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I pressed Play on the record player. The opening notes of “Dancing Queen” filled the apartment.
I cracked my neck left and right. Then I made sure to meet her gaze as I started moving left to right.
This song might not have been exactly my jam—definitely not what I had pictured us dancing to—but at least I knew how to keep a beat. Abuela had made sure of it when I was a kid, for when the occasion needed it. And so, I gradually added my arms to mymotions, then my hips, and then, just so I’d get a reaction, any reaction, out of her, I spun in a perfect circle.
Rosie’s eyes turned to plates.
“You look so shocked, Rosie,” I teased, not stopping my solo performance. “Is it so surprising to see me dancing?”
Fine, I didn’tjustknow how to keep a beat. Iknewhow to dance.
The pink coloring her cheeks deepened, but the corner of her lips twitched.
Biting back my own smile, I did the only thing I could. I strode very slowly in her direction, matching every step to the beat of the song and making sure to keep my eyes on hers.
“Come on, Rosie,” I told her, then added a little louder, “You can dance.” I moved my hips left to right. “And you can also jive.”
By the time I closed the distance between us and I was only a short two feet away from her, I was fully singing to ABBA, swinging my arms and shoulders around her.
The smallest snort left her.
Almost there, I thought. And my leg wasn’t even bothering me all that much.
I moved forward. “Am I not a good enough dancing queen?” I asked her, stepping much, much closer. “I’m not seventeen but I’m young and sweet, anyway, don’t you think?”
A small smile tugged at her lips now. And naturally, that only fueled my need to take more from her. To make her give me more.
“Okay, that’s enough. Come here,” I said right as I snatched her hand and spun her in a circle.
Rosie yelped, loud and pitchy, and a second later she broke out laughing.
There it is.
Because there it was, that laughter I had been craving.
I spun her one more time, her body now slowly beginning to move to the rhythm of the song. And when she was facing me again, it was with a full-fledged grin parting her face that I had no choice but to return.
The chorus started just as if we’d choreographed it, and we screamed the lyrics at the top of our lungs.
And just like that, Rosie’s limbs loosened, her eyes shut, and her body got lost to the seventies hit. I held one of her hands and watched her sing like it was nobody’s business, so loudly that I could hear her voice over the music. And boy, she wasn’t a good singer. Not by a long shot.
Not that it stopped me from taking her other hand and spinning her in another circle. We whirled and whirled, singing and laughing, perhaps one too many times, because with that last twirl, Rosie lost her footing and spun right into my chest.
Our bodies clashed, my arm going around her waist. Our gazes locked, chests heaving in breathless sync as we stared at each other. The sweetest wave of peaches wrapped around me, making my nostrils flare.
My throat worked as I started noticing the way her breasts pressed against my chest, moving up and down with every heaving breath. One of my legs was thrust between hers, and somehow, in a basic reflex I hadn’t been able to control, I pulled her closer. Tighter against me. Our hips coming into contact as our legs tangled further.
Her breath caught, and when her mouth released the air, shakily, rockily, it hit me on the jaw. Something inside of me stiffened, hardened.
My fingers splayed on her waist. And I—
The record scratched, bringing everything to an abrupt stop.
“Lucas,”Rosie breathed.
My arm kept her secured right where she was, against me, giving myself a few more seconds to… think. I needed to think. “Yeah?”
“The music,” she added quietly, breathlessly. “It stopped.”
