Page 16 of How to Dance

“Yeah, well, Hayley does,” he said.

She squeezed his hand. “If she really does, then maybe you don’t need to fix anything. But I think you know better.” She turned to her daughter. “Ready for clean clothes, Rose?”

Rosie came to an abrupt halt. “Upstairs?”

“Yep. Your clothes are upstairs.”

Rosie looked toward Nick, and he smiled at her. “I’m not going anywhere, sweetie,” he said. “Go get changed, and then you can come sit in the big girl seat in my car if you want.”

“And play the radio?” she asked.

He nodded. “You bet.”

Mel hefted Rosie onto her hip. “Here we go, baby.”

“I’ll be back, Uncle Nick!” she declared.

“I’ll be here, honey.”

Mel looked at Nick. “Don’t think about what Hayley wants or doesn’t want from you. She has a boyfriend, and it’s not your job to make her happy. But do be honest with yourself about what you’re sorry for, and be honest with her when you apologize. Then the charm will work.”

Gavin and Nick went to the den to retrieve Nick’s overnight bag after the ladies had gone. Nick glanced at Mel’s piano keyboard across from the old couch. “Has Mel been writing anything new?”

“She said she’s working on something, but a lot of the time she just plays to unwind.”

“I get that.” Mel had been a music professor and a vibrant part of the local music scene before having Rose, and as much as she now claimed to be content teaching a few piano or voice students from her home and devoting most of her time to motherhood, Nick missed seeing her perform on a stage. “Maybe if you gave her some lyrics to work with,” he said.

“My best stuff is about smacking around underachieving students.”

“Well, hey, dark songs are in right now.”

Gavin stepped ahead of Nick when they reached the front door, then held out an arm for Nick to grasp as he made his way down the porch steps, dragging the walker behind him until his four wheels and two feet were all on level ground.

“Hey,” Nick said, “it’s really annoying the way your wife’s always right.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Gavin said. “We’re always in perfect agreement.” They laughed as they started down the driveway. “That thing you said about women not wanting you?”

“Yeah?” Nick glanced back toward the house; Rosie would soon be dashing out to scramble into the passenger seat of his SUV and listen to music.

“Hayley was pissed at you, but it didn’t look to me like she was pissed because of the walker.”

Nick thought about it and laughed. “You’re saying it’s not that she doesn’t like disabled people. She just doesn’t like me.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“And I should be happy about that.”

“I would be,” Gavin said. “It means you can change things.”

6

Friday afternoon, Hayley strolled into the living room and plopped down next to Kevin on the couch. He put his arm around her while Patrick Swayze defended a bar from hooligans on the television screen.

“I will never understand,” she said, “how he could be in both this andDirty Dancing.”

“It’s just different choreography,” Kevin said. “Look at how clean that spin is. He might as well be doing ballet.”

“Except he kicks that guy in the face.”

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