13
Josh had never seenAudrey smile as much as she had the past hour. She’d glided around the dance floor the entire time grinning from ear to ear. He watched as she said goodbye to the instructors and waited for her to put on her coat and gloves.
“Thanks again for doing this. I hope you at least had fun,” she said, still grinning from ear to ear as she joined him and they started walking to the exit.
“I did.” And he was damn glad he was the one who was here and not Caleb. Especially now that he knew just how much contact the dancing had entailed. The thought of his friend’s hands on Audrey’s lower back, of his arms wrapped around her as he dipped her, of his forearm grazing her shoulders as he spun her out, evoked a feeling dangerously close to irate jealousy.
Audrey loved dancing, that much was obvious even if she hadn’t told him that she did. Her face had glowed the entire night. And when she thought of this night, of the fun she’d had, it would be Josh that would be in her memories, not Caleb.
By the end of the night Josh wasn’t doing half bad, if he did say so himself. Once he got the moves down, it was actually pretty simple. There were five steps and they were all interchangeable and worked with any song that came on. The program really did work for people who had zero dancing skills and had no idea what they were doing. He wasn’t going to be auditioning for Dancing with the Stars anytime soon, but he definitely thought he could hold his own on the dance floor and not make a fool of himself.
“Do you think Viv and Nonna are going to include this in the itinerary?” he asked as he pushed the door of the rec room open and held it for her as she walked into the lobby.
“Definitely. I think the singles will love it and if they do meet someone then it could be something they continued doing together.” She stopped walking and turned to face him. “Did you see the documentary What is Love?”
He grinned down at her. “Yep, right after I binged Sex in the City and Gilmore Girls.”
“Hey!” She pointed her finger at him. “Gilmore Girls is a really good show!”
He knew she loved that show which is why he loved to tease her about it. Because she would get a fire in her eyes and her lips would pucker in a really adorable way, just like they were doing now. His eyes dropped to her much too kissable mouth. She rolled her eyes as a grin tugged at the corner of her perfect ruby lips.
Fuck, had her lips always looked so damn kissable? He had a feeling that they were becoming more kissable by the day.
“I thought you might have watched it because part of it was shot in Hope Falls.”
Now that she mentioned that he did remember Nonna talking about the filming crew coming to town. “I haven’t, why do you ask?”
“Oh, because there was one segment that featured a man named The Colonel. He’d been married to his wife Marie for sixty plus years and when he was asked what the secret to their successful relationship was, he said it was slow dance Sundays.”
“Slow dance Sundays?” Josh had never heard of that.
“Yeah, he said that over the years life brought with it a ton of distractions like work, kids, having company visiting from out of town. But no matter what, before the clock struck midnight, they would slow dance in the kitchen. And he said that even if they’d been upset about something or had a disagreement, the second she stepped into his arms all that would melt away.
“When they were together, they would switch up the songs they’d play but when they were apart, they would always play their song. So, when he was overseas during the war, no matter where he was in the world, she knew on Sunday that he was dancing with her to their song and he knew she was dancing with him. That way even when they weren’t physically together, they both knew they were with each other in spirit.”
Josh noticed that Audrey’s eyes got a little misty.
“That’s really sweet.” Josh had never thought of dancing as a way to stay connected, but he could see how it would work. And if there was some alternate universe that he and Audrey could be together, he hoped they had slow dance Sundays.
Her forehead scrunched. “I don’t know why I thought of that.”
He loved when she did that. When she got so excited about a topic, she forgot how she arrived at it.
“You were talking about couples being able to keep dancing together after they learned these steps.”
Her face split in a smile. “Oh, right.”
As they continued walking through the lobby, he realized that he might be a glutton for punishment, but he didn’t want the night to end.
“Did you walk here?” He figured she had because he hadn’t seen her car out in front when he got there.
She nodded.
“Do you want to go for a ride?”
He’d never taken a woman on his motorcycle before. It was a sacred thing for him. He’d gotten the bike during his rehab and his rides had helped him as much as his therapy.
She blinked up at him, clearly surprised by his request. She’d asked him before if the women he dated liked going for rides and he’d told her his rule. He’d shared with her that he didn’t take people out on it because riding was his therapy, it was transformative, it was damn near a religious experience, and he never wanted that to be tarnished or cheapened.