I never did tell him how grateful I was for that.
His fingers tighten against my neck before he moves to rest his hand on the table, gesturing toward his wife.
I take her hand with a squeeze to Tripp’s thigh - a test. A question.
“Make her happy,” he tells me. “She’ll pout all night long if you don’t.”
“He’s right.” Julia offers an impish grin as she pulls me out of my seat with a hard tug to my arm. “I’ll totally make it your problem.”
A selection of Latin music pulled straight from the early two thousands plays through a pair of old speakers propped up on tripods as we take the ‘dance floor.’ Our movements remind me a lot of that first middle school dance – awkward, with bodies too far apart from one another, God forbid a parent or chaperone catch the two of us holding hands.
Like a pair of shy thirteen-year-olds seeking approval from the adults, we each cast a glance in Tripp’s direction. He watches us for a beat, tapping his finger against the neck of his nearly-empty bottle, and he lowers his chin in approval.
Julia smiles up at me with petal pink lips as my hand rests at her waist, and while we move to the music, my forehead rests against hers.
“You really think we can pull this off?” I ask as Jules’s legs sandwich mine. “Because I don’t want to invest myself if this is ultimately just a setup to fix your marriage.”
“Tripp and I have already found our way back to each other,” she assures me. “You’re not an extra, you’re part of the package. I think you probably have been for a while; we just didn’t know it.”
Something is shifted between us. I feel it while we dance together, and as I shoot the occasional glance in Tripp’s direction. His foot, draped over his knee, taps in time with themovement of our hips as if he’s part of the dance, even from his place ten feet away from us.
Jules’s hips move in sync with mine, our steps perfectly aligned as we fall into the smooth steps of a well-practiced bachata.
“When did you learn to dance like this?” She asks just before I spin her beneath my arm.
“After I ‘came out,’” I tell her. “After my boyfriend left, my mom told me that she didn’t care who I ended up with, as long as I’d give her a big wedding so she could dance with her son. So I took classes.”
Julia’s eyes soften as her mouth pulls into a smile, her hold on my hand tightening by an infinitesimal amount.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to dance with her,” she says almost too quietly to hear.
“So am I.”
Her arms snake around my neck as she lifts herself onto her toes to press a soft, pink-tinted kiss to my cheek. My heart jolts in my chest as I risk a glance in Tripp’s direction, but his brow furrows in question.
Planting a kiss to Julia’s cheek in return, I part from her and stride toward the table to extend a hand to him.
“I don’t dance,” he says –again– with a shake of his head.
“Yes you do, Britney,” I argue before taking hold of his wrist.
He puts up a weak fight as I drag him back toward Julia, who playfully shimmies her shoulders at us with a smile as we approach.
It takes nearly half of a song and the rest of his beer before Tripp finally joins us with loose, lazy steps. His feet shuffle, but his eyes move around the room as if to see whoelsethinks that all of us look like a group of idiots, dancing alone in the middle of the bar.
“We look so fucking stupid right now,” he says through an embarrassed chuckle.
“You always look stupid, Riptide,” I tease. “That’s never stopped you before.”
Reaching for his hands, Julia takes hold of them and pulls him into a dance with her, not unlike the one that we shared with each other. There’s a part of me that would love to get into place behind him and help to push him, but I’m not sure if he’s comfortable with that yet. Our being out in public together is too new, and I don’t want to risk destroying it before we get to really enjoy it by pushing too far or too fast.
It feels too good to risk breaking it.
With one last beer, Tripp’s walls finally start to come down, letting loose the same dancing machine that lives on the seat of his R7.
The three of us move together through a handful of songs, laughing and swaying, before we finally call it a night and start the trek back to my house.
It’s late, but my roommates will still be out until four or five in the morning, which gives the three of us plenty of time to debrief and spend some quiet alone time together.
