Page 29 of Swept Away

I snap out of it, looking away from the water. There’s a gap between the railings and where the wheelhouse cover would come down if we hadn’t sawed it off for our sail, and I slip through. My hand stays linked with Zeke’s for just a touch longer than it should. I’m wine-giddy and sun-kissed and feeling desperate; right now I really do wish he’d not declared sexforbidden. It’s one of those words that makes me contrary, especially when I’m tipsy.

Then “Let It Go” starts on the phone, and the moment I hear the opening notes, it’s like Mae has stepped onto the deck. As the piano plays out across the water, I miss her so much it makes me breathless. The soft, trusting weight of her as I carry her, sleeping,from the car. The cadence of her brightest laugh, the one that tumbles out of her. The way she says my name—Lexeeee—when I’m telling her no more telly.

I gulp in a breath, eyes flicking to Zeke, who is watching me in that thoughtful way of his, as though he’s trying to figure me out.

“I can just about slow dance,” he says. “You want to show me how it’s done?”

“I think you’re really overestimating how much I can remember from dance classes that took place in an age when we were all wearing baggy jeans the first time around.”

His lip quirks. “I think you’re capable of pretty much anything.”

He holds his hand out to me. I take it. He settles the other lightly on my waist, and we begin to dance, circling in the center of the little triangular deck as though we’re on the dance floor at a wedding. At first it feels ridiculous, but by the time we hit the chorus, I’m resting my head against his shoulder, eyes pricking with tears, gripping his hand tightly. The floor moves beneath us, but I’m used to it now, that ebb and bob, the knowledge that the sea is always so, so close.

“Why did you stop dancing?” he asks quietly.

“God, I don’t know, it was decades ago,” I say, but the moment it comes out of my mouth, Idoknow. Dad was long gone. Money was tighter than ever. The pub was too quiet. Penny loved her football lessons, and I knew Mum paid for them, so something had to give.

As the last line of “Let It Go” plays out, I tilt my head to look up at him. His hazy maple-syrup eyes; the faint impression of dimples; the sensitive line of his lip, reddened by the wine. I know if I kissed him, I’d taste the merlot already on my tongue.

It takes me a moment to realize the song has shifted to “A Whole New World.”

“I actually did learn a routine to this song,” I say. “It was the firstone we did at the class.” I’d made Penny practice with me in the pub garden, cheered on by the summer tourists with their spritzers and sun hats.

Zeke smiles. “Yeah? Show me.”

I snort. “It was very…”

I step back and fling my arms in the air, lifting my face dramatically to the sun.

Zeke copies me, ringlets flying, the tips of his fingers brushing my arm as he lifts his hands to the sky and bends his back. I press my lips together, and then, because I’m drunk, and because right now nothing seems to matter much, I start dancing.

The teacher called thismodern dance, but I don’t know if it quite fits in any category—it’s just the sort of solo a child would perform in the living room. She pitched it perfectly, hence the fact that I seem to remember it two decades on. There’s not a lot of footwork and there is a lot of arm sweeping. At one point I have to take three little steps backward, and gothwackinto the steering wheel; Zeke reaches out to steady me, his eyes bright and laughing, and I don’t even stop to wonder if he’s laughing at me or with me.

I barely falter—it all just comes back to me, almost like it’s skipped my brain altogether and the memory has stayed in my body. Just as I reach the finale, I remember how Penny and I adapted it that summer, making it a two-person performance.

“Catch me and lift me up!” I say, grabbing Zeke’s shoulders and hopping.

He cottons on fast. He grips me around the waist and lifts me as I push off his shoulders. I am a lot bigger than I was when I last did this, and have considerably less core strength, but thankfully Zeke is a much better dance partner than eight-year-old Penny. He’s holding me up as I tentatively stretch my arms out to either side, one of my feet popped in full Mia–in–Princess Diariesstyle,and we’re wobbling, teetering here on the deck, already starting to laugh. The sun is in my face and my heart is pounding—this is the first time I’ve raised my heart rate with something other than terror since we left dry land.

I look down at his face, tilted up to mine. He’s smiling, those crossed teeth showing, his eyes narrowed against the sun’s glare; he looks gorgeous. As he lowers me to the deck, I feel every inch of our bodies touching. His eyes grow warmer, smile subsiding to the crooked one that draws a dimple in his left cheek. His chest is rising and falling, his curls mussed.

Then he drops his grip on my waist, reaching for the phone on the shelf above the steering wheel and hitting replay on “A Whole New World.”

“OK,” he says, “so step one is…”

He starts dancing.

I’m still out of breath, and he catches me completely by surprise. I laugh as he tries to mimic my performance, complete with pointed toes, expressive hair flicks and a move that takes him dangerously close to hurling himself into the sea.

“Careful!”

He grips the railing, bent over, laughing.

“What’s next?” he asks. “How am I doing?”

“You’re a natural. It’s the shimmy,” I tell him, demonstrating, and then wincing slightly—this move is a bit different now that I’m a fully grown woman.

I think I catch a flicker of heat in his eyes as he watches me dance, but he smiles it away and starts shimmying right back at me.

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