Scott slid his empty across the table, eyes steady. “Peace offering,” he said, tone dry as a Texas summer. “Dance with me.”
Before she could lodge even a polite objection, his fingers closed around hers—warm, sure—and he was already standing, already leading. The old jukebox thunked, crackled, and then that velvet orchestra rose like a curtain. Brass smiled. Strings sighed. Somewhere, couples from a better decade started gliding in her head.
Elena did not glide.
She arrived on the tiny square of open floor in combat stance: spine tall, chin set, knees informing everyone present that there would be no swooning tonight, thank you. She did not like him—at least that’s the gospel she’d been repeating to herself since beer number one. He was bossy, unreadable, and had a way of winning arguments without opening his mouth. Her hand in his felt like a contract she hadn’t read closely enough.
“Loosen your grip,” he murmured.
“I’m not gripping.”
“You’re negotiating with my knuckles.”
She exhaled and let a millimeter go. His palm settled at the small of her back, not pushing, just…present. Ground. He angled them into the music with a patient quarter-turn, the kind that assumes the song will wait for you. His steps were economical, old-school: a gentleman’s foxtrot trimmed to bar-space. He didn’t show off. He didn’t count aloud. He simply offered a road and expected she could walk it.
At first, she fought the map. She kept her shoulders square, eyes everywhere but on him—the bar mirror, the beer taps, the exit. Yet the room had shrunk to the radius of his arm, and the mirror kept giving her back two people who looked like they’d promised to misbehave. His cologne was nothing more than clean soap and something citrus from the kitchen. It shouldn’t have unsettled her. It did.
“Try breathing,” he said, low.
“I am breathing.”
"Not like someone being hunted.”
“That would require a hunter.”
He smiled with one corner and—blast him—didn’t bite back. He just let the music do its slow persuasion. Another turn. His hand shifted a fraction closer to her spine, and the world reassembled around that point of contact. The jukebox hissed a soft seam of vinyl and the tempo lifted. He followed, she resisted—then failed to resist one step, then another. Her hips began to forget the argument her mouth was winning.
The bar was almost empty now: a couple of fishermen nursing the bottom of their night, the bartender polishing a glass with a towel that would never be clean. Outside the windows, a pale Arctic dusk hung around like a neighbor who didn’t know when to go home. Inside, time got polite and stood still.
“Look at me,” he said.
Annoying man. She did, because she wouldn’t be told what to do. His eyes were dark and steady, not asking for anything, not apologizing for anything either. For a second she saw the quiet engine under all that control—the way he took care of the flame in a kitchen, the way he had taken care of tonight without bragging about it.
Her shoulders dropped.
He felt it. He didn’t comment; he just let the space between them shorten by a breath. His thumb traced a small, absent-minded arc at her back, and something in her chest answered with a softer, more dangerous rhythm. He guided her into a slow spin, brought her back with a catch at her fingertips that said I’ve got you and, worse, proved it.
“Better,” he whispered.
She hated that it was true. She loved that it was true. The two feelings braided until they were indistinguishable, and the room surrendered its hard edges. She could feel the music in the soles of her boots now, in the elastic give of the floor, in the knot of her scarf where it brushed his jaw as they tilted closer. He led; she let herself be led; and where her doubt tried to reassert itself, the next measure arrived and the next step solved it.
Her body betrayed her further. Her cheek found the clean plane of his shoulder for a single, treasonous second. She pretended it was an accident. He pretended to believe her. They moved in a slow orbit—her hand at his shirtfront, feeling the faint heat under cotton; his breath warm at her temple, keeping time for the both of them. He didn’t talk. He didn’t make a pitch. He simply kept her safe inside the geometry of an old song.
Somewhere between the second chorus and the part where the horns lift like they’ve decided to forgive you, Elena realized she was smiling. Not the professional smile, all surface and teeth. The private one, small and involuntary, the kind she hadn’t used in months. She tried to chase it away with a joke.
“You’re not as terrible at this as I expected,” she murmured.
“I’ll take that as a rave.”
“Don’t. I have standards.”
“I know,” he said, and there was something in the way he said it—utterly sure, utterly gentle—that loosened the last latch inside her.
Another turn. The jukebox’s glow caught the ice walls and sent pale constellations across his cheekbone. He smelled like lemon and clean smoke. His pulse under her palm felt like the bar’s old heartbeat, steady and unhurried, as if nothing bad could possibly happen on a night when two stubborn people decided to be tender.
By the bridge, she’d stopped tracking exits. By the final refrain, she was moving because he was moving, and the lead-and-follow had become a conversation her body preferred to any argument. When he drew her in that last inch, her breath lifted of its own accord and she didn’t flinch. Her forehead met his. The orchestra swelled, and—God help her—she wanted every slow song of the next decade with this man.
The music softened to its feathered end. They didn’t release each other at once. He eased them still and, for a beat, held her like something valuable that could break. No claim. No clever line. Just a hush that said he’d noticed her staying.
She opened her eyes. The bar was nearly empty. The world had rearranged itself by a few degrees.
“Truce?” he asked.
She should have said something wry. Instead, she let her thumb press once against his chest, right over the heartbeat that had kept her steady, and nodded.
“Truce,” she said, voice quiet and annoyingly sincere.
He smiled—small, relieved, a man who’d wagered without bragging about the odds—and guided her back to their booth. But the night had already changed. Elena felt it in the way her hand didn’t want to leave his, in the echo of the song in her ribs, in the warmth that followed her like a promise.
Somewhere in the space between the first stiff step and the final note, she’d fallen. Not all the way, not yet. Just enough to know she was in trouble.
They sat across from each other, hands intertwined in the middle of the table. Her head was swimming with so many thoughts. She settled on one. “I'm sorry.” She began, “I feel a little unsteady, would you mind walking me to my room?” Her cheeks flushed pink. “Please”
“Sure thing, princess.” He quipped, “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded her head, and reached for her stuff, when he swiped it off the table with one hand, and took hers with the other. He stood first, then waited for her to steady herself. He placed his free hand at the small of her back, gently guiding her out of the bar, nodding to the bartender as they left. He guided her, steadily, down the hall and into the main lobby. Nearly across the room, she stopped suddenly, the pressure on her back increased Briefly before adjusting to her movement.
“Look at that view!” She said, a little too loud. She turned to see if he was seeing what she was seeing. But when their eyes met, he saw something entirely different. He saw her. The raw beauty of wonder, like a child's first taste of chocolate, only somehow sweeter for her, in a way he couldn't name.
Thanks for reading ☺️