Page 71 of The Dance Deception
‘Flatmate?’ Aleksis repeats, raising an eyebrow as I slip my phone back into my bag.
‘With benefits,’ I grin, sliding my arm round his waist and pulling him close.
‘I’ll take that,’ he laughs, putting his arm round my shoulders. I think we’re both thinking about the benefits for the rest of the walk.
Chapter 37
‘Check you out, Miss Finalist,’ Lucy says when we arrive at the pub.
‘It’s bonkers, isn’t it?’ I laugh, giving her a hug. ‘I can’t even describe how it felt when I saw our score. It’s such an adrenaline rush you barely even register it.’
‘I knew you could do it,’ she beams. Then her eyes light up as Aleksis slips into the chair next to mine and kisses me.
‘Congratulations,’ she says to him, and I know she doesn’t just mean for winning tonight’s show. Given half a chance she’ll no doubt tell him what a lucky man he is to have snared me. She must be dying to find out how the two us made the leap from faking our romance to doing it for real.
‘Did you enjoy it?’ Aleksis asks her.
‘It gets better every week. I can’t wait for the final – it’s going to be epic.’
‘Speaking of which, I’ve got our last envelope in here,’ Aleksis says to me, patting his pocket.
‘Ooh, open it now,’ Lucy urges, before I have time to reply.
‘Yes, go on,’ Beth says from across the table. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’
‘You weren’t all supposed to hear that,’ Aleksis laughs. ‘It’s meant to be a secret.’
‘We won’t tell.’ Beth looks round at everyone. ‘Will we?’
My eyes meet Liam’s.
‘Promise,’ he says. ‘I’m not going to mess up again.’
‘I’ll share if you share,’ Tammy offers. ‘I’ve already looked at mine with Elijah.’
‘Okay, fine,’ Aleksis laughs. ‘Let’s do it.’
‘So, Elijah and I will be dancing …’ She performs a drum roll on the table. ‘The rumba! Which is exactly what I was hoping for. There’s an extra surprise in the envelope too, but I’ll leave that for you to read for yourselves. Okay, your turn.’
I hold my breath as Aleksis opens our envelope, conscious this narrows my possibilities down to just the Argentine tango and the merengue, and gutted that I’m not going to get the chance to learn the rumba myself.
Before he starts speaking his eyebrows shoot up, which I don’t think is a good sign, especially not when it’s accompanied by a long pause that I don’t think is for dramatic effect.
‘The Argentine tango,’ he finally reveals, his eyes finding mine.
My hands fly up to my mouth. ‘No!’ Of all the dances, why did our last one have to be that one?
‘And there’s more,’ he says. ‘We’ll also perform another dance of our choice.’
‘That’s the extra surprise,’ Tammy explains.
‘That’s a lot to learn,’ Beth frowns, voicing my immediate concern.
‘It can be one of the dances you’ve already done,’ Tammy clarifies. ‘A previous favourite, it doesn’t have to be something new. I’d love to do our merengue again, even if it didn’t get us a great score – although now it’s put Emilia out of the competition Elijah will probably have other ideas.’
I can’t even think about what my favourite has been. I’m still reeling from the tango news. But Aleksis tucks the envelope back in his pocket and insists we don’t even think about it until tomorrow. ‘Tonight is for celebrating,’ he says resolutely.
And I do manage to push it to the back of my mind and immerse myself in the banter for the rest of the evening. But as soon as we’re alone back at the flat, my anxiety comes flooding back. Landing the tango just feels like such a rotten break when things have finally started going our way.
