Chapter 37
Except, the music in question is ‘Nutbush City Limits’ by Tina Turner and I recognise the woman headbanging as she belts out the lyrics as a cabin attendant from our Ryanair flight.
The dance floor is jumping. The bar is three deep.
Shots are being lined up on a table by a couple of the American college girls from our coaching sessions.
‘I’m getting flashbacks to my student days,’ I say, raising my voice to be heard.
‘You’re not going to wimp out and go back to the apartment, are you?’ Jeff asks.
‘Course not. I’m not doing shots, though. You can’t make me.’
‘Who do you think I am? I assure you my J?germeister days are long behind me. I’ll probably just ask for a green tea at the bar. . .’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘Jeff,’ Rose says, appearing from nowhere. ‘We’re next on karaoke. “Up Where We Belong”. You and me.’
‘I thought this wasn’t your kind of place?’ I point out.
‘Oh, you know,’ she shrugs, laughing. ‘In for a penny and all that.’
We hit the dance floor and stay for what might be hours, breaking off for the odd round and to make friends with various randoms, an Italian couple on a golfing holiday and a guy from Stoke who seems determined to let me know that he once met Roger Moore.
Most of the time, we stick together. As one banger of a song starts, Lisa throws one arm around my shoulder and the other around Rose’s and we’re all laughing so hard we can barely catch our breath.
I’m filled with euphoric, drunken thoughts about how lucky I was when this group of people threw their arms wide open and welcomed me in.
Between Jeff, Lisa, Rose and Nora, there is no competition or envy.
No barbed comments or politics. Just friendship, loyalty and love – the easiest kind there is.
As the next song comes on, we break off and dance with our hands in the air.
I get lost in the music, until the moment I glance up and see Sam playing pool on a raised area next to the dance floor.
He seems to sense me and turns to look. My skin suddenly feels like glitter under his gaze.
The moment Sam’s game ends, he shakes hands with his opponent and puts down his cue.
He walks down the four steps onto the dance floor and keeps going until he’s reached me.
‘Finally! You’ve come to dance,’ I grin.
‘Ha! No, I’ve come over because I need someone to play pool with and thought you might be persuaded.’
‘My pool skills are terrible,’ I reply.
‘Can’t be as bad as my dancing. I’m afraid I’m not drunk enough for that.’
‘How drunk would you have to be?’
‘In a coma.’ He grins and the lines around his eyes crinkle, making my heart flip.
‘Oh, come on. Okay, how about this: I’ll play pool, if you dance with me afterwards.’
He ponders the prospect for a moment. ‘Fine.’
‘You promise?’
‘Stop breaking my balls. Come on, let’s go.’
His hand finds mine and, before I can argue, I’m being swept through the crowd. I can hardly keep up as we dodge arms and elbows, until we finally get to the steps. He releases my grip and goes ahead to set up.
‘There is so little point in this,’ I say, pausing on the steps. ‘I really am crap. Beating me won’t be any fun for you at all.’
‘That’s a very negative attitude. Come on, get up here.’
‘I know my limits, that’s all. I realise this might be difficult to believe given how shit hot I am at tennis, but sadly, my pool skills don’t match.’
‘You’re right, that’s very hard to imagine,’ he says, as he racks up the balls and withdraws the triangle. ‘Want to break?’
I gesture for him to go ahead. ‘You go. I’ll watch. Work out my strategy,’ I say, tapping my head.
He smirks and leans onto the table, spreading his fingers across the felt so his knuckles cradle the cue.
The pale-blue cotton of his shirt stretches across his shoulders as shadows settle on his throat and jaw.
He fixes his gaze, a vision of concentration.
When he takes the shot, balls explode across the table like fireworks.
A red ball sinks into a pocket immediately.
‘Oh, that is disappointing,’ I sigh.
‘What is?’
‘Finding out that you’re good at this too.’
‘Anyone can pot a ball on the break,’ he says dismissively.
‘Speaking from experience, I beg to differ.’
‘You have my word. I’m average at best,’ he says, leaning into position again. ‘You’re probably going to kick my arse.’
