Page 21 of Night Fever
The music playing overhead is a soft jazz tune, something you’d hear in an elevator or at the mall. Something that’s just background noise, soothing, something that you don’t really notice unless you really payattention.
“Why did you ever stop dancing?” Hendrick asks me as he looks down at mylips.
“That’s a good question,” I reply. He softly rocks my body in his arms, and even though I think a few people are looking at us, I feel as though we’re the only two people on the earth. “I’ve actually been trying to figure that outmyself.”
“You like it. You seem to even love it. And you’re good at it. It’s a shame you everstopped.”
“I don’t think I stopped,” I say thoughtfully, “I think I just put it on pause. Other things got in the way. And I didn’t think I was ever very good atit.”
“I know you don’t think that,” he says, putting my hand to his chest and holding itthere.
“Do you ever feel like something’s missing from your life, and you just don’t know what it is? It seems silly to think about, but sometimes I...I feel an absence. It makes no sense, because you can’t miss what you never had. And how can you feel something that’s not there? I don’t know. I’m not makingsense.”
“No,” he says, pressing a kiss to my forehead, “I understand completely. You feel the outline of something that’s missing. I think that makes perfectsense.”
“I stopped dancing because I’m a perfectionist,” I sigh, confessing the reason to him. “I would practice and practice and it was never enough. I never felt as though I was making the progress I was looking for. So instead of just being good at it and enjoying it, I quit because I felt like I’d never be trulygreatat it. I wanted to try to do it professionally, but I was too afraid ofrejection.”
“Were you happy?” he asks, looking down at me. I put my hands to his chest and he holds me, and I realize we’ve stoppeddancing.
“Yes,” I say. “I was happy. I felt free. While I was doing it, nothing else mattered. I didn’t care about being the best. I don’t even think I’d care if I were horrible at it while I was doing it. All I felt were the movements and floor beneath my feet, and I felthappy.”
“I want to make you that happy,” Hendrick says, taking my face in his hands, putting his thumbs on my temples and caressing mesoftly.
“I think you already do,” I say, “and it makes no sense. But I haven’t felt happy like this in awhile.”
And it’s true. It’s sotrue.
“Then let’s just stay hereforever.”
And as I’m about to lean up to kiss him, I feel his body tense up slightly as he grips me a little bit harder, and the bell over the door to the dinerchimes.
Hendrick
I holdTaylor tight as I watch her father come through thedoor.
He doesn’t look angry at first. He looks confused, his face contorted into an expression of puzzlement and disbelief, his feet moving faster as he walks towardus.
Then hestops.
And now he looksangry.
“When?” he asks, his face growing red. I look down cautiously and see his fists curled up, his fingers digging tightly into hispalms.
“Dad,” Taylor says, stepping away from me, putting one of her hands out to him, “I can explain. It’s not what it lookslike.”
“Taylor, go outside,” her father says, his eyes narrowed on me. He won’t even look at his daughter, which makes me feel sickinside.
He won’t evenlookather.
She looks down and obeys him like a good daughter, but it makes my fucking heart break to watch her walking away from me. I keep my eyes on her as she walks past her father and then out to the door of the diner, looking back at me with a small smile as though she thinks she’s saying goodbye to me forgood.
But this isn’t ending now. No, my relationship with Taylor is juststarting.
“She isn’t supposed to be out late,” Deacon says, glaring at me. “She isn’t supposed to drink. She isn’t supposed to put herself under a lot of stress. She shouldn’t be making any rash decisions. And this is all aside from the fact that she is my daughter and you are my friend. This is just something you do notdo.”
“Don’t be angry with her,” I say, straightening upsquarely.
“I’m not angry at her,” he says, “I’m angry atyou.”
