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Jake flexed his hand in the knuckles and walked over. He didn’t help the guy up, but he crouched to his level and showed him his right fist. The one with the letters B-U-L-L on the fingers. His back was mostly to Petra, so she couldn’t see, but in the way the cowboy looked at him, she figured Jake was saying something threatening.
Then the cowboy nodded. Jake stood and took a step back. The cowboy got up on his own. He slunk away, winding unsteadily through the crowd until he was only a black hat hovering above it.
With the coast clear, Petra left her post and went to Jake. He scowled at her, and she watched as he worked the violent look from his face and made room for affection. “I’m sorry about that fucker. I’m sorry I brought you here. We can go if you want.”
“I don’t want to go. I don’t want somebody like that to ruin our date. That hardly seems right, does it?”
He smiled. “No, it doesn’t.”
She took his hand. “So let’s dance!”
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~oOo~
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He was good! Honestlygood—and he was confident enough to really move.
Dancing well was more than simply knowing the steps, more even than good rhythm. A good dancer moved their whole body; even when a dance required stillness up top, a good dancer’s full body was engaged. Often, especially in a situation like this, people focused on getting the steps right, and really, that wasn’t as important as feeling the music. Her instruction to any beginner class was to stop counting and stop looking— to close their eyes and simply feel the music. That phrase was a cliché because it was true.
Jake felt the music. His hips and shoulders were in it, his knees were soft, his back straight but not stiff—and he was grinning so big his high cheekbones pushed his eyes to squints. Petra felt so good dancing with him she forgot all about the black-hat cowboy and really enjoyed herself.
They did the Electric Slide—of course, that thing was like a virus, infecting every corner of culture—and something called the ‘Tush Push,’ and one called ‘Bring on the Good Times’—or maybe that was the name of the song they danced to. And a few other dances she missed the names of. They were all some variation of a box step, or the cha cha, some with a little two-step thrown in.
Jake never missed a step. When they did a fairly complicated couple’s dance that had everybody twirling and two-stepping together around the perimeter, he simply spun toward her and picked up her hands, pulling her into formation, on the beat the whole time. Leading her, and doing it well.
Never in her life would she have expected Jake to evenwantto dance, much less be good at it.
And he was so obviously enjoying himself, so obviously happy, Petra’s head filled up with stars just looking at him.
For hours, she thought of nothing but music and dancing and the man she was with.
It had been years since she’d had such a good, uncomplicated time.
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~oOo~
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Petra needed more breath, so she brought the kiss to a close and tucked her face against the side of Jake’s neck. “That was so fun.”
They were outside. The Dawghouse was still open, but the line dancing was over. They’d been heading to his bike when he’d pulled her off to the side of the building, tucked her into a shadowy corner, and kissed her.
Closing her even more tightly in his arms, he took a deep breath and kissed her head. When he let the breath go, it fluttered across her hair. “It was. I never had anybody I know with me for that before. I’m glad it was you.”
She leaned back and looked up at him. “You come here alone to dance?”
He shrugged, and his eyes slid off to focus on her shoulder. “Um ... yeah. I mean, I don’t tell anybody I do this.”
“Why not?”
A shy little chuckle slipped over his lips. “It’s not ... cool, I guess. I mean—no disrespect. It’sverycool that you dance. Coolandhot. It’s just not ... I’d get shit for it if my brothers knew about it.”
“How many brothers do you have?” She was an only child, but she’d heard enough stories of shitty siblings to cure her childhood wishes for one of her own.
“Only one actual brother. Older. But I mean my club brothers. The Bulls.”
