"It's... loud."
Taylor stared at him. "That's your review? It's loud?"
"And crowded."
"Hudson."
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want you to tell me if you’re attracted to anyone here."
Hudson scanned the room again. There were objectively attractive men everywhere. Tall guys, built guys, guys with the kind of bone structure that probably made them money. His brain tried to catalog them the way he was trained.
The guy near the bar was too broad. The one on the dance floor moved wrong, too loose, too easy, no control. The couple making out against the wall were both too... something. Too available. Too obvious.
Nothing felt right.
"I don't know," Hudson said. "They're all?—"
"All what?"
Wrong, Hudson's brain supplied.Wrong height, wrong build, wrong way of moving through space, wrong voice, wrong everything.
"Different," he said instead.
Taylor's mouth curved knowingly. "Different from Elliot, you mean."
He shot her a look.
She raised her hands. "Okay, okay."
They were halfway through their second drink when the opening bars of an uncomfortably familiar song cut through the noise.
Taylor’s head snapped up like a dog hearing a whistle whenDancing On My Owncame through the speakers. "Oh my GOD." She grabbed Hudson’s arm. "We have to."
“Absolutely not.”
“Hudson—”
“Taylor, we’re not kids anymore.”
She was already dragging him toward the dance floor, his protests lost in the music.
Hudson knew there was no point telling her no—Taylor was already moving, and his feet followed before his brain could object.
Feet first, stepping in sync, arms up on the second beat. Three steps right, arms out, spin—Taylor half a beat behind as always. Then the footwork, quick and well-rehearsed, into the handshake that was more elbow than hand, finishing with a hip bump that sent Taylor stumbling sideways every single time.
She caught herself on his arm, laughing too hard to stay upright.
Hudson let his inhibitions go.
He didn’t notice Taylor had stopped moving until she said, “Huh.”
He kept dancing. “What?”
She was watching him with a funny expression. Arms crossed. Head tilted.
“What?” Hudson said again.
