Ballroom Blind Date by Natalie Cross

Author:Natalie Cross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Natalie Cross

9

Dennis pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose. His flop sweat made him feel like he was swimming through a thick bowl of goulash. There was too much noise and too many people on this dance floor, too many people who knew what they were doing. Unlike him.

Then Tabitha put her hand on his arm. His world relaxed and the focus narrowed until she was the only thing he saw. Tabitha, with her soft curls hanging loose around her face, the green dress that made him think all sorts of inappropriate things, those bare feet that ran faster and were stronger than any feet had the right to be. In a world of mathematical improbabilities, what were the odds that he would have met the one woman who could make his mind quiet?

He couldn’t calculate that now. She had called him ‘honey.’ That endearment had slipped under his skin, worked itself deep into his blood until it altered his DNA so that he was all of a sudden the sort of man who stood in a crowded ballroom, about to learn a dance to music he had never heard before. The sort of man who ran from danger and survived.

He smiled at her and took her hand as the band began to play.

Up front, the woman in the fancy blue and black poofy dress grinned into the microphone and demonstrated a hand hold with her partner. The band hit a downbeat and an accordion started a tune. He could follow that rhythm. The Dennis who was also ‘honey’ could count this music. “We’re starting you all off easy, folks. The timing is one-two-three-and-one-two-three. Think oom-pah-pah and oom-pah-pah. Watch Phoebe and Bill first, then join in when you feel ready.”

Dennis’s heartbeat raced and his palms slicked with sweat. The music was thumpy and boisterous, the direct antithesis to everything he had learned at Anita’s ballroom studio. He watched the couple, Phoebe and her friend, making their way around the room, spinning and spinning. He couldn’t do this. How had he ever thought he could? He had only ever danced with Anita because she was patient and unthreatening and he wasn’t wildly attracted to her.

Tabitha gripped his arm, her excitement palpable. A lump settled in his chest. He was going to disappoint her. “Oh my God, Dennis! It’s just like The King and I! I can finally live my Mrs. Anna dreams!”

Other couples were starting to move with Phoebe and her friend. Soon Dennis and Tabitha would be run over unless they joined in. “What’s The King and I?”

Her eyes widened and she slapped at his arm, but in a playful, pleasant way that left a joyous sting on his skin. “You haven’t seen it? Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner? Honey, you are missing out.”

And that did it for him. Honey. The tiny shifts it created strengthened his resolve and he slipped one hand into hers and the other just underneath her shoulder blade. He grinned, like the Dennis he had always longed to be.

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