‘You’re very good at a lot of things,’ I observe.
‘Er, what?You’regood at a lot of things.’ She really isn’t that great at taking compliments without complimenting back the compliment giver. Like she’s uncomfortable with being praised. If I wanted to carry on with the amateur psychology I’d wonder whether her parents perhaps were too busy arguing to focus properly on her and make her feel good about herself, and so as an adult she doesn’t know what to do with compliments.
I smile at her. ‘Let’s agree to both be incredibly excellent at many, many things?’
She laughs. ‘Sounds good. Who wants to be pleasantly humble?’
‘Exactly.’
We sit and smile at each other – kind of almost soppily I’d have to say – and then Freya suddenly says, ‘Oh my goodness, we’re going to be late for salsa and the evil woman will try to poison our food again. We need to get our skates on.’
‘You looking forward to the class?’ I ask as we walk back over.
‘Yes. I love dancing and I’ve actually always vaguely wanted to sign up for lessons in either ballroom or Latin or both but I’ve just never got round to it. So if she’s trying to give me the worst weekend of my life, Sonja has really messed up.’ Freya’s glee makes me laugh.
‘Yeah. Good. I’m glad.’
17
FREYA
Jake and I are on fully good terms, it feels like, when we go, along with the others, into the room that’s been designated our salsa dancing venue. We’re all given classic Latin dancing outfits and shoes to wear. My skirt and top are extremely skimpy, the top little more than a glorified bra, and Jake’s satiny trousers areverytight around the crotch and bottom area, and his shirt seems to be missing most of its buttons, giving the rest of us an excellent view of his very well-toned chest.
‘I’m guessing that Sonja was sniggering as she chose these,’ Jake says after we’ve all emerged from the changing rooms.
I laugh, while I try hard not to stare at his chest and crotch.
‘Did you tell them your size?’ I ask him, looking around at everyone. Every single person’s outfit is exactly the right size (and no-one else’s is quite as revealing as mine and Jake’s).
‘Nope.’
‘Me neither.’ I ask the same question of the couple of people closest to me, and then everyone, and, no, no-one gave their sizes.
‘This seems very sinister,’ I whisper to Jake. ‘Not only is Sonja someone whose spit contains super-hot chilli, she psychically knows our clothing and shoe sizes.’
‘Yeah, or they just noted the sizes when we got kitted up for the assault course.’
‘Oh yes.’ Dammit. I was almost enjoying feeling that we’d arrived in some kind of Sonja-led dystopia. ‘Are you also going to suggest that she does not in fact have chilli spit and just added actual chilli to our food?’
‘Sadly, I do think we’re going to have to consider that a very real possibility.’
‘Well, damn. I don’t want her to be a regular mean woman with no magical powers.’
‘Yeah, although a mean womanwithmagical powers would be scarier to deal with.’
‘Very true.’ I bend down to adjust my right shoe and then stand up again, fast, conscious that my skirt iswaytoo short for me to be bending over like that. ‘Learning salsa is going to be so much fun. I’m now almost grateful to Sonja.’
‘Whoa, steady. I feel that we should expect a catch.’
Ten minutes later, I think I’ve worked out what the catch is. If you’ve watchedStrictly, you know what’s involved in the salsa. And I have watchedStrictly, so it should have immediately occurred to me. There’s a lot of physical proximity involved. I think I was just still too mind-blown by everything that’s already happened this weekend to think about what was going to happen next.
We’re learning some basic moves, which involve Jake’s hands on my bare waist quite a lot, plus a lot of shimmying side by side.
I’m very, very aware of where his hands touch me, and even the shimmying feels very intimate, because we have to watch each other the whole time so that we move in sync witheach other, which means that I’m just looking at (ogling) his (remarkably gorgeous) body, and I can feel his eyes on me.
I’m extremely conscious of his eyes straying quite a lot to my boobs (there’s quite a lot of jiggle involved in this dance) and my bare tummy, and even more conscious of the struggle to keep my eyes away from where certain parts of his anatomy are highlighted.
The one good thing about having to think so hard about the moves is that it’s a slight distraction from all thelookingandfeeling.
