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Because of all the strife the couple had endured, everyone agreed to do everything possible to make their special day a perfect one. One of those things included learning a choreographed routine, and seeing as how he and Ayesha were the only two unattached people in the family, they were matched up as bridesmaid and groomsman.
“Alexa, pause music,” he said.
The music abruptly stopped pumping through the studio’s surround sound speaker system.
Ayesha despising him was mainly speculation. She’d never had a harsh word to say to him on account of her pleasant personality. She was kind, and it was easy to see what had drawn Curtis to her. Lately, however, she’d been more quiet than usual.
Curt.
Standoffish.
Their friendship officially developed when, after a particularly rough night, he’d shown up at Dez and Larke’s. She’d been visiting at the time, and she stayed up to listen to his sob story over running into Sydney on a date only a few weeks after he and Sydney separated. The next day, to thank her for putting up with him, he took her and the boys to Clemyjontri Park.
Since then, they’d been friendly.
Nevertheless, this week, it seemed as though every word he spoke made her cringe and clench her jaw, to the point where he imagined his words brushing her skin like stripped wire.
“Want to go again?” he asked.
She coughed into her elbow. “I need a minute. No, five. Five minutes. I keep messing up the steps.”
“It’s not an easy routine.”
“Yet, we’ve been practicing for months, and I’m still not…” She shook her head. “Never mind. Five minutes.”
She went to the far end of the mid-sized dance studio, sat cross-legged on the floor, grabbed her water bottle, and took a long drink. Hoping to break with the tension between them, he followed and took a seat next to her, leaving a little over an arm’s length worth of space.
“So, Ayesha, I was thinking. What if we—”
She stood, walked to the door, and left.
“—break the steps into smaller pieces,” he quietly finished.
Sighing, he gave his attention to the studio’s wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. In the distance, the Pacific Ocean sparkled under the high afternoon Malibu sun. With everyone in California to spend a few weeks with Gage and Tayler, Tayler had scheduled for them to get some practice sessions in, adding a few extra for him and Ayesha. Now, he wondered whether Tayler might have to accept two fewer people as part of her wedding reception dance routine.
The door creaked.
Ayesha entered, uselessly smoothing the frizz-sprung strands from her bun, and walked directly to the center of the shiny laminate floor.
She raised her head, chin firm. “Ready.”
He stood and made his way over.
As he drew closer, he noticed her eyelids were redder than when she’d left, and he wanted to reassure her that she would pick up the steps in no time, but it wasn’t his place to say. For all they knew, she might never get it all down.
Instead of waiting for him to reach out, she took his hand. Then, once he was in place, she gave theplaycommand.
The song started.
He placed his hand at her waist, their bodies facing the same direction. Then they began, moving in sync, step for step, across the smooth floor. They were supposed to look at each other, something the instructor had drilled into them repeatedly, but Ayesha stared straight ahead.
After they made a full rotation around the center of the room, he twirled her until she faced him, drew her close, and dipped her slightly.
“Ayesha, look at me.”
“Can’t. Concentrating.”
They segued into a waltz, the part she’d stumbled over the last time. This time, she aced all the foot placements, sparing her ankles from a sprain or fracture.
