Chapter 14 #2
Without thinking, I press closer. Mike’s hand tightens on my waist—not pulling, just… anchoring… like permission and restraint wrapped in one gesture. The heat of his palm burns through cotton, and suddenly I’m exquisitely aware of every point of contact. Hip to hip. Chest to chest.
“Stop thinking so hard,” he says.
“I’m not?—”
“You’re calculating the exact angle of your hips like there’s going to be a quiz.”
The accuracy stings. “Fine. What should I be doing?”
“Whatever feels good.”
Those three words—the exact ones from our night together—detonate in my bloodstream. The memory crashes over me: his hands, his mouth, the way he’d coaxed responses from my body I didn’t know were possible. The way he’d made me stop thinking and just feel .
The music shifts, something slower and more sensual threading through the speakers. Mike’s other hand finds my waist. We’re properly close now, breathing the same air, and the crowd might as well have evaporated for all either of us could care right now.
“A chaperone’s going to separate us,” I say. “And tell us to find Jesus.”
Mike grins. “Jesus understands. He was all about connection.”
“Pretty sure this isn’t what he meant.”
“Biblical scholarship is very limited on his dance floor preferences.”
A laugh bubbles out of me, unexpected and genuine. With it, something loosens. My body stops fighting the rhythm. When he guides me through a turn, I just follow and trust his hands to bring me back to where I need to be, and they do every time.
“See?” He grins down at me. “Good, right?”
“Bold of you to assume.”
His laugh vibrates through me as our hips move in sync, and heat pools low in my belly.
The dangerous kind. The kind that makes me want to drag him off this stage and find the nearest dark corner.
Map every inch of him with my hands. Let him take me apart again, piece by piece, until thinking becomes impossible.
“The movement reveals truth,” the performer intones. “It lets people see.”
What I see is Mike looking at me like I’m precious and breakable and worth protecting all at once. Like he wants to gather me up and shield me from every hard thing while also trusting me to handle it myself. Like someone I could spend a hell of a long time getting to know.
What I see terrifies me.
The music stops.
We don’t.
We stand frozen, still wrapped around each other while silence stretches.
“What did you learn about your partner?” The performer asks.
Mike doesn’t look away from me. “She’s afraid of letting go. Started out holding on so tight I thought she might leave bruises—” I try to pull back, but his arms keep me close. “—but once she figured out I wasn’t going to let her fall, it was magic.”
The crowd makes approving noises and offers a polite applause while my face burns. He’s just announced my entire psychological profile to a bar full of strangers. Wrapped my deepest fears in a dance metaphor and somehow made it sound like poetry.
The performer looks in my direction. “And what did you learn?”
I could deflect. Make a joke. Protect myself.
Instead, I swallow hard and decide to go for it. “That he notices things that most other people miss. And that he cares too much about making sure everyone else is OK, even when it means denying himself what he wants and maybe needs to be happy.”
Surprise flickers across his features before something warmer takes its place. We stumble off the platform to scattered applause. My legs shake—from dancing or proximity or emotional whiplash, I can’t tell—but Mike’s hand finds the small of my back, steady and sure.
“You OK?” he says.
“Ask me after another drink.”
I sit back at our table as Mike heads for the bar, glad for the moment to compose myself. My hands won’t stop trembling. What am I doing? This was supposed to be casual, right? Two friends supporting each other’s artistic endeavors, right?
Not… whatever that was.
Mike returns with two glasses of amber liquid. “To new experiences.”
“To surviving public humiliation.”
“That wasn’t humiliation. That was?—”
“If you say ‘beautiful,’ this whiskey’s going in your face.”
“I was going to say ‘character building.’”
We clink glasses. The burn down my throat feels clean, clarifying.
Nothing like the cheap shots Maya and I usually do before our nights out.
This is sophisticated. Like I’m someone who slow-dances with beautiful men and reads poetry about my feelings instead of stuffing them down until they explode.
“So.” Mike leans back, studying me. “Want to talk about it?”
“The dancing? The poetry? The part where I almost—” I cut myself off.
“Any of it. All of it.” He shrugs. “Or we could discuss Frond Guy.”
A laugh escapes despite everything. “He was very intense.”
“I’m concerned about his succulents.”
“His whole garden, really.”
We grin at each other, and the tension eases. This is what I can’t figure out about Mike. One moment, we’re so deep in emotional territory I can’t see the surface. The next, we’re laughing about horticultural erotica. The whiplash should be jarring. Instead, it feels like breathing.
“The dancing,” I hear myself say. “It was different than I expected.”
“Different how?”
“Less awful?”
“High praise.”
“You know what I mean.” I struggle for words that won’t reveal too much. “I spend all my time in my head. Planning. Worrying. Monitoring everyone’s everything. But up there…”
“You weren’t.”
“No.” I study the amber depths of my whiskey. “I wasn’t.”
Mike’s quiet for a beat. “I get that. After my injury—” His jaw tightens. “I spent months stuck in my own head. Overthinking every decision, every movement.”
“What changed?”
“Rock bottom.” Tension coils in his shoulders. “Made me realize I could either keep white-knuckling control and be miserable, or learn to let go a little.”
“Hence the poetry.”
“Hence the poetry. And the cooking classes. And that yoga incident.”
Delight fizzes through me. “Please tell me there are photos.”
“Buried deeper than Jimmy Hoffa.”
“That’s a tragedy. I bet you look great in yoga pants.”
The words tumble out before my brain can mount a defense. Mike chokes on his whiskey and his eyebrows climb toward his hairline, while heat floods my face.
“I mean, you probably have excellent… flexibility.”
“Sophie.”
“From hockey! Hockey flexibility!”
“Sophie.”
“What?”
“You’re making it worse.”
“I’m aware.” I drain my whiskey in one burning gulp. “Can we pretend the last thirty seconds didn’t happen?”
“Never.” His eyes spark with mischief. “You just told me I’d look good in yoga pants. I’m getting that embroidered on a pillow.”
I grab a napkin and launch it at his head. He dodges, laughing, and then Mike shifts closer. The laughter in his eyes gentles into something that makes my pulse stutter. Before I can process the danger, his lips brush my cheek. Soft. Brief. But the contact sears straight through to my bones.
“Good night, Sophie.” His voice drops to that tone that liquifies my spine. “Thank you for bearing your soul with me.”
I sit frozen while he pulls back, confused at the sudden termination of the evening. “Mike?” I manage.
“Look,” he says, voice serious. “We’re both fighting not to cross the line you set. And I want to make sure if we do, it’s because you really want to. Sober. In daylight. Without the high of…” He gestures at the stage, the bar, the everything of tonight.
I manage a nod. Words remain beyond me.
He holds my gaze, letting me see the want he’s been trying to hide all night. “I’ve had fun tonight. I’d like more of it… whatever that looks like.”
He waits a beat, maybe hoping I’ll find my voice. But when I don’t, he stands, and I watch him navigate through the crowd toward the exit. My hand rises to touch the spot he kissed, still warm and tingling, and at that moment I come to a startling conclusion.
In three evenings together, Mike Altman has completely rearranged my molecular structure. It’s like someone came into my carefully organized life and moved everything three inches to the left. It looks the same, functions the same, but I know I’ll be bumping into walls for weeks.
And despite every smart thing I’ve ever told myself about boundaries and complications and protecting my heart, I already know I’ll call him.