by Keeland, Vi
“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.”
I shook my head and managed a smile, sucking it up. “No…no, it’ll be fun.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Let’s do it.”
Not long into our lesson, it was apparent who the better dancer was.
I squinted at my partner. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before? Maybe took some lessons as a kid?”
“What are the chances you could get Storm to take dance lessons?”
“Uh, slim to none.”
“Not only could we never have afforded dance lessons when I was a kid, but there was no way in hell I would’ve risked taking them and my friends finding out. They’d either have tortured me for years or beaten the crap out of me. Probably both. Most of the world is changing for the better these days, but nothing changes in the old neighborhood.”
Donovan pressed his hand into my back to guide my steps as Bev stood alongside of us counting.
“One-two, one-two. That’s it. Two quick to the side and then a slow step forward. You count the slow over two beats of the music and the quick over one.”
I was glad he seemed to know what the hell she was talking about. Bev directed us to add in the second step now, something called “Together, Together.” But I hadn’t even realized we’d been working on two different steps. Though again, Donovan seemed to catch on quickly and took a strong lead. On our third or fourth pass of putting together the two different steps she’d apparently taught us, I started to feel like I was getting the hang of it. Except at one point, I stepped forward when I should’ve stepped back and wound up stomping right on Donovan’s foot.
He winced, but quickly wiped the pain I’d caused from his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“No worries.” He laughed.
A few minutes later, Bev told us to take a five-minute break and left the room. Donovan bought two waters from the machine in the lobby, and then we went back into the studio.
I was really warm and drank half of the bottle. “I just want to say that it’s an old wives’ tale that if you can’t dance, you’re not good in bed. There is no actual correlation.”
Donovan smiled. “You have rhythm, you just can’t seem to memorize the steps. You definitely still confuse your left and right and sometimes front and back.”
“Yeah…that was always my problem when I was little, too.”
Donovan chugged the rest of his water and winked. “Plus, I have zero worries about us in bed together. I already know we’re a good match.”
“How?”
“Eye contact. You give incredible eye contact.”
I laughed. “I don’t even know what that means.”
“You look at me with an intensity. It mimics the way I feel inside when I look at you. Chemistry is all about eye contact.”
Our gazes caught, and my heart sped up. I guess he had a point. We’d had that spark from the very first moment we met.
Bev came back in, and Donovan excused himself to go talk to her by the stereo. They exchanged a few words, and she smiled as she glanced over at me, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“What was that all about?” I prodded when he came back.
“Nothing.” He took one of my hands and wrapped the other around my back as the music started.
Bev was back at our side and counting again before I could interrogate him further. The second half of our lesson went better than the first. I finally started to relax and enjoy myself once I stopped caring what I might look like. To be honest, the way Donovan looked at me, I knew judging me for some missteps was the furthest thing from his mind. At one point, Bev stepped back.
“Alright. There’s about ten minutes left to our lesson. I’ve really enjoyed working with you. If you’re interested in continuing, just give me a call.”
“Thanks, Bev,” we both said.
She walked back over to the music, changed the song, and waved one last time as she walked out of the dance studio and into the lobby.
“I’m confused. Didn’t she just say there were ten minutes left?”
Donovan pulled me into his arms. Unlike the way he’d held me during the rhumba lesson, our bodies were pressed close together now.
“I asked her if we could have ten minutes of time to dance alone. Her lesson was nice, but there was too much distance between us. I want you closer.”
The instrumental introduction to John Legend’s “Slow Dance” ended, and he started to croon. My body melted into Donovan’s touch as we swayed back and forth.
; “This was a very thoughtful idea. Thank you.”
“Let’s be real, my motives weren’t entirely altruistic. These lessons were also an opportunity to hold you close for the first hour of our date.”
I laughed, and Donovan spun us around, burying his nose in my neck and inhaling deeply.
“You know, you ruined a date for me because of how you smell,” he said.
I pulled my head back. “How so?”
“You smell like vanilla. A few months after you disappeared, I went out with a woman. After our date, she invited me back to her apartment for a drink. When we got there, she lit a few candles—made the entire room smell like vanilla. I had one glass of wine, told her I had an early morning meeting I’d forgotten about, and called it a night.”
I couldn’t help but smile.
Donovan shook his head and laughed. “I see you’re really broken up about ruining my date.”
“Says the man who followed me into the bathroom during one of mine.”
He groaned. “Let’s not talk about any of that. The thought of you with Blake—or any other guy, for that matter—makes me feel explosive.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I feel like punching the woman who lit candles for you.”
He smiled. “It does.”
“You know so much about my dating history, but you never really told me about yours. I can already tell you’re way too good at this dating thing to not have had a lot of girlfriends.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Well, have you ever had a serious girlfriend?”
“One, in law school. We went out for about two years. Broke up when we went our separate ways after we graduated.”
“So…since then?”
“I’ve dated, but I’ve always been upfront that I’m not looking for anything serious and my job is my priority. Turns out, sometimes the best things come when you’re not looking at all.”
I bit my bottom lip. “You scare the hell out of me, Donovan.”
“Right back at ya, Red. But you know what?”
“What?”
“I’m more afraid of what I’ll be missing if we don’t give this a real shot.”
I took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”
Donovan pulled me against him again and led me around the dance floor a few times. He held me a little tighter, and I had a feeling it had nothing to do with the dance. Normally, any possessiveness from a man sent me running, but not this time. I liked that Donovan felt that way about me, mostly because the feeling was mutual, and somehow it was less scary to me that way.
The song came to an end, but Donovan kept my hand in his.
“You ready for our date?”
“I thought this was our date?”
“Nah. This was just me finding a way to get your tits pushed up against my chest when we’re supposed to be going slow.”
