“Bring your camera,” she said. “Obviously.”
He rested his hands on his lap, tapping his legs with his fingers. “Of course. It’ll be fun to take some photos of people actually moving for once.”
“This isn’t about having fun, Tom. It’s about looking like an ally.”
“Right. Got it. It’s not about me.” He nodded firmly.
“It’s not about you. It’s about feminism. And Sophie.”
“Feminism and Sophie,” he muttered, and Daisy broke into a laugh.
Her phone pinged and she looked down, clicking on the alert. “Ooooh, no. Burt Rushmore’s been caught cheating again.”
“I’ll leave you to it.” He glanced over at his usual seat and back. “What about... ‘Flirty Burty?’ For your story?” he said, standing up and moving across the aisle and sitting.
“I love that!”
Once he’d settled, he looked back at her and waved. She waved back, her brain already thinking up more puns for the latest affair scandal.
Chapter Eight
Tom
Tom had meant to google what a ceilidh was before he turned up outside the school that evening to meet Daisy. He’dheardthe word, he just didn’t know exactly what it involved.
Daisy walked toward him, smiling, as he rested against the wall outside, his backpack of camera equipment at his feet.
“You ready?” Daisy asked, and Tom wasn’t sure why she had such a big smile on her face. “It’s just you and me. Clara had to stay late at work. Some audio’s gone missing for our top story for tomorrow.”
“How do you already know your top story for tomorrow?” Tom asked, frowning. “That makes no sense to me.”
Daisy laughed. “It’s just a good bit from an interview she did that we’re saving for over the weekend, in the hope we don’t then get called into the office. Perfect footwear by the way.”
Tom glanced down at his shiny white trainers and looked up, frowning. “Why?”
Daisy started walking away and toward the hall. “Youdoknow what a ceilidh is, right?” she said, turning back. Tom shrugged, following her toward the double doors at the top of the steps.
The moment Daisy pushed the doors open, Tom realizedwhat he’d gotten himself into. He could almost feel the heat from the bodies falling like an invisible blanket over his head as a band played on the stage and groups of people were swinging their way around the room. He scanned the hall, trying to understand what was going on. A ceilidh, it seemed, was a high energy Scottish gathering (he was guessing from the kilts) with live music and a lot of very specific dancing involving many limbs at once. Everyone was mirroring each other’s moves, often while laughing their heads off.
Tom focused on projecting an “ally energy” as he watched. He wasn’t entirely sure what that energy looked like, so he decided he wouldn’t meet anyone’s eye and would only approach people if they approached him.
Within ten minutes as sweat poured from his head and he spun around the room, clasping hands with a stranger, all his rules went out the window. He’d spent minutes of the first dance muttering apologies to any woman he was told to grab by the waist or hold onto by the arm, but it was futile. Either they were moving so fast they couldn’t hear him, or they were so focused on getting the moves right that they didn’t care.
“For this one, you’ll need to partner up with one person,” the instructor said as the band set about tuning up fiddles and accordions and guitars.
Daisy met Tom’s eye from two partners down, shrugged and walked toward him.
“How are you finding it?”
He ran the back of his hand across his forehead. “I’m very much struggling to believe thatthisis what it will take to get Sophie back.”
Daisy’s eyes lit up as she laughed. “You never know...”
“Okay! So take both your partner’s hands,” the instructor said before Tom could continue his rant about hot sweaty ceilidhs. Daisy held hers out, palms facing up, and Tom looked down atthem. She had very slender fingers, bare except for the engagement ring, the silver of which he could see shining under the fluorescent lights of the school hall they were in.
He rolled his shoulders back and placed his hands on top of hers, nodding. How was she not sweating? He was fairly sure his palms were moist if not wet by now and he pulled them away, rubbing them on his jeans before returning them. When he looked up, Daisy was watching him, the corners of her mouth twitching.
“Pull your partner toward you and away again,” the instructor on stage said and Tom did as he was told, gently squeezing Daisy’s hands as they moved close, chests almost touching before stepping backward. “Now you need to keep hold of one hand and move to stand side by side as though you’re going for a walk.”
