Page 97 of The Rom-Commers

I’d have to google “jazz box.” “My legs keep getting tangled,” I said.

At that, Lorenzo—good god!—looked down at my legs.

I held very still.

Then he said, “You should tie your shoelaces,” in a voice that made me feel pretty certain I’d never think about shoelaces in the same way again.

For a half second, I wondered if Lorenzo Ferrari, line-dancing Adonis, might actually kneel down and tie them for me.

But that’s when I looked down to realize Charlie was already there.

Charlie Yates. Had dropped down on one knee. In front of me. On the floor of a honky-tonk. And was now tying my sneaker laces in double knots with gruff but unmistakable affection.

Not gonna lie. As much as our instructor was objectively, legitimately, inescapably sexy, and as much as I’d enjoyed teasing Charlie about it… No amount of ogling Lorenzo Ferrari did even a fraction of the things to me that the sight of Charlie Yates tying my shoes did.

Right there, for a second, it felt like the music disappeared, and Lorenzo disappeared, and all the other dancers did, too, as Charlie held my gaze and I held his right back, and something happened in my chest that was the opposite of all the thumping and thrashing my heart had been doing lately.

Something, instead, that was like… a sigh.

Like my heart itself might be letting out a five-point-five-second breath.

Something that was absolutely, undeniably romantic.

Even though what he was doing was completely obvious, I said, “What are you doing?”

I expected some brush-off response, like, “Tying your shoes, dummy.” But instead, he said, “I’m apologizing.”

“For what?”

He tilted his head back in the direction of his house. “For being a dick before.”

“You’re apologizing? In a honky-tonk bar?”

This was the moment we’d come here to find. This was the real moment that would bring the fictional one to life. This was the difference between imaginary things and real ones.

Case closed: we’d have to put this in the screenplay.

Just as soon as I could figure out how to explain that to Charlie without completely confessing what he’d just done to me.

As Lorenzo moved on to the next waiting female who wanted help, Charlie stood back up, shook his head at me, and said, “Double knots—not just bunny ears.” As if he gave me shoe-tying tips all the time—but I never listened.

He bent at the waist and pulled up his pant legs to show me his own laces, with their own double knots, as examples to strive for.

I peered down, and that’s when I realized we were both wearing the same shoes. Black Converse low-tops. “We match!” I said.

“You’re not very observant,” Charlie said. “We’ve been matching this whole time.”

“Have we?” I asked, feeling absurdly charmed by that fact—like it was some kind of fate.

But then a woman in a fringe pearl-snap blouse leaned in and pointed at our feet. “You can’t spin in those,” she said.

We both looked up.

“The rubber soles,” she explained. “It’ll twist your knees.”

“Do we need different shoes?” I asked her, strangely dismayed at the prospect of no longer matching.

But the woman shook her head. “Just cut up some old socks,” she said, “and stretch them over the balls of your feet like leg warmers.”

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