We spend thirty minutes more perusing the gala, my arm over his own, acting as if we belonged there. Our conversations with people had turned sillier and sillier. From pretending to be wealthy children of a reclusive billionaire who hides in his Scottish manor, to creating a ruckus about bidding for a super yacht very loudly, raising the competitive spirit of one Wall Street millionaire who didn't even know the difference between the bow and the stern, and managed to successfully- smugly - raise eight digits for charity. Applause wracked through the room before we found ourselves out of the building, giggling like schoolchildren just as the Wall Street man flushed pink, roving around for us.

The noise of traffic was a welcoming old friend. The crispness of cold air, the gust of late winter, not as much.

I might have been a obvious about my great hatred for the wet kind of cold, because Bucky was already shrugging off his coat as I muttered, "No, no, no, I'm fine."

We struggled for a bit, but with a deep sigh from me and a cocky grin from him, he was now one less coat, left in nothing but his blazer and button up.

"You didn't bring a coat." He said, having firmly placed his over my shoulders with gusto and a winner's glee. "We're going to be walking six blocks downtown, and I'd rather walk with a human than a human popsicle stick."

My nose scrunched at him, tugging the coat- light gray gabardine lined with wool. His scent spiked up, notes of suede and a touch cotton. Like fresh linen on a bright Sunday morning. I tried to feel very normal about being engulfed in his warmth and smell, shaking my head as if to rid the cloud that just filled my head with him.

"Charming, you are."

He grinned, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Wonderful, I am. Come on."

He bumped my shoulder with his own, my fingers flexing, before we stumbled into the foray. The city at it night was its own beast, beheld in shadows that stretched and bended but never lasted long because the streets were always so alight with life that it's impossible to truly be in darkness for long. And noise. Ever loud and impersonal noise always somewhere, if not everywhere. Crowding you in. A city so small but bursting with so much life.

We stop by a bodega before Third, an ambulance speeding through the slick streets. Flushed in a creaky heater blowing hot air in intervals and surgical neon sign of pink and green, I went took a bag of chocolate covered peanuts while Bucky made an order. From how the woman was already flattening grease paper, and the sweet, if not tired, smile on her face at the familiar boy in front of her, it was easy to surmise that Bucky was a frequent customer.

"Your favorite bodega?" I asked once he stood and swayed next to me. Bucky was an orchestra of movement, even just the slight movement of his full lips or the tap of his shoes. Your eyes always find their way back to him because he was just so loud with his own life.

He made a noncommittal nod, smiling softly. "One of. Rita is one of my favorite people in the world." He said this loud enough for 'Rita' to make a red-cheeked 'Oh you', before he turned back to me, smile brightened at the edges with enough mischief for me to adjust. "Let me guess where yours is."

"Where what? My favorite bodega?"

"Uh huh."

"You can guess that? Out of all the bodegas in New York, really?"

"Oh, easily. Every real New Yorker can," he teased.

I rolled my eyes. "Try. But if you fail, I'm getting an IOU."

"An IOU? Really?"

"It's your game." I shrugged, biting back a grin. "If you so choose to take it."

"Okay, Mission Impossible. Hm." Another tap of his sole. A curling of his lip in deep thought. "Can I ask one thing and just one thing only?"

"Sure?"

"Is your meat choice more on the pork or chicken?"

I paused, more surprised at having actually thought more about it. "Neither."

He hummed, face pursing as he thought about my sub order with exquisite seriousness that I found so hilarious, I had to stop myself from giggling.

"I know you're not vegan, so beef. You don't seem like a turkey girl, maybe on a health kick day. Which you are prone to, but not often."

I snorted, blushing. How the hell would he even know all that? "Turkey Girl?"

"It's all relative- oh, thank you," he said to the woman after she flagged him, paying and tipping in quick succession, before he nodded back out. The wind whipped at our exit, shivering and bundling up Bucky's coat tighter to my body. He nodded back on the road, offering me water while I shook my head.

"I'll drink when my fingers aren't freezing, so I hope the place you're bringing me has heat, Choi, or I am going to riot."

