I tried to copy what the other women were doing, my hands in the air, my hips rolling, but I felt so stupid and awkward while doing it.
“Don’t think,” one of my new friends yelled. “Just move.”
It made me feel worse, actually, to know that she’d clocked my discomfort and was responding to it. But then they were all just dancing, laughing, and allowing themselves to momentarily grind against someone next to them, spinning away and dancing with each other again. I could see that they really didn’t care what I did or didn’t do. They were just having a good time.
At one point the blond guy found his way back toward me, dancing closer and giving me a bared-teeth smile that I imagined was supposed to look friendly but instead only looked a little grotesque. I didn’t even have to address him, though, before Ashley shimmied brazenly between us.
“We’re trying to dance here, dude!” she said. “Go find somewhere else to be.”
I felt almost bad—it wasn’t like he’d done anything thatextreme, just tried to talk to me once—but then I saw him standing too close to another woman at the bar who said something before sidling away. Sometimes when you know someone is a creep, you just know.
After that, it was easier to let my hair down, so to speak. To let the music move through me and give myself over to it, trying not to think about the past or the future or anything except this moment right here, when I was enjoying a girls’ night out. With girls I’d only just met and barely knew, and in a strange country I had no memory of traveling to, but whatever. I’d take what I could get.
“They saydance like no one is watching,” Ashley shouted over the music. “But for me, it helps to pretend that someone isalwayswatching, and I’m putting on a show. Like this is for my asshole ex—eat your heart out.”
She dipped lower, swaying her hips as she came back up, her hands on her body the whole time. I was glad that technique worked for her, but it was pretty much the opposite of what I needed to put myself at ease. The idea of moving my body in public was bad enough. I could only do it by telling myself that no one was paying attention to me at all, that no one cared.
But I supposed there was no harm in trying it. I closed my eyes, tilting my head back as the song changed to something a little more driving and visceral. The energy in the room shifted—I couldfeelthe way the bodies got closer as more people came out to the dance floor to join in. That helped, actually, made me feel cocooned and surrounded and safe, likethere was no one left to watch me because everyone waswithme.
I was doing it again, though, falling back on my old instincts instead of letting go. I snaked my arms above me, trying not to think about anything, just letting myself feel. The only person I could even imagine watching me right now…I pictured those piercing blue eyes, the focused way he had oflookingat me like he was taking in every detail. I might have left him, but he was still crowding my mind.
I let my head fall forward, my hair shielding my face as I continued to move to the music, rolling my shoulders as I imagined it passing through me like a wave. It carried me away, somewhere far from Eamonn or my new friends or this club in the heart of Dublin, and I almost thought I knew exactly what that woman at the bus stop had been talking about, in what felt like a moment that had happened a million years ago. I was having an out-of-body experience in an out-of-body experience, and weirdly felt moreinmy body than I ever had before. When my hands skimmed my hips, my breasts, my face, I wasn’t dancing like no one was watching or dancing like someone was. I was just…here.
My eyes flew open, and I saw him through the crush of bodies, his gaze so intent on me that I felt it like a jolt. Eamonn. My heart lifted when I saw him, a telltale betrayal, before syncing back up with the rhythmic beat of the music, pounding through my chest. He was coming toward me, weaving through the people on the dance floor.
He paused in front of me, the two of us now standingcompletely still in the middle of a throng of moving bodies. Finally he leaned in, trying to be heard over the music. “You left.”
It was a statement of fact, but I couldn’t read how he meant it. “I thought it would be better that way.”
His hand hovered over my waist for a moment, like he’d thought about using it to draw me closer but had decided against it. “Better for who?”
“You can be done with me now,” I said. “You don’t have to help me anymore. I appreciate—”
I was trying to say that I appreciated everything he’d done for me already, to reiterate my plan to pay him back, if I could figure out how to even do that. But the effort it took to shout over the music scratched at my throat, and I could see the women from the bathroom all turning to look at me, obviously checking if I was okay. I was touched by their immediate concern, their protectiveness, for someone they’d met only a bit ago. I waved my hand at them and tried to smile, letting them know that everything was good.
Eamonn glanced back, as if wanting to see who I was waving at. The song had changed to something a little slower, a minimalist crescendo of plucked notes on a guitar, an atmospheric swell of tones under it. Someone jostled Eamonn from behind, trying to get by, and that was when he did put his hand on my waist.
“Dance with me,” he said.
Twenty-One
I just looked up athim, unable to move. It couldn’t have been easy to find me—there were so many bars and clubs on this block, all packed with people. Maybe something had drawn him to this one. Maybe it was fate, whatever fate had dropped me in front of his shop in the first place. I’d never believed in fate.
“Come on, Jess,” he said. “You owe me one, remember? I’m calling it in.”
I didn’t quite know how to move to this song, which built to a rhythmic beat but then came back down again. In the end, I looped my arms around Eamonn’s neck, letting him draw me closer as he kept his hand at my waist, his other hand at his side almost like he, too, didn’t quite know what to do with them as he danced.
He was still in his T-shirt, the fabric thin and soft under my fingers as they rested at the nape of his neck. I wanted to movethem up, to brush the buzzed line of his hair, but I wasn’t bold enough.
“You didn’t leave your sweater, I hope?” It had looked like a really nice sweater.
I could feel his smile next to my forehead. “It’s at the door,” he said. “Your jacket, too. They’ll be there when we need them.”
He said it with such inevitability, like of course we’d be leaving together, like this interlude didn’t have to set us back at all. From over his shoulder, the women from the bathroom were giving me thumbs-up gestures, Ashley mouthing an overexaggeratedhot. I huffed a laugh, my breath landing somewhere in the hollow of his throat, which was so close to my mouth I could’ve kissed him there.
“What?” he asked. His voice was a low rasp next to my ear, and I realized he’d brought his other hand up to my lower back, where I felt it tighten.
I shook my head. The music throbbed through my body like a heartbeat, and I wanted to kiss him so badly. But I wasn’t brave enough, and so in the end I settled for pulling him a little closer, until the jumping pulse of his throat was against my open mouth, and it was almostalmostthe same.
