“See?” Presley is grinning at me. “That wasn’t so bad.”
“That was terrible. I was terrible.”
“You were having fun, though. That is the whole point.”
The band launches into another song, something even faster and more complicated, and Presley is pulled away by a young man who has clearly been waiting for his chance.
So I start to retreat to my stool, but the drill sergeant woman grabs my arm.
“Oh no, you don’t. You’re staying for the boot scootin’ boogie. It is a classic.”
“I don’t know?—”
“You didn’t know the electric slide either. Look at how that turned out.”
She has a point. A terrifying point, but a point nonetheless.
The boot scootin’ boogie is definitely harder than the electric slide. There are kicks involved, and this heel movement, and something called a scoot that I cannot, for the life of me, execute correctly. I look like a marionette being operated by somebody who has never seen a human being move before.
But this drill sergeant, whose name I learn between songs is Betty, and who taught high school gym for thirty-five years, refuses to let me give up. She corrects my posture, adjusts my arm position, and at one point actually physically moves my hips in the right direction.
“You’ve got good bones,” she tells me. “Good foundation. You just need to loosen up.”
“Yeah, well, I have never been very good at loosening up.”
“I can tell. But you’re getting there.”
By the third song, I’ve stopped caring how I look. I am sweating, my hair is a disaster, and I think I have developed a blister on my left heel, but I am also smiling. Genuinely smiling.
And that is when I notice Wyatt watching me.
He’s behind the bar where he has been all evening, but he has stopped what he’s doing, and he is just looking at me with an expression that makes something flutter in my stomach. I miss a step, stumble slightly, and have to grab Betty’s arm.
“Eyes on the floor, not the bartender,” Betty says, smiling knowingly. “Plenty of time for that later.”
The line dancing portion of the evening winds down around nine o’clock and transitions into what Presley calls “couples time.”
The music slows down, the lights dim slightly, and people pair off to two-step across the floor. I’ve retreated to my stool, of course, nursing a fresh glass of wine and trying to catch my breath. My feet ache, my blouse is definitely ruined, and I’m pretty sure I look like I’ve been through some kind of natural disaster. But I’ve also never felt more alive.
“You did good out there.”
Wyatt appears beside me, leaning against the bar with an easy confidence. That seems to be his default state. He’s wearing a blue flannel tonight that makes his eyes look even more striking, and he’s looking at me with something that might be admiration. Or pity. I can’t tell.
“I was terrible.”
“Well, you were trying. That’s more than most people do their first time.”
He tilts his head toward the dance floor, where couples are swaying to a slow country song.
“You know how to two-step?”
“I know how to waltz, and I’m guessing that’s not the same thing.”
“Not exactly.” He sticks out his hand. “Wanna learn?”
I look at his hand, calloused, strong, steady. Then I look at the dance floor, at the couples moving together in easy synchronization. I look back at him.
“I’ll probably just step on your feet.”
