Never Sweeter(20)

One of themChad, she thought absently, because his eyebrows seemed to consume almost all of his foreheadstuck out his hand.

Only she couldn’t shake it. She couldn’t move at all. Most of her was still waiting for the punch line to a joke that hadn’t been told, and the rest was too shocked to do anything at all. For a full thirty seconds she just stared at the outstretched hand, unable to believe this was for real.

No insults. No bros being bros. No mean commentary on her dress.

Just an introduction. An introduction she still couldn’t respond to.

Lydia had to shake the hand for her. “Nice to meet you,” she said, while Letty watched and waited for Tate to make his move. He was still looking at her steadily. Surely something was coming?

There had to be something coming.

“You want to dance?”

Though God, she had not anticipated that. And nor had Lydiashe shot her a look almost immediately, one eye enormous and the other a scrunched up slit. It took all of Letty’s willpower not to react to it, and just plunge on into whatever insanity this conversation was turning out to be.

“I…you know I would but this music is just…”

“Not exactly The Veronicas, huh?”

“No. I guess…no. Right. Yeah.”

“But if you go around the back though you can at least make out a single song.”

“That…um actually…the thing is I don’t really know how to dance. I mean I know how to dance. But other people would probably describe it as more of a drunken spasm.”

“Other people are fools and morons.”

“That seems unlikely at best.”

“Nah, you’re just using the wrong scale.”

“Oh, and which scale should I be using?”

“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 secondbut 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 itwith 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 somehowshe 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.