“Tucker, my life is really complicated.”
He smiled. “I know. No pressure. Just wanted to put it out there.” Rising, he pulled her to her feet. “Why don’t we head on back down and watch the rest of the competition for the night?”
So she filed away this new information to think about later, when she was alone and had more than two brain cells to rub together, and followed him back to the ballroom.
Chapter 8
“To surviving the first round of competition!”
Tucker lifted his beer automatically in response to Brody’s toast, but he was only half listening.
She’s not coming.
When he’d texted Corinne earlier with an invite to a celebration for the victors of Round 1 of Dancing With Wishful, she’d said she’d stop by after work if she could. But after half an hour of watching the door to Speakeasy, while trying not to look like he was watching, she was a no show. And that disappointed him more than he wanted to admit. He worried it was more than her just bailing to study. Maybe he’d pushed her too far with the kiss. That explosive, amazing, better than all of his high school dreams combined kiss that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about. She’d been right there with him on that rooftop. But maybe she’d talked herself out of taking a risk to see where things went. And that would be a damned shame.
“What’d y’all draw this next go round?” Cam asked.
“The Charleston.” Another glance at the door and his pulse leapt. There she was, standing inside the entryway, hands twisting the strap of her purse as she scanned the room.
“We got salsa. I am not at all sure my hips can do—”
Tucker stood up. “Be back.”
By the time he made it to the front, she was out on the sidewalk. She’d almost made the corner when he bolted outside.
“Corinne!”
She stopped in her tracks, shoulders tensing.
Caught.
“Hey Tucker. I was just…I thought I’d have time to stop by, but I really need to be getting home to study. I haven’t put in enough hours this week, with rehearsal and everything.” Again with the twisting of the purse strap, and she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes.
He ducked down so he could look into hers. “You came over here just to walk away?”
She was going to lie, to blow him off. He could see it in her face. So he reached for her hand, the one not squeezing the life out of her purse strap. She looked down at their twined fingers.
“Why are you really running away?” he asked quietly.
Corinne lifted her head to look at him then, and he could see what it cost her. “Because going in there and hanging out with all your friends is about the scariest thing I can imagine for a social situation.”
Everything in him wanted to gather her up, to soothe that worry away. But he ordered himself to keep things easy between them, so he settled for stroking his thumb on the back of her hand. “Is this about not wanting to face them? Or me?”
Her voice was small as she admitted, “Some of both.”
Tucker untangled her other hand so he had them both, because he needed to touch her. Needed to make this better. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.”
Her hands flexed in his and she let out an irritated huff. “I’m not scared. I’ve been scared. This is—I don’t know what this is. It makes me nervous. You make me nervous.”
I make her nervous? Nervous meant she felt something. More than a little something, he was guessing. Tucker liked that a bit too much and wanted to use the information to tease a smile out of her. But he knew she wasn’t in the right frame of mind, so he held in the cocky grin and kept his voice gentle. “You’ve earned the chance to celebrate. This is your achieveme
nt, too. Come inside. Just for a little while.”
She bit the lip he hadn’t stopped fantasizing about. “I don’t know, Tucker.”
“C’mon. For me?” He squeezed her hands. “I’ve got you.”
She hesitated. “Well, Kurt’s already had supper. I guess I could come in for one slice.”