She leaves to greet other dancers, and I try really hard not to care about what she just implied nor the mental acrobatics it has me doing. As nonchalantly as I can muster, I ask, “You were with Sunny last night?”
He shakes hands with someone walking in, barely looking my way to say, “I was.”
It’s none of my business yet I need to know. “Why?”
Sunny shouts to the room, “We’ll start in five minutes, y’all!” Our fellow dancers fall silent. “Pick a partner. Cappy baby, you with me.”
The room returns to a conversational buzz, and Nash fights a smile to say, “Why do you think?”
“Why do you do that?” I demand, jabbing my fists into my dress-covered hips.
“Do what?” he asks innocently. “I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re gaslighting me, for one. And you make me ask you questions a million different ways when you already know what I’m trying to ask, and it makes me crazy.”
“Because you need practice asking what you want to know,” he says, “and I like seeing you crazy.”
Damn him.
“I don’t want to dance.”
“Why the hell not?” Cap asks with a grunt. “Iris basically danced all day when I knew her. Don’t think I ever saw her walk.”
He smiles fondly, and I want to kick his good leg.
“I’m not my mother,” I remind him. “And I only dance in the kitchen with my daughter.”
“I like dancing in kitchens,” Nash says, poking me in the ribs like this is hilarious and one of the women he might be sleeping with isn’t sashaying around in spandex with a spray fan. “Why are you so tense? You love dancing. Oh”—he leans in close to whisper—“is this because I was with Sunny last night?”
I want to slap him.
“She like this when you married her?” Cap asks, adjusting his oxygen tubes at his ears.
Nash shakes his head. “She’s been away from me too long. The dentist must not be a dancer.”
I could scream.
At the nerve.
Of this.
Man.
I pull my shoulders back. “And why is Sunny here?”
“She teaches senior dance classes once a week,” Nash says, “and here we are.”
“What a coinkydink,” I say flatly. “And you do this regularly?”
“Much as I can.”
Cap hacks out a cough next to me, waving me off when I give him a concerned look.
“Yourgirlfriendlike spending time with Scary Sunny and the seniors of the area?” I ask, combative.
He looks at me sideways. “Who wouldn’t?”
I might growl.
