“Hello,” he says again in that amused voice.
He puts out a hand, and I take it. My hands are probably a little sweaty at this point, but I’m beyond caring, especially because he still looks like he is laughing at me. We haven’t started to dance yet, but his fingers feel warm as they hold my hand. He feels safe somehow, in spite of my embarrassment. I want to believe we have natural chemistry, but it’s more likely that he’s just a very experienced dance partner. He knows how to hold someone without clutching too tight.
We are about to start dancing when he stops.
“You know what?” he says to the class. “Let’s do something else first.” He gently pulls his hands away, and it feels like a perfectly timed piece of humiliation, like he is making a point that he couldn’t possibly want to dance with me. Then he adds, “Let’s put on some music for this one.”
He takes his cell phone from his pocket.
I glance at it, knowing that somewhere on his phone is probably my phone number, stored away never to be used. He presses a button, and as romantic, slow jazz begins to play, he takes my hands again, looking straight at me.
“You ready?” It sounds like a dare.
“Of course.” I keep my chin up, meeting his eyes.
“Sugar push, left-side pass,” he calls out to the class, “And keep it going.”
He begins to send me gentle signals through his hands, and I feel another thrill, like we’re meant to be holding each other. It’s gone a moment later, though, as I realize I have to focus on the steps. The music is a perfect match for the steps we’re learning…slow enough to allow a room full of awkward newcomers to keep up, fast enough that we can sense how the dance is supposed to work. Ollie calls out moves occasionally, but most of his attention is on me. He is surprisingly gentle and patient as I make mistakes. He keeps murmuring advice to me, telling me how to change the position of my hands.
“You can tighten your grip a little,” he says, putting his hand on my wrist. I can feel his fingertips setting my wrist on fire, and suddenly it is hard to meet his eyes. “There needs to be more tension in your arms. Not stiff, but like a firm spring. You remember what I said about frame?”
“Possibly?” It’s hard to focus on anything while he holds my elbows gently.
“Your body position keeps a basic framework.” He tugs lightly on my hands. “You want to hold position like you’re an elastic band. You may be pushed away, but you always want to come back to your partner. Partner dance is about tension.”
My heart physically reacts to the word ‘tension.’ I can’t believe I thought there was no sexual chemistry with him, because right now there seems to be nothing else.
“So I should try to pull away?” I ask lightly, my voice a little uneven.
“It’s more like you’re pulling away to come back again.” A mischievous light comes into his eyes when I finally meet his gaze. He gestures between our chests. “It’s like there’s a string between us that keeps pulling us back together no matter how much we try to pull apart.”
Is he flirting? Or messing with me? I bite my tongue on a reply. There is a twinkle in his eye as he gently swings me around and back into place again. This time I start to feel it: the balanced tension that allows everything else to work.
“Hold on a little tighter,” he says. “But you don’t have to grip hard. Just commit to how much you don’t want to let me go.”
Now I’m definitely blushing. Even the faint smell of his sweat is pleasantly warm, and there’s a woodsy, cedar scent to his aftershave. He keeps dancing with me just a little longer than he’s danced with anyone else, but that may be my imagination. It may be my imagination that it takes him just a half-second longer than it should to let go of my hand when we have completed a few turns.
When we’ve reached a stop, he gazes at me, his lips parted and his eyebrows raised like he’s considering me seriously.
“How’d I do?” I try to display more confidence than I have. “Amazingly good for my first day, right?”
He opens his mouth to answer, then smiles again and looks at the class. “Alright, everyone, rotate!”
I am going to kill him.
At the end of the hour, Ollie nods to the class, glances at me, and then walks outside to talk to the pink-haired young woman at the front desk. I say good-bye to my favorite leader Jody and follow everyone outside, where I stand by the elevator to send a text message to Abby.
Update,I text to Abby.He will probably never speak to me again and I’ll get a complaint at my job for sexual harassment. otherwise it went okay.
As I am about to send the message, I look up to see him approaching me.
He stops an arms-length away, the amused smile hovering around the corners of his mouth again.
“Hey,” I begin. “I’m sorry if coming here was inappropriate. I had a whole speech planned about why I was sorry about what I said, and it wasn’t true, and that I do think you’re…” I end up just trailing off because I can’t manage to say the words ‘sexy’ or ‘attractive’ with him looking at me like that.
“Let’s get some coffee,” he says. Then he glances at my phone in my hands. “Unless you need to get back right away?”
I know he’s referring to my daughter, which I appreciate. He’s right. There’s not much leeway in what I told the babysitter. “I have a few minutes.”
