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Nora knew all the steps. Out of all the classes she’d taken, she had waltzed most often. She liked the simplicity of it—once she learned the rhythm, it became much easier to work on grace and cadence, and she liked the ability to focus on refining one skill in dance, rather than learning a wide variety. She’d occasionally dropped into a foxtrot class or two, and once even a tango, but she preferred the waltz.
It was good, she thought as they began going through the beginning steps, that she happened to be as familiar with it as she was. If not, the lesson would have been a disaster. She couldn’t focus, moving through the steps and rotating partners feeling as if she were sleepwalking, entirely taken aback by the shock of the instructor beingAiden. She remembered the glance between Melanie and her mother and felt faintly betrayed. They’d clearly both had a mischievous hand in this when they’d made the suggestion.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any more complicated, she heard Aiden call out, “Rotate!” The next thing she knew, she found herself face-to-face with the man himself.
He was very close, and he smelled like sandalwood and juniper. Her mind blanked out momentarily, and she looked up at him, reminded suddenly of his hands on her waist as he’d tried to help her down from the ladder.
“I think I’m in less danger of falling tonight.” She was trying for a joke, but the words came out stilted, and she couldn’t tell from the expression on his face if he was amused or not.
“I would hope so.” He turned her, the two of them moving in perfect rhythm, but Nora could feel how tense she was.
“I didn’t know you could dance,” Nora said lamely, and Aiden raised an eyebrow.
“Of course not. Why would you?”
“We went to school together.” Nora only just refrained from biting her lip. The man was making her act like an idiot, and she had no idea why. Their history was years ago—there was no reason for him to make her trip over her words and dance like she had a board taped to her spine.
Aiden gave her a look she couldn’t quite read as they turned again.
“Did you just realize that?” His voice was dry, humorless, and Nora winced internally.
“I didn’t at first,” she admitted. “But once it clicked… I remember you clearly now. Why?—”
She was about to ask him why he hadn’t said anything on any of the occasions when they’d run into each other after she’d arrived in town. But before she could, the music hit a high note, and Aiden stepped back, flawlessly spinning her in a circle to execute a twirl and bring her back in.
Or at least, his side of it was flawless.
She was a decent dancer. She applied herself to anything she attempted, and she’d been to a good number of classes in Boston. Ordinarily, something like that should have been easy. Simple. But her mind was spinning, confused, and flustered by her reaction to Aiden, and she was more distracted than she could recall having been in a very long time.
Which meant, that as he spun her and brought her back in, she turned too far—and her elbow smacked him directly in the cheekbone. As if to add insult to injury, she felt her heel come down on his toe as she attempted to jump back, bringing it all to a grinding halt as he let out a sharp, pained sound.
Nora felt her face flame red instantly. “Oh my goodness,” she gasped, one hand coming up to cover her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’m usually better than this.”
“It’s all right,” Aiden reassured her, taking a step back. “It happens. Rotate!”
And then he was gone, paired off with another partner as a stodgy elderly gentleman with two left feet took his place with Nora.
She couldn’t leave fast enough. She finished the class, because it would have been too mortifying to flee immediately, but the second the music stopped and Aiden dismissed them, she made a beeline for the door. She didn’t even bother to change her shoes, flinging on her coat and grabbing her boots as she hurried out, wincing as she tried to cross the icy, snowy parking lot in the heels she was wearing.
This was a terrible idea.
She had intended to focus on the festival, and that was what she should have done. The evening should have been spent up in her room, with a glass of mulled wine and her planner. Her gut instinct not to allow herself to be distracted by Evergreen Hollow’s ‘charms’ that her mother and Melanie wanted her to experience had been the right one all along.
Nora let out an audible sound of frustration as she reached her car, digging into her purse, and realized that she’d forgotten her keys inside. Now she’d have to trudge back and get them.Thatwas really adding insult to the literal injury she’d given Aiden.
She sighed, turning and stepping carefully as she walked back into the building. And she let out another as she walked in and saw that, naturally, it was Aiden at the front desk as the others left. The older woman must have gone home before the lesson was over.
He held out her keys, a bemused smile on his face. “Are you looking for these?”
Nora nodded sheepishly. “Thank you.” She took the keys, wincing when she saw the ice pack in his hand. Her cheeks flushed, embarrassment sweeping through her all over again.
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling like the apology was clumsy at best. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Aiden said smoothly, his voice calm and brusque.
Nora got the distinct impression that he was being polite. That he didn’t really want to continue the conversation. And how could she blame him? She felt like a jerk for not having recognized him at first, and then on top of that, for elbowing him in the face once they’d finally gotten a chance to talk about it.
She felt a strange pull to stand there and catch up with him after all those years, to speak to the kind boy that she’d talked to that day under the shelter. But even though she felt that tug, that desire to pass the time with him and find out what had happened in the years in between, it felt clear that he didn’t feel the same.
