“Regular and unleaded.”
“We should be dancing.”
“I don’t think we can go out there until we get tapped. Those are the rules.”
“Oh, thesnowball dancerules. Very strict.”
The music stopped with an artificial screech, and the deejay called out, “Snowball!” Everyone on the dance floor went scrambling for a new partner. Tina and Cary were both headed back toward their table.
One of the groomsmen got there first. “Shiloh, let’s dance.”
“Go on, Shiloh. Those are the rules.”
“I don’t have to follow the rules,” Shiloh said. “I didn’t sign a contract.”
Someone else got up to dance with the groomsman.
After the next “Snowball!” Shiloh was alone at the table. She put her hand in her jacket and felt her car keys.
“Hey,” someone said.
She looked up. It was Cary, a little flushed from dancing.
“Hey,” she said. “You still snowballing?”
He looked around. “No. I think Janine’s plan worked. Everybody’s already out there.”
“You want to sit down?”
“Yeah. Unless...” He tilted his head. He lowered his eyebrows. “Wouldyoulike to dance?”
Shiloh’s bottom lip was already in her mouth. She bit it. And then she nodded. “Sure.”
Cary kept himself from looking surprised. Or maybe he reallywasn’tsurprised—maybe he didn’t remember Shiloh well enough to be surprised.
She stood up.
Cary didn’t take her hand the way he had Tina’s. He didn’t touch her arm or the small of her back. They walked side by side onto the dance floor.
“I can’t fast-dance,” Shiloh said quickly. The Whitney Houston song was still playing.(“Don’t you want to dance, say you want to dance.”)
“Um, all right.” Cary looked like he was problem-solving. “Do you want to just stand here and bounce? That counts.”
“Uhh...” She glanced up at him. “I’ll just nod my head, okay?”
Cary laughed, like she was being kind of pitiful. “Shiloh, why didn’t you just say...” He shook his head, like it wasn’t worth finishing. Then he put his left hand on her side and reached for her hand with his right. “We’ll slow-dance—is that better?”
Shiloh let him catch her hand. “But it’s a fast song.”
“No one cares.”
“Okay.” She put her other hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, okay.”
Shiloh had done plenty of slow-dancing over the last fifteen years. Well, not plenty—butsome. Enough. She’d figured out that dancing was just affectionate swaying most of the time. That you could turn down your nerve endings and not get so worked up about it. She’d danced with Ryan at their wedding and at other people’s weddings. She’d danced with his dad and his brothers. It wasn’t mortifying. The intimacy didn’t burn.
But this...
Cary’s steady hand resting on her waist, just under her jacket. Her hand in his. He wasn’t holding her close—but it was still closer than they’d ever been in high school.
