[New Year’s Eve: Hannah & Jeremiah]
There was the curiosity of the way she moved among all of them, maybe as confident as Jeremiah was, or more so. Every aspect of this dinner had been self-trained, learned by watching others that were further up in the elites of the world, and observing how they moved and what they said, and how they ate. He knew it, but it was not the knowledge of having grown-up in it, it was the knowledge of someone that had grown up 'well-enough' and learned to pass a little higher. He doubted seriously that he was fooling anyone here, but he had, perhaps, enough of his father's ego to not care.
And when Hannah leaned forward and squeezed his hand, and laughed at things those around them were saying, and shared things back to him, as if they were sharing secrets, it increased his confidence and the sense of not caring what others might think, as did the wine he'd consumed throughout the meal, but not so much that he would step on her toes. Perhaps it was good to be Jeremiah March, to know dancing inside and out, and to be able to dance steps forwards and backwards, different parts, to just know them unequivocally and he could guide Hannah across the floor as if he owned it.
"It's beautiful like flowers," he twirled her out. "And equally here tonight and gone tomorrow. We're all night blooming Jasmine," he chuckled as he twirled her back in, pulling his arm around her waist and drawing her close.
His eyes fell slightly at her question, even as the smile held. His best and most favorite New Year's Eve, was no longer either of those things, but instead a memory of something he might have had, a life he might have lived, and so although the night had been magical in almost every way, he couldn't begin to claim it as the best or most favorite. What are you doing New Years, he'd asked her in a drunken text on Christmas Eve, and she'd said she would go with him. And it had been dancing, and fireworks over the space needle, and possibility. He shook his head, and shook it off.
"This one," he said without any further hesitation, and he brought his gaze to look at her meaningfully, suspecting that she would guess, even without him telling her. Maybe not, and if not it didn't particularly matter, but it seemed like she did sometimes. But he slid his fingers against her hand, changing the way their hands were touching even as they danced, and he explained more. "Not that I've not had other New Year's that haven't been beautiful and amazing, but this year has been so terrible. Everything I thought was good at the beginning of it, got stripped away by the end, and then I came here, and I met you, and you've made me laugh again, and you agreed to come here, and look like a beautiful flower with me," his gaze rested on hers. "So this one is my favorite. I'm leaving this horrible, frustrating, achingly hurtful year behind me, and I'm hoping while I do so for something better in the next. I want good things this year. I don't know if I deserve them, but I want them. I want you to have good things Hannah. And I hope it will happen, rather than knowing that it won't. And that's why this year is the best."