"Noted. Alright so beef, and I know you like your sauces and condiments on the sour side since you love pickles, out of all the damn things-"

I gasped, swinging at him but he's faster, prancing away with a laugh. "I reject that absolute abysmal response to pickles!"

"I counter that rejection with, I am right and you have weird tastes."

"It's pickles, how is that a weird taste?"

"Just 'cause." And he's an absolute child when he stuck his tongue out before giving a wink. "Okay, okay. And you're not opposed to spice, in fact, you crave it... considering there's not a whole lot of good sandwiches close to our campus-"

"- Joel's isn't bad," I said to throw him off but he snorted, levelling me with a look so sassy, laughter just erupted out of me.

"It isn't terrible but it is not good. Hm. The corner mom and shop place. In the Fabrics District. Right on top of that pawnshop. They also sell good lemonade, so I'm sure you've gotten some with your pickly sub that tastes like a wince more than anything."

"Okay, first of all, a, that's correct, and b, that's both impressive and terrifying?"

He shrugged. "My many, useless talents. Also I'm a New Yorker."

I rolled my eyes. "Just because you eat a lot in bodegas, does not make you a real New Yorker."

"Touche." He arched an eyebrow. "If I lead you to the best place in New York, that only real New Yorkers know, does that make me the ultimate New Yorker then?"

"Open at- two in the morning?"

"Uh huh."

"Huh. Fine. Enlighten me, Wonder Boy."

He smirked. "Oh, prepare to eat it, Pickle Girl."

As we laughed, scrunching our noses at our stupid nicknames and clinking heels, I didn't really feel so cold anymore.

A jazz club, reminiscent of 1920 alcohol-ban crackdowns and smoke filled interiors with sweaty, dancing bodies greeted that little bet from the pavement. It was loud, brightly lit in a cavernous room, hidden behind by a broken exit sign inside a building sandwiched between a shuttered shop and a Chinese herbal store.

We were transported to a different world. An old one. 

"What the hell?" My mouth was gaping, excitement and wonder in one exhaled syllable. For the hour, it was jam-packed with bodies twirling to loud band music. A hand touched my shoulder just as a saxophone ripped through the air, tangled close with a cymbal and an eruption of drums. The room exploded in hoots and hollers.

"You okay?" But he was grinning, his arm over my own, taking his coat off and doing the same to his own jacket. He handed it over to the same person Bucky made a secret handshake to, whispering something to the woman before she nodded and he turned to me. 

He took my hand in his, letting me absorb everything as he led us to a vacant table. And it was hard. The place was packed. Even the bar was filled with flirting couples or barefooted dancers taking gulps out of a brightly colored drink.

"How the hell did you even find this place?" I finally asked, entranced by everything my eyes landed on. The music swelled to another piece, and the people on the dance floor hollered before they started tossing partners.

"It's a know who to know how." He shrugged. "My sister was introduced by a guy she went on a date with- didn't go well, he tried to kiss her with onion breath and argued about Marx - but did gift her this. Then she told me, now I'm telling you. It breathes on word of mouth. They're allergic to advertisement. Sticking to the past as if it was still the present. Only opened on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Sally, one of the bartenders, said the owner found it funny when people came in their Sundays best."

I was partly listening, the world too bright and wonderful around me to focus. It was a rectangular dance floor banded with three lofts, all containing an extra slew of wriggling bodies, smoke, and tables. The jazz band was push up the stage, sweat and laughter and shrieks combining in varyingly dressed individuals. Everything pulsed. The world in a centrefold vibe of excitement, dancing, and nothing else.

"-Nadine, hey." I turned back to him, wide-eyed and grinning, and his laughter bolstered over my chest like a warm kiss to my being. He was already sat, offering a hand and helping me to the opposite chair. The table was small, filled with nicks, aged wood, and water rings. When I sat on the other chair, our knees knocked and I was reminded he was still holding my hand.

It was the place that was warm. Not my face. And the tingling was in the air, the adjoining drop and swoop of music and not on my fingers against his.

