“The one that says you’re completely awesome always.”
She wasn’t sure what hit her harder: the words, or the sudden knowledge that everyone was watching them. Not just watching, in truth. Staring intently, as though the pair of them were a science experiment on the verge of doing something spectacular. Explode like a firework, maybe.
It certainly felt like it, inside of her.
And that went double when he held out his hand.
“Come on. I’ll show you how easy it is.”
“You’re that much of an expert. At dancing.”
“Oh, you know, I dabble,” he said.
And here was where she made a big mistake:
She took him at his word. She let him lead her to some dusk-draped secluded spot behind the house, thinking that this was going to be a ridiculous fumbling pile of nonsense. Like the self-defense class, only fueled by the couple of beers he had obviously had and her faintly giddy astonishment. They would laugh, and joke in that same way, and she would act all incredulous and withering.
Then he slipped his hand around her waist, and the whole world went still.
The breeze ceased stirring the leaves on the trees around them. All the clocks stopped; the earth forgot to turn. Even he seemed to freeze for one insane second—but that was good. It meant that she could take everything in, one bizarre piece at a time. She glanced down at that big paw on her body, and the chest that was almost touching hers, and his face tilted down toward her, her eyes as big as dinner plates. And then he took her right hand in his, and they got even bigger than that. Once this man had made her lock herself in the janitor’s closet. He had.
Now he was out here trying to dance formally with her to the strains of “Only You,” by Yazoo.
And that was really the smallest part of it.
“Okay, eyes up, we go on the three, not the two,” he said, all that mischief in his eyes and on his lips, but different, so different, because he knew she knew what those words were from. Dirty Dancing. This is Dirty fucking Dancing, her mind hollered, while her feet did their best to obey. He went back and she was supposed to go forward, and then he went forward and she was supposed to go back.
But she fumbled it. Of course she fumbled it.
Her heart was pounding so hard she suspected it was visible. Most of her body had turned to liquid, and the rest was trembling pretty violently. It was a given that she would fuck up whatever he was trying to do. She just didn’t expect her almost stepping on his feet would make her laugh the way it did. Or make him laugh the way he did it—with the kind of affection she never thought he was capable of. It wasn’t at her, it was with her. And best of all: It came partly because he liked it.
He liked her amusement.
He even seemed pleased that she couldn’t dance to save her life, though she couldn’t say why until he started to give her real instructions. “No, go back, then to the side,” he said, and it hit her as hard as any insult he’d ever hurled at her. It gave him pleasure to help her do something. It was satisfying to him somehow—she could see it. His eyes lit up every time she got something right, and doubly so when she twirled beneath the bower of his arm. They were the Fourth of July for that, so bright and brilliant it stole her breath.
It made her think insane things, like he doesn’t even look that way at women he dates.
Before she shook it off. They were just having fun, that was all. He spun her back into his arms, but spinning into his arms didn’t mean anything. They were dancing; you were supposed to do that when you were dancing. And you were supposed to hold someone the way he was currently holding her, so tight to his body she could feel every curve and groove. She could feel each breath he took, as short and harsh seeming as her own. But most of all, she could see how little blue there was left in his eyes.
They were almost all pupil, as black as five past midnight.
And she knew this because she was staring up at him just as hard as he was staring down at her. She couldn’t seem to look away, as though he had somehow hypnotized her with dancing or smiling or whatever else it was that he had done here. Something, she thought. Something that made her skin feel seared and her head spin. She had to stop it before it got any worse.
Though she felt foolish after she had.
She practically ripped herself away from him, fumbling over words like Lydia is probably wondering where I got to. They sounded silly coming out, like he had done something seriously untoward. Put a hand up your skirt, her mind supplied, but that only deepened her blush. He hadn’t done anything of the sort, and to even think he might was beyond absurd. Not only was he not that sort of guy, she had all the sexual allure of a diseased snail to him.
And that would never change.
She was safe, completely safe.
Yet still, she ran.
Chapter 9