“Please do.”
“Every time I tap your left hip”—I demonstrate—“put your left foot back. And every time I squeeze your hand, right leg.”
“Perhaps even I can handle this level of simplicity,” he says, following my instructions.
“Beautiful work,” I say. “You’ll be onDancing with the Starsin no time.”
“Oh good. That’s my dream.”
“I thought so. Next we do the same thing except side to side. Ready?”
“Ha.”
I count out “one, two, three” and guide him. He gets confused and steps forward instead of sideways, bumping into me.
I laugh. “Your other sideways.”
“You seem to be enjoying this,” he observes.
“I like bossing men around. Okay, now we’ll try the ‘cha cha cha’ step. Are you ready?”
“No. It makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“It’s three steps on two counts,” I explain. “But you don’t actually move your feet. You just balance on the balls of them.” I demonstrate, shuffling my weight. “See?”
“Cha cha cha,” he says darkly. But he dutifully attempts the move, and I nod approvingly.
“Perfect. Now we put it together.”
We practice about fourteen times until, between my taps and squeezes and whispers, he gets it down well enough to complete the full sequence without stumbling.
“Look at you!” I say. “You’re a natural. Now we’re going to put our hips into it and do the dance with the Cuban flair our Slavic teachers are so good at. And let’s be daring and try doing it to the actual beat of the music.”
I hold up my hand, listening for the rhythm. When the right note sounds, I nod at him, tap his hip, and step to the side.
Miraculously, he does the whole thing correctly.
He grins.
We’re kind of getting into it, hips brushing near each other’s quite pleasantly, when the music stops. Felix looks a little disappointed.
I hope it’s because it means he is going to have to stop touching me.
“Thanks,” he says. “That was almost…”
“Enjoyable?” I provide.
“Yes, weirdly.”
“We’ll have to come back for ballroom. I’ll teach you to waltz.”
“Oof,” he says. “Hard pass.”
“Break my heart.”
We’re still holding hands.
From across the room, Lauren catches my eye and nods approvingly.