"If you don't mind, we should probably eat first. Dancing makes me ravenous." He raised a challenging eyebrow, not at all trying to hide his smirk. He laughed again at the wonder on my face that I couldn't just wipe away. "That is... if you can manage to keep up with me. How is your dancing, Nadine Lynch?"

I took my sub, taking a glorious bite after he unwrapped it for me. "Fucking stellar."

"I'm holding you to that. Because I'm very good dancer."

Hours. Hours of swaying, tossing, dipping each other in between giggles and hoots of laughter that struggles through your nasal passageways because adrenaline is coursing through your veins, and everything is funny in the best fucking way. It didn't feel like two am turning to three to four when we kept spinning, bracing ourselves against the music and the impact of finding each other again.

At one point, we had exchanged partners, clumsy but enthusiastically copying complicated footwork from someone who definitely knew the steps better than I do, holding onto a charming man's arms- glinting dark skin, charming, beaming smile, so sure in his hold against my own that I didn't feel stupid for being new - teaching and laughing with me, and I met Bucky's gaze against it.

I was grinning because he was grinning back, and I could regret everything else in my life but that moment of firework and wonder. It was reminiscent of dancing in his house. Bright music and spinning limbs, joy breaking over every pour and shared laughter. Landing back on the floor with every thud felt like slamming back to earth as I sprung around clouds, being tossed and yanked and spun.

By the last hour, the hour where you could feel your aching feet throb and harried breath feeling your lungs tighten at every inhale, the music doesn't stop but it slows. It smoothens. The saxophone makes one good stretch- a musician's brass wind practiced breath giving it as good as it gets, and New York is a city of dreamers, so of course it's tantalizing - before the cymbals fluttered and the room darkened ever so slightly.

Bodies move about closer, their steps languid, their smiles soft and loving.

I was about to awkwardly leave the dance floor and maybe get a fresh glass of water when Bucky's hand clamped over my arm, stilling movements and breath.

It was only because I got lost in his eyes that I felt myself nod, unnattached to my body but not disliking or stopping where this was going, when he asked if he could dance with me.

One slow dance. Close breaths and strung hands.

"I'm going to be real with you," I said softly, trying not to feel my pulse fluttering like a hummingbird's wings in my wrist, trying to find a joke amidst the rubble of proximity, of his warmth, of his hands over me and my hands over him. "Apart from the necessity of high school prom with spiked punch and other horny teenagers, I know nothing about slow dancing."

"Don't worry," he said softly, breath brushing against the top of my head. His hand tightened over mine, and the other, planted on my back, felt firmer as we swayed and spun. I was a firecracker. I pulsed under unwavering gaze and sure, strong hold. "I can lead."

This was different in every way, our chest pressed against each other in a terrifying thought that he could probably hear my heartbeat. The horror of being seen, of being known.

But it was the feeling of safety, of rightness being in his arms provided, that I looked up and his soft smile broke me.

I love him, the thought whispered in a broken cacophony.

The horror of being seen is to be unpeeled and raw before the last person you'd want to see you with your full, unbridled truth.

"Nadine..." he said softly. His eyes glanced. Once. Too far from my eyes. Just a glance but it was enough for everything to shatter. The Looking Glass is too wide and too fragile when my mouth pressed together as I licked my lips and he mirrored it, entranced. The spell is a squeal and a bang as I scrambled out of his hold and took a step back.

My eyes burned and my heartbreak echoed in his own gaze.

The reality slammed back down like a gauntlet to a marbled floor in an echoing cathedral.

"No," I said, gasping, retreating, fleeing. "This is wrong, Bucky."

His eyes flashed hurt, his hand flexing and falling to his side.

I shook my head one last time before running away; leaving the trail shards of my heart, shattered and winking, with the boy who didn't even need to steal it to own.

See? I thought. This is what happens when you love. You break things that break you. You knew better and let it happen. This is your fault and no one else's.

The righteous mocking echoing in my head only quieted with my agreement.

Yeah, that's the 2005 Pride and Prejudice hand flex.