Page 67 of If Ever

It's useless. There's no way to save this dance. I start to giggle, and Dominic, who is trying hard to pull it together, glares at me for breaking character. But when I stumble against him when I can't take a full step, he glances down at my caught up boot, and sees the problem.

"Hold still." We stop in the middle of the catastrophe and he crouches to my feet, rips the fabric edging from my skirt, finally freeing my boot. He rises and we take up our proper hold, and continue with the dance, hopefully salvaging the last thirty seconds; but the trim he tore away is attached by a thread and trails after me like toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

I can't stop giggling and lose all concentration, forcing him to drag me through the final moves. At the end he sweeps me into a grand dip and holds the trailing fabric in the air as if in triumph.

After the obligatory five second hold, he lifts me to my feet and we crack up on our way to the judges' table.

I try to get serious, but one look at Dominic and we burst into laughter. His hand is at my side and we hunch over trying to get control, but it's no use. We're slap happy, and it's not going away.

Nikki LaFlash chuckles along with us. "I want to say nice recovery, but I guess the best I can do is say that at least you tried."

Stephen Harris shakes his head. "Such a shame. You two had just hit your stride."

Brice Zimmer rubs his goatee. "I would have liked to see how you did with that number, but sadly, we must score on what we saw, which was a whole lot of stumbling and fumbling."

Dominic pats me on the back, but neither of us is upset. When dismissed, he leads us across the dance floor and up to the scoring room. "This is going to be bad," I say.

Nikki gives us a six. Dominic and I nod and shrug. Stephen gives us a six, and we look at each other and grin. There's not much we could do to fix that dance. And then the final judge, Brice gives us a six. Dominic and I high-five and laugh at the unanimously pathetic scores.

"If you want Chelsea and Dominic to stay in the competition for the finals, they'll need your votes."

But we're beyond saving and we both know it. It would have been great to go on to the finals, and I'll miss being on the show, but tonight was still a blast. We dance out to the music as the band plays to the commercial break. The other contestants are either laughing with us, or visibly relieved that we'll be out of the competition. Once at the commercial break, I have three minutes to myself, so head backstage.

"Off to call Tom with the good news?"

I flash my eyebrows and grin. Tom answers on the first ring, and before I can say anything, he blurts, "You're coming to New York!"

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