LITMIR.BIZ

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Maybe?” He had no idea, because it felt like he’d always known her. Not so much the first few months after she started working for the company, but definitely the first time they worked a project together. And after she moved to his floor of the office, he’d recognized a kindred spirit. “I’m sure you’ve seen me dance, Jules. I can absolutely dance. And more to the point, there’s no way I’m gonna let you wander off alone into a torch-lit crowd of drunken strangers. You were planning to do this with Amanda, so you can do it with me instead. Dance, I mean. Not... Jesus. You know what I mean.”

      “Let me? You’re not going to let me? What is this, Victorian England all of a sudden?”

      She didn’t seem all that insulted, probably because she thought he’d meant it in a “friends don’t let friends pick up drunk strangers” way, not a patriarchal bullshit way. But he didn’t want to take the chance that she might actually think that of him. Especially since he absolutely meant he didn’t want to allow her to go off with somebody else. “No! I didn’t mean you couldn’t do—I just didn’t want to go off if you needed—you know. You’re twenty-seven. You can do whatever—”

      “Alan.”

      “I just thought we could dance together, I didn’t—”

      “Alan! It’s okay. I was just giving you a hard time.”

      “Oh. Oh, good.” Lies, all lies. But she seemed to have bought it. He wasn’t sure if he was right on track, or utterly screwed. “Okay. So...are we going to dance, then?”

      * * *

      Bye-bye, unknown holiday lover. We could have had something magical. I know it in my heart.

      Julie told herself she was relieved. She had never been the type to pick up strangers, and the prospect had been more daunting than thrilling. Really. Better she should take the first evening to size up the situation before doing anything rash. “Yes. Of course we’re going to dance. Dork.”

      Alan totally couldn’t dance. He made up for it with infectious enthusiasm, however. His version of fail-dancing was highly entertaining, prompting a few eye rolls but more grins from the gyrating crowd around them. Somehow his flailing always managed to pull short of smacking anybody, and after watching for a while Julie realized he was actually in brilliant control of the whole thing. He could dance. Every so often a moment or two of perfect coordination and rhythm sneaked through. Beats where his hips moved in a way that suggested he really knew how to...move his hips.

      “You’re a big liar,” she finally shouted over the cacophony of music and noisy revelers.

      He didn’t even look fazed. Julie was pretty sure he knew exactly what she meant.

      “How so?”

      “You can dance.”

      “I told you I could dance!” He raised his arms over his head and executed a brilliant twirl maneuver that involved his body undulating in a miraculous way. It left her speechless, her body responding in a manner that completely overruled her higher brain functions. The dork-face he made over it spoiled the effect, though. Sort of. “My mother made me take ballroom dance for years with my sister Theresa, so she wouldn’t have to dance with strangers. Because God forbid. Yeah...we ended up winning some competitions and shit like that. I lived in fear that some friend would find the sequins all over my closet floor. It was crazy.”

      He stepped in and pulled her close, the sudden proximity startling the breath out of her. When he dipped her, smooth and swift as a lover in a fantasy tango, her world spun for a moment. She felt only slightly less disoriented when he swung her back up to standing and fail-danced away in some horrific combination of twerking and moonwalking. Her body was trying to recover from a surge of knee-wobbling hormones, and wanted to fling itself at Alan’s supple torso, while her brain was appalled at the dance-desecration visual it was receiving.

      Julie suddenly thought of the conversation they’d once had about college financial aid, how she’d been griping about repaying her loans, and he’d said that he’d “gotten some help” for which he was grateful. She later learned he’d been a National Merit Scholar with a full ride from his school of choice. So when he said he and his sister had won “some competitions,” she could only imagine what he meant by that. State championships? The Olympics? Did they have those for ballroom dancing?

      “Humble-bragger.”

      He laughed. “Hey, I’m heading to the bar. You want anything to drink?”

      “No thanks, I’m good.” If she got any better she’d be a danger to herself and others on the dance floor. Her lips were tingling as it was, her judgment quite possibly impaired.

      Which might have explained her reaction when she noticed the guy checking her out from across that crowded dance floor. Beer goggles. The problem with beer goggles was you never realized you were wearing them at the time. Only once it was too late. In fact, that kind of defined how beer goggles worked.

      Surfer-blond hair, messy in a deliberate way. A tan, obviously, because practically everybody here had one. And when he grinned at Julie from around his drink straw, he had whiter-than-white teeth, contrasting beautifully with the warm tone of his skin. He was firelit, but still seemed to give off an angelic glow rather than a hellish gleam. All in all, he was her every vacation fantasy come to life, wrapped in a pleasantly fitted T-shirt and sporting some ridiculously fit calves underneath his long board shorts.

      Ding ding ding!

      Alan was lost in the crowd by the bar, and she was all alone out on the floor. Julie felt stupid, bobbing along to the music with no partner, suddenly unsure what to do with her hands. The surfer dude didn’t seem to have a problem with that.

      He sauntered closer, nodding. “Hey.”

      “Hey there.”

      “I’m Todd.”

      “Julie.”

      “Nice to meet you, Julie.” He extended a hand and she shook it, ignoring the mild clamminess transferred from the cold drink he was holding. There was a sign posted, forbidding glass on the beach, but apparently Todd hadn’t seen it or hadn’t cared enough to relinquish whatever he was nursing along. “I haven’t seen you before. Did you just get here?”

      “Earlier today,” she confirmed, starting to move to the music again. “I won the trip as a door prize at work.”

      “Wow, awesome! This is my work, pretty much.”

      Drinking and dancing? Then she realized what he meant. He worked for the resort, obviously. “Nice. What do you do here?”

      She was expecting “surfing instructor,” possibly “tennis pro,” but he came back with, “I lead glass-bottomed-kayak tours.”

      He wasn’t dancing, exactly, just moving in time with the music, a subtle shift of his weight and hips back and forth. Cool. Smooth. A faint voice in her head said it wasn’t a good thing that he seemed practiced at what he was doing here. Tropical-flavored liquor gently drowned the voice out, as soft and warm as the nearby surf. The guy was exactly what she’d been looking for. No strings. No clutter. She could do this.

      “Kayak tours? That’s so cool.”

      Things were definitely getting back on track.

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