At some point, the song had restarted, and with the room cleared, the crooning from the stereo sounded louder.
“Do you gaze at your doorstep and picture me there?”
“Sir?” The EMT asked, and Ireland jerked before she dropped my hand and stepped away.
I tracked her movements as she went to the stereo and turned off the music.
“This is Patricia Beauregard,” I said, my voice loud in the quiet room. “A small fall during class only a few minutes ago. Stable and responsive. Alert and oriented. No relevant medical history. I didn’t get more beyond that without any supplies, so I suggest that you start from the beginning to be thorough.”
The EMT stared at me blankly. She must bebrand-new.
“Would you like me to stay with you?” I asked her,keeping my reluctance out of my voice as I subtly glanced at the mirror for Ireland, but she wasn’t in the room anymore.
It was only the three of us now.
Me, the deer-in-the-headlights EMT, and the woman in her seventies who blamed the devil for a leg cramp.
Lordy.
25
IRELAND
Ileaned against the wall outside of the locker room, my eyes fixed on the open door to the dance room.
“Well,” Adeline said, taking up a post beside me. “It was really fun before… you know.” She gestured vaguely toward the room.
My Miss Trish plan failed. Even with the slowest waltz known to man, she’d found a way to disrupt class. And blame me for it.
In front of Adair.
Despite the mortification of the scene, a slight shiver creeped up my spine at how he’d handled the situation.
The same guy who blushed on a dime, hid himself under baggy clothes, and slipped notes under my door after almost kissing me had just…commandedthat situation.
“This is for you, I think.”
Adeline produced a rubber duck and a note from seemingly nowhere and held them out to me. I took them, and she bumped me with her hip. “Might as well call me Delly. We’re friends now. Or will be soon.”
I cocked my head toward her. “Delly,” I said with a small smile.
“Do you have any nicknames?” she asked.
Dancing Queen.
Indigo Girl.
“The littles at my dance studio—my old dance studio, I mean—called me Miss Indy. ‘Ireland’ was a little hard for them.”
She made a thoughtful noise low in her throat. “Weird how we can miss things like that without realizing it. Grams used to call me ‘Delladoo.’ I’d give anything to hear her say it one more time.”
“Grams?”
“Pops’s wife,” she explained with a sad smile. “We lost her a few years ago.”
I bumped her hip back in sympathy, but something about her phrasing was off. “Wife? Not your grandma?”
“Not technically, no. Wilbur and Nell Smith were our neighbors growing up. The country definition of the word, anyway. We weren’t—aren’t—related. Technically speaking.”