I laughed, but stood on my tippy toes and brushed my lips with his. “You can’t fool me, Mr. Decker. You’re thoughtful and sweet and have a very romantic side.”
He looked back and forth between my eyes. “Oh yeah? Well, if that’s true, you better keep that a secret. I have a reputation of being an asshole that I need to keep intact.”
My belly did a little somersault. The way he looked at me turned my insides into warm mush. I still had the urge to flee, but I was learning that I could get past those flare-ups if I just rode it out and took things slow.
Though every minute I spent with this man made the hope inside me bloom a little bigger. I was learning to trust again, and I’d just have to hope that this time, my trust wasn’t misplaced.
CHAPTER 26
* * *
Donovan
“This place is beautiful.” Autumn laid her napkin across her lap. “Have you been here before?”
I hesitated before answering that. The lawyer in me always played chess, trying to figure out where the conversation might lead, based on a given response. In this case, if I said yes, that could lead to her asking if I’d taken a date here, and I didn’t want her not to feel special.
Autumn lifted a brow. “Earth to Donovan. Are you there?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I just got stuck in my head. I have been here before once.”
“What do you mean, stuck in your head? Is something bothering you?”
Again, I took a minute to debate how this conversation might play out, and Autumn noticed.
“Talk to me,” she said. “What’s going on?”
I decided to come clean. “I’m overthinking shit because I don’t want to screw tonight up.”
“But what are you overthinking?”
“You asked me if I’d been here before. I have. But I was trying to figure out whether if I admitted that, you might be put off because I’d been here with someone else.”
“I see. Well, you being honest with me is more important than the fact that you brought another woman here.”
I raked a hand through my hair. “Yeah, of course. I’m sorry. It’s just been a long time since I was nervous on a date.”
Autumn smiled. “I changed ten times before you picked me up. So you’re not alone.”
My eyes dropped to her cleavage. “You picked the right one.”
She laughed. “Thank you. But what are we going to do about it?”
“Your dress?”
“No. Our nerves.”
I could think of a few ways to work out the nerves—none of which were part of her go slow edict. So I kept those thoughts to myself and shrugged. “Wine?”
She nodded. “That sounds perfect.”
The waitress came over to take our drink order, and Autumn picked out a bottle.
“You know,” she said, “when I first started dating again, my nerves were frayed. I canceled my first two dates because I couldn’t take the stress leading up to them. When I told my therapist about it, she suggested I write down a list of all the things I was nervous about and then a list of all the things I’m grateful for. It kind of sounds silly saying it out loud right now, but it worked pretty well for me.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t sound silly. It actually makes sense. Acknowledging a problem takes away its power.”
She nodded. “Want to try it? Since we’re both nervous?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. We don’t have to write them down. Maybe we can just tell each other.”
“Alright. Ladies first.”
Autumn tapped her finger to her lip. “Okay…well…I’m nervous because I like you. And I’m afraid that if I allow myself to fall, I won’t see things I should see.”
Fuck. It hurt to hear how much that piece of shit had screwed her up. I reached across the table and took her hand. “A good man doesn’t have parts of himself he’s hiding, Autumn.”
She smiled sadly. “I do know that. But what I logically know and how my emotions handle things don’t always reconcile. I’m being honest about the things I’m nervous about.”
I nodded. “I get it.”
The waitress came over and brought the bottle of wine we’d ordered. She poured a small amount into a glass, and I deferred to Autumn to taste test.
She nodded. “It’s delicious. Thank you.”
“Would you like me to put an appetizer in for you while you look over the menu? We have homemade burrata today, and our fried calamari is one of our most popular dishes.”
I looked at Autumn, and she nodded. “I like both. Either is good with me.”
“We’ll take one of each, please.”
After the waitress disappeared, Autumn said, “So what about you? What are you nervous about? You said you were nervous about screwing up. But is there anything in particular that concerns you?”
I drank some of my wine and debated how honest to be. Realizing I was again filtering my thoughts, even when she had been frank with her answer, I decided to say screw it and go with complete honesty.
“I’m nervous because I’m crazy about you, and I’m afraid that i
f you see the truth about where I am, I’ll scare you away.”
Autumn smiled. “You’re crazy about me?”
“You can’t tell?”
She bit her lip. “Can I make another confession about something that makes me nervous?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t trust my own judgment anymore. So while I did sense how you felt, a part of me has been busy making up other reasons you’re interested in me.”
My brows drew together. “Like what?”
Autumn sipped her wine. “Well, you’re competitive, and sometimes men are attracted to women who don’t show an interest in them.”
“You think I’m playing a game?”
She shook her head. “I don’t… Well, not really. But that’s the thing—when you’ve lost trust in your own judgment, you overanalyze everything until you find something wrong. It’s like a compulsive need to find doubt in myself.”
I understood the psychology behind that, but I didn’t know how to quell the voices in her head. I supposed the only thing I could do would be to talk to them. So I closed my eyes.
“You have a little scar on your right knee. You put cinnamon in your coffee, but if it’s not your normal brand, you run your finger over the top of the shaker and taste test it. You also like to rummage through kitchen cabinets that aren’t yours when you think no one is watching. When you’re thinking about a problem, you tap your pointer to your lip, but when your thoughts are dirty, you bite it instead.”
I opened my eyes to find Autumn’s wide. “How do you know all that?”
“I saw you rummage through my kitchen cabinets the weekend we spent together. You thought I was sleeping, but the bedroom door was open a crack, and I could see you in the kitchen.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
I shrugged. “Because I wanted you to rummage through my cabinets if it made you happy.”
“How did you know about the scar on my knee?”
“You took a nap on the couch while we were watching a movie, and I couldn’t stop staring at you. I wanted to memorize every freckle, every curve…”
Autumn’s mouth was agape. She swallowed. “I guess I do tap my lip with my finger, too.”
