Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72589 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
I hesitate. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on,” she says, tugging me toward one of the practice areas. “You’re in fantastic shape and your flexibility in your shoulders is already so much better than when you started class. I want to see what you can do.”
I shake my head. “It’s been years. I probably can’t even—”
“Please?” She bats her lashes. “Just one move? One baby one? For me?”
And damn if I can resist those big brown eyes.
“Fine.” I shrug out of my jacket and point a warning finger at her giddy face. “But no laughing if I fall on my ass.”
She mimes zipping her lips, but her eyes are dancing as I step onto the mat. I take a deep breath, letting the beat flowing from the nearby speakers fill me up.
It’s been forever, but somehow, my body remembers. The basic six-step comes back like I never stopped, then the baby flares. Before I know it, I’m throwing in a freeze, testing my balance and control.
When I’m out of breath, I step off to find a fist bump waiting for me. The thirty-something guy waiting his turn says, “Solid, bro.”
“Thanks, been a long time,” I say as I move back to Stephanie’s side.
She greets me with a dropped jaw and a playful punch on the arm. “What was that, Theodore? You’re incredible! Like, crazy good. You could have been a pro, b-boy.”
I laugh as I roll my eyes. “Hardly, but it felt good. I think I remember enough to teach you a few beginner moves, if you want.”
She nods hard enough to make her braids twitch around her shoulders. “Yes! I want. I definitely want.”
We spend another hour practicing basic moves together, laughing and getting sweaty and having more fun than I’ve had in a long time. She’s a natural—strong and graceful—which isn’t a surprise. She’s practically a yoga master and has incredible control and balance. Watching her absorb everything I teach her, acquiring new skills by leaps and bounds, does dangerous things to my heart. She’s just so alive, so full of joy, so sexy.
Damn, this woman…
Hopefully she isn’t wrecking my blood pressure, because I already know I won’t be able to quit her.
“I need water,” she finally says, fanning herself. “And maybe a beer? Should we have a beer and watch some music? Take a little rest?”
“We absolutely should.” I glance past her to the bleachers by the main stage, which are filling up as the more popular acts prepare to go on. “Why don’t you go grab us seats. I’ll get drinks and meet you on the bleachers?”
She pushes on tiptoe, pressing a kiss to my cheek. “Good plan. See you there.”
I head for a nearby drink tent, already thinking about how much fun it could be to set up a breaking practice area behind the yoga studio. The back garden is small, but there’s a concreate slab in the corner where a shed used to be that could be cleared off and turned into a place for us to play.
Play…that’s what it feels like, and I suddenly realize how much I’ve missed playing.
Hockey hasn’t felt like play in a long time. I was still a kid when I realized the game was my way out of poverty. Then it became my job, then the source of my shame, and now, my shot at redemption. I love hockey, but there’s too much baggage there for it to ever feel like play.
But dancing is just a good time, and even more so when you get to share it with someone as fun as Steph.
Back at the bleachers with my drink holder full of water and beer, I scan the seats for her, but don’t see a flash of purple tank top anywhere. Not much melanin in the crowd, either. I scan the area again, but even at a break-dancing festival, Oregon is a pale and pasty state. The few people of color are easy to spot and my girl isn’t among them.
Maybe she had to hit the bathroom?
I’m on my way back toward the porta-potty station when I hear raised voices coming from behind the Sunrise Smoothie Hut, which appears to be closed for the day.
“Get out of the way and let me go,” a voice that is unmistakably Stephanie’s says, her usually mellow tone pinched. “I’m serious. I need to get back to meet my boyfriend, and I don’t have anything else to say to you, Drake. This is so messed up. I can’t believe you think it’s okay to—”
“Messed up? What’s messed up is you jumping into bed with another man two seconds after you jumped off my dick.” The male voice is Drake’s all right, but he sounds meaner, harder than that night at the studio.
I don’t like that energy anywhere near Steph. I like that fact that he’s talking about her and his dick in the same breath even less. It makes me want to throw him through a plate glass window, in fact.