When their time was up, Aaliyah clasped her hands and spoke.
“You did well today, Avery. I’m so proud of you.”
Avery blushed. “To be fair, you’re a great instructor. Thank you for taking me on.”
“Absolutely. Now before we get into more moves, I want to ask you if there’s anything specific you want to learn. If there is, I can add those into our routines.”
Avery’s face lit up. “Actually, I’d like to do a certain dance for my husband that would make his mouth drop.”
Aaliyah nodded. “What is this dance?”
“Dance for you by Beyoncé. I love that song, and her choreography is…” she kissed the tips of her fingers. “My husband would surely be surprised if I could master it.”
“Oooooh… you know what, I think I have just the perfect routine.”
Eight
Avery
Over the next several weeks, Avery was putting in work at Aaliyah’s dance studio. It helped a lot that the routine involved regular floor dancing because of Beyoncé’s song. Still, when they went into the pole exercises, they became easier to navigate with the way Aaliyah taught them.
There was always a step-in motion, mainly using her body as the guide by pushing forward, swinging the legs a certain way to increase or decrease speed. When Avery had watched dancers do this on tv, she knew they were some types of magical beings to be able to enter the moves so effortlessly. She wasn’t wrong, but she was glad that her teacher was a top-tier professional. It gave her confidence when she cheered her on and thinking of DeAndre during the routine helped her put an extra step of sensuality in her dance.
In the third week, Aaliyah added stilettos to their routine. It instantly caused Avery to slip a few times and lose her footing on others. On more than one occasion, she would grip the pole like her life depended on it because she was afraid to hit the floor.
“Let’s practice strutting.”
Together they strutted around the room, end to end, and that calmed Avery down. She wore heels daily to work, so walking in the stilettos wasn’t an issue—it was trying to come to a graceful stop during the dance that tripped her up.
“This time, every third pole, I want you to step into a swing.”
Avery nodded, and they strutted, then gripped the pole going into her favorite carousel swing.
Her landing improved, and they strutted and swung every day for the last week until finally adding the whole dance to their routine.
“Over the next three days,we’ll only focus on this full dance from top to bottom. Okay?”
Avery nodded. “Okay.”
“You’ve done very well. You got this.”
Avery nodded, and when she returned the following day, they danced for two hours, hitting the routine repeatedly. She felt like a pro, and where she had fallen a couple of times, it wasn’t so bad because of her gifted instructor, but especially her husband.
DeAndre had been rubbing Avery down nightly, having a bubble bath ready for her when she entered the door. Most nights, he’d cooked, but Avery made it her business to get ahead of his thoughtfulness and serve him food on occasions.
He was working hard on the new mechanism at Valentine Innova-Corp, and she didn’t want to leave it up to him to take care of the house, and her, while she was part-time at WTZB and at the dance studio. Her love for him grew by the day—witnessing his actions speak louder than words. He’d always been a man of his word, yet experiencing his genuine spirit repeatedly was heartwarming to Avery. She didn’t think she could love him any more than she already did, but DeAndre was the epitome of the man of her dreams.
“Congratulations.”Pride highlighted Aaliyah’s eyes. “It feels like I’ve known you forever. You have gone from a novice to a bad bitch in four weeks.”
Laughter flew around them as they cackled.
“Oh my gosh, I need to hug you.”
They opened their arms and walked to each other, embracing tightly.
“Thank you so much for helping me with this. Wow. I can’t even believe I’m ready.”
“Believe it, honey, because you’ve got all the right moves now.”