“My mother kept them.”
“Kept?”
“Keeps.” I busy myself with my phone, pulling up the Thai place’s menu. “She lives upstate now. She’s retired, but she likes to know I’m maintaining the collection.”
“She sounds intense.”
“She’s... dedicated.”
“Ah.” His tone says he understands exactly what I’m not saying. “The apple and the tree.”
“Something like that.”
I order food on autopilot, then realize I’m standing in my own cottage with a man I’ve known for less than a month and somehow cannot stop thinking about.
“Wine?” I hear myself offer. “I have some... Somewhere... Probably...”
“Breathe.” He’s suddenly closer, his hands catching my shoulders, steadying me. “Isadora. Breathe.”
I do. Once. Twice.
“Better?”
“I don’t know why I’m?—”
“Nervous?” His thumbs trace small circles over my shoulders. “You invited your devastatingly attractive dance partner to your home for dinner. Some anxiety seems appropriate.”
“You’re not devastatingly attractive.”
“Liar.”
“You’re moderately attractive. At best.”
“Still lying.” But he releases me, stepping back with that crooked smile. “Wine sounds perfect. Point me toward the glasses, and I’ll pour while you remember how to form complete sentences.”
“I can form complete sentences.”
“If you say so.”
I want to argue. Instead, I point at the cabinet above the stove and retreat to the living room, where I spend the next several minutes rearranging throw pillows that don’t need rearranging.
This is fine. This is completely fine. People have dinner together. Adults have wine together. Nothing about this is significant.
Except that my hands won’t stop shaking.
Except that every nerve ending seems attuned to his presence in the next room.
Except that when he returns with two glasses of the red I’d almost forgotten I owned, I have to physically restrain myself from closing the distance between us.
“To the Showcase,” he says, offering me a glass. “And to the most demanding instructor in the eastern seaboard.”
“To partners who actually listen.”
“Occasionally.”
“Rarely.”
“When it matters.” His glass clinks against mine. “Isn’t that what counts?”
