Audrey’s hand is in mine, and she’s pulling me toward the dance floor with a grin that makes my chest do something complicated.
It’s been one week since the planetarium, since the night I gave her my virginity. Seven days of ‘practice’ whenever we aren’t at work monitoring simulations and sitting through clinical protocol reviews. Not to mention all the stolen kisses in the supply closet when no one was looking. The project is on track—as on track as any high-stakes FDA submission can be—and tonight, we’re celebrating.
At a club. Which I hate.
I’ve never been into these places. ‘Noise saturation,’ I called it years ago, when Dominic first started dragging me to over-lit, over-loud meat markets for his own amusement. Strobes, sweat, a river of perfume. The bass vibrating your bones until your limbs stop feeling like they belong.
The last time Dominic coaxed me into a club was the night I fucked everything up with Audrey. I haven’t set foot in one since.
But tonight is different. For the first time, I don’t mind it. I’m discovering that I might be into clubs after all—or at least, into wherever Audrey is. For her, I’ll do anything.
“You look terrified,” she shouts over the music.
“I’m recalibrating my expectations.”
“Is that Logan-speak for terrified?”
“It’s Logan-speak for ‘I’d rather be debugging code, but you’re very pretty and I really like being wherever you are.’”
She laughs and tugs me further into the crowd. The club is upscale—all exposed brick and moody lighting, the kind of place where the cocktails cost twenty dollars and come with ingredients most people can’t pronounce. Bennett booked us a VIP section, which means we have a booth to retreat to when the social interaction becomes too much. I’ve already mentally mapped out my escape route.
But right now, Audrey is pressing her back against my chest, guiding my hands to her hips, and I’m learning that dancing is just another system to figure out. Follow her rhythm. Mirror her movements. Don’t think too hard.
It shouldn’t work. I’ve spent my whole life convinced I’m missing the hardware for this—for easy physical connection, for moving with another person without overthinking every variable. But with her, it does work. Somehow.
“You’re doing great,” she says, tilting her head back to look at me.
“I’m doing adequate.”
“Same thing.”
She pivots and locks eyes with me—brown irises shot with flecks of amber, pupils huge in the low light. “Can I tell you something?” she yells. Her lips graze my ear as she leans in, her hair brushing my cheek, and even in all this noise her voice makes a clean channel through to the part of my brain that only listens for her.
“Anything.”
She pulls back, nervous all of a sudden. “I never used to like this part of going out,” she says. “The dancing. The pretending to be so free you just don’t care. But with you, it’s easy. Like I could just turn off the part of my brain that wants to analyze everything.”
I smile down at her, even though I fully relate to every word. “I like seeing you like this.”
She tilts her head. For a split second, I think she’ll say something weighty, something relationship-defining, but instead she just lifts my hands up and spins so that she’s facing me, arms around my neck, smiling in a way that’s both awkward and—fuck, I love this—undeniably happy.
For a long minute we just move there together, not really dancing so much as shifting weight, hands mapped to familiar territory, faces close enough that we can talk without shouting. No one is watching. Or, if they are, we’re not the ones drawing attention. Caleb and Serena are putting on a clinic in making out shamelessly in public, Layla and Bennett are side by side at the bar, looking like joint CEOs of a tequila empire, and Dominic is... actually, I can’t see Dominic, which is usually a prelude to disaster or at least a spectacular story.
Audrey presses a kiss just below my jaw and then leans back, her hair already damp with effort, eyes shining with the high-frequency joy of being off-script.
“Wanna grab another drink and people-watch for a minute?” she calls out over the music. “My feet are killing me.” She steps back dramatically, fakes a limp.
I bite back a laugh and nod, grateful for the chance to recalibrate. The dance floor is like a physics problem with no solution, but the booth—soft leather benches, easy line of sight to the exits—feels like home.
We weave through the crowd toward the VIP section, and I spot David and Jenna already at the booth, heads bent together in conversation. An unlikely pair, but they share a certain energy—both of them slightly removed from the chaos, observers rather than participants. Jenna’s posture is stiff, arms crossed, but she’s actually talking rather than typing on her phone, which counts as relaxed for her.
“Oh, you came!” Audrey releases my hand and slides into the booth, greeting them both with genuine warmth.
David offers a tired smile. “Barely. Michaela wanted three stories before bedtime, and then she had to tell me about some project she’s doing at school. Something about dolphins being smarter than dogs.” He shakes his head. “By the time she finally let me leave, I was seriously considering just staying home.”
“When do you have to be back?” I ask, sliding in next to Audrey.
“Midnight. The nanny’s got it covered until then.” He checks his watch. “So I’ve got about two hours of adult interaction before I turn back into a pumpkin.”
