By the time it broke, I was panting.
“Is that better?” he growled.
“Oh my God, better than what? I don’t even remember what we were talking about.”
Donovan smiled. “You told me to make a new entrance.” His eyes roamed over my face. “You really do look beautiful.”
I had to blink a few times to snap out of my haze. “Thank you.”
He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “I could stand right here and do this for hours, but we should probably get going. We have an appointment.”
“An appointment? You mean a reservation?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Nope.”
“Where are we going that we need an appointment?”
“You’ll see.”
I didn’t usually love surprises, but tonight was an exception. It had been a long time since I’d let my heart lead, and it felt almost freeing. I smiled. “Let me just grab my bag.”
***
“Are we here?” I looked around the strip-mall parking lot. There was a barber, a closed-down taco place, a dry cleaner, ballet studio, and a Chinese restaurant.
Donovan unbuckled his seatbelt. “We are.”
I glanced at the row of stores again. “Are we going for Chinese food?”
“Nope.”
“Picking up your dry cleaning?”
He grinned. “Nope.”
“Haircut?”
“You’re running out of choices…”
I looked over the stores one more time to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. But the only thing left was the ballet studio.
“Oh my God. You’re secretly a ballerina, and you’re going to perform for me.”
“Not quite. But you are getting warmer.” He got out of the car and came around to open my door, offering me his hand.
“The ballet studio also teaches couples dance lessons. Last year, during our weekend together, you asked me to describe my idea of the perfect woman. When I asked you about the perfect man, you said he knew how to dance.” He shrugged. “I don’t. So I figured I need to learn, and you also wanted to avoid day-to-day predictability and take things slow. I thought taking dance lessons would be pretty unpredictable.”
My heart fluttered. He’d remembered what I said so long ago and wanted to be my Mr. Perfect. We were twenty minutes into our first date, and I realized going slow with this man had nothing to do with anything he could control. I needed to rein in my own heart, or I’d be a goner faster than I could say two left feet.
“Umm... I think I should’ve mentioned something to you.”
Donovan’s brows pulled together. “What?”
“The reason Mr. Perfect needs to know how to dance is because I’m terrible at it.”
“I’m sure you’re not that bad.”
I lifted my elbow and showed him a small scar. “Do you see this?”
“Yeah.”
“This is from my one and only dance recital. I was eight and could not get my left and right straight for the life of me. Honestly, I still can’t. I have to think about which hand I write with in order to figure it out. Anyway, I went left when I was supposed to go right—again. I knocked into a few of the other ballerinas and tumbled off the stage. I landed on my elbow, dislocated it, and had to get nine stitches.”
Donovan looked amused. He bent and placed a gentle kiss on my scar. “Poor baby. But don’t worry, I promise not to let you fall off the stage today.”
“Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. I have on heels, so your toes are absolutely not safe.”
He smiled and looked down at his watch. “I’ll take my chances. But the lesson starts in two minutes, so we better get going.”
Inside I was surprised to find we were the only ones in the waiting area. A white-haired woman with a ponytail, wearing a bodysuit and a long, flowy skirt walked out from the back to greet us.
“Hello again, Donovan. It’s nice to see you.” She turned to me and smiled as she held out her hand. “And you must be Autumn.”
“I am.” We shook.
“I’m Beverly, but everyone just calls me Bev. I’ll be your instructor today. Are you ready to get started?”
I took a deep breath. “I guess so.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll stretch out and warm up your ankles to minimize the risk of injury.” She opened the door to the back and waved for us to follow. “Right this way.” Inside was a typical dance studio, with mirrors on the walls, wood floors, and a ballet barre on both sides of the room. Bev pointed to a wall of cubbies. “You can just put your purse and anything else in one of those. It’ll be safe since it’s just us.”
“It’s just…us?”
She looked between Donovan and me. “Your boyfriend booked a private lesson.”
“Oh…” I have no idea why, but that freaked me out even more. I guess because all the attention would be on us, and it would be even more apparent that I sucked.
Donovan must’ve sensed my trepidation. He leaned and whispered in my ear. “We don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”