glass in her honor. Tonight, let me serve you. She wondered what it would be like to rest her head on his lap, what his lips would feel like on her neck…
She shoved herself away from the prince, heat staining her cheeks.
He blinked. “Al-Nazari?” She turned and walked away before he could grab her.
She pushed into the crowd, which was devolving into a blur of vivid colors, crooked smiles, and too-loud laughter. She tried to focus, but her mind was still on the damn wali. Smiling, charming Ahmed bin Walid, whom she turned down every time because he was a murderer. Because he killed jinn like Qadir.
And because, deep down, she was terrified of commitment. Of trusting someone.
Abruptly, she hit a wall. She stepped back and looked up, only to realize it was not a wall at all, but Qadir. There was concern in the hard tug of his mouth. “Ready to leave?”