Page 56 of Wild Hit
I find us a good spot by the stage and whirl us around so that her back is against it, and the drunk strangers are behind me. “Ready?” I have to shout.
“No,” she yells back and raises her hands like she’s setting up for a waltz. “What do I do?”
I grab her hands and pull her closer, leaning into her ear. “Follow my lead,” I paraphrase her.
She stiffens but still allows me to guide her hands. One goes to my shoulder, the other one stays nestled in my hand. My free hand goes to her waist, which is lower and more daring than a fancy European dance. And even though I’m sticking to my vow of keeping a decent distance, I still position her closer than when we danced the first time. Audrey watches me like a hawk, lowering her focus down to my feet.
I release her waist to tip her chin back up, and she blinks in confusion. “Don’t look down, just go with the flow,” I kinda shout into her ear.
In the same volume, she asks, “What if my flow is awful?”
“Then go with my flow.”
She cringes like this is the scariest part of the night, and not the I do’s that will follow. The good thing is that she’s probably not thinking about that right now, though, and frankly neither am I.
I have enough Indigenous and Black blood to make me a percussion guy, and I find my rhythm with no effort. Audrey resists the motions at first, or maybe it’s just that she doesn’t know what to do. After a few easy steps back and forth in the classic 1-2-3–5-6-7, she starts to follow.
“This isn’t so bad,” she yells.
All I do is smirk a little.
The beat changes and I show her the classic Venezuelan style, which is probably the simplest of all. I alternate holding her hands as I swing to the side, moving away from her while my feet do their thing. She gets the hang of it, even if she can’t yet add any swing to her steps. After a moment I return her to my arms, and the song starts to wind down.
A different beat leaks in slowly, and I don’t need to have gone to college to know what’s coming. El papá de los helados: a classic reggaeton jam by Daddy Yankee.
As the tune builds up, I speak into her ear again, “Are you ready for the big leagues?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
Slowly, I slide my hands down to land at her hips—not her waist, lower. Where she’s gonna have to move. We stand still. Me, waiting to see if she’s not on board. Her, making a decision.
The response comes with her hands settling on my shoulders and her scream-saying, “Just don’t let me fall.”
I wouldn’t. Never in this life. Especially not when I’m too busy falling myself.
Instead, I respond, “I got you.”
Pressing my fingers subtly, I guide her hips to follow mine. Reggaeton is probably the easiest Latin dance, in that it doesn’t require special footwork. It’s all about the swing and the swag. We’re as close as it can get without rubbing all up on each other, and she keeps blinking owlishly at me under the strobe lights. Someone bumps into my back but I couldn’t care less, I have a handful of woman to focus on.
Daddy Yankee sings about a woman who is dura, which after playing with so many Puerto Ricans I learned is code for a hot woman. I fix my eyes at a blurry spot behind Audrey, trying to turn my brain off to the fact that she’s hot. In my arms. Moving her hips along with mine. And that my skin is in flames, even when we’re not close enough.
How the hell am I going to behave when I have to kiss her at the chapel?
CHAPTER 21
AUDREY
Ithink I’m in shock.
The guys are trawling downstairs in search of a certain Lucky Rivera, who has been seen in so many different spots that no one knows who hallucinated him and who saw him for real.
Rose, Hope and I are in the private VIP area, sitting together on the couch and having tiny and very colorful cocktails that first hit you with sweetness and then with a punch to the solar plexus. It’s exactly what I need, and yet it can’t pacify me for reasons I don’t understand.
Okay, I lie. I know exactly why.
The problem is that I’m super embarrassed. It’s a damn shame that I can’t bury my head in the sand and live like that the rest of my life.
The reason is because I’m today years old when I discovered that Miguel Machado is a man.