He glances up and catches my eye, before he looks back at the table. There is the faintest smile on his mouth as he takes the shot – and misses entirely.
‘You did that on purpose!’
He straightens up with a faux-innocent expression. ‘Why would I do that?’
‘I don’t know! Because you want to give me some kind of morale boost? I don’t need you to go easy on me, you know, Sam Delaney.’
‘I would not dream of it,’ he insists, lying through his teeth.
‘Could you hold this please?’ I hand him my drink. He passes me a cue. Our fingers brush and my whole body ignites. I walk around the table to size up the balls, aware that he’s watching me but oddly unselfconscious, happy to soak up the feel of his eyes on my skin.
I bend to take the shot, aiming to pot a yellow into a corner pocket.
I close one eye to see if that helps. When it doesn’t I try the other and find that’s even worse.
I open both eyes, look at the target from all sides, then .
. . miss completely. He has an inscrutable expression when I stand up and sniff.
‘I don’t want to give away my secrets, but that was all strategy,’ I tell him.
‘Really? Interesting approach.’
‘It’s all about lulling you into a false sense of security. . .’
‘Well, it’s definitely working.’
A laugh puffs out of me and I hit him playfully on the chest before he squeezes past behind me. His hands touch either side of my hips. It’s the briefest movement, over in a flash. But as he steps aside, I can still feel the hot imprint of his fingertips.
I have, by this stage, long stopped drinking, glad of my pledge to refuse shots even when I spotted Jeff lining up green concoctions on the bar that looked straight out of the Springfield Nuclear Plant. At some point, Lisa comes over to tell us they’re all heading back to the complex.
‘I think your brother needs a long lie-down,’ she says, crossing her eyes as if to demonstrate the point.
‘Okay! Look after him for me. We won’t be long behind you.’
‘Have fun,’ she adds, and though I couldn’t be certain, I’m sure she gives me a private wink, before heading down the stairs to find the others.
It becomes quickly clear that, whatever Sam claims, he’s as good at pool as he is at everything else.
Yet both of us are entirely complicit in the charade that follows.
Every time he pots a couple of balls, his next shot is inevitably some wild and inconceivable miss, designed for the sole purpose of letting me catch up.
He continues to deny it, while I continue to inform him he’s a bloody idiot and that if he insists on carrying on like this, then more fool him.
A charade, yes, but a delicious one. What’s not to like when we have to squeeze past one another to take a shot?
Which sometimes results in my brushing a hand against his waistband.
Or when I lean across an end of the table in the full awareness that he’s trying hard not to gaze at my behind.
Truth is, I feel like some sexy cowgirl in a music video, laughing, flirting, having the time of my life.
Then I reach a point when I’m completely snookered, surveying the table to try and find a way of even hitting a yellow. From the position of the other balls, I don’t believe it’s even possible.
‘I might as well give up now. I mean, there’s no way of even doing this.’
He’s leaning back on a shelf, forearms crossed, light dancing on his Adam’s apple. ‘There is a way.’
‘Enlighten me.’
He stands up and comes over, using his cue to demonstrate, like a lecturer on a whiteboard.
‘Tap that with enough force that it reaches this yellow over here.’
‘I don’t think I can reach.’
‘It’s tricky, I can’t deny it,’ he says, picking up his beer.
I glance up at him. I can feel my heartbeat in my throat. ‘Then why don’t you come over here and show me?’
There is something in the tone of my voice that makes his bottle freeze at his lips. It seems to surprise him as much as me. And the next thing I know, he is silently lowering it, putting down his cue and walking towards me, until he’s not just next to me. He’s upon me.
His hand cuts a slow path around my waist, like we’re about to embrace for a salsa. His hips tuck against me. Together, we lean in as his palm finds a space on top of my hand. I can feel his breath misting against my hair. My pulse is galloping.
Gently, we move the cue. It misses. Not just the ball we were aiming for, but everything.
Without moving my body, I turn my head to look at him.
‘Damn,’ he whispers. ‘Sorry.’
My eyes drop to his mouth.
‘You’re forgiven.’
My desire to kiss him sweeps in like a hurricane.
‘Have you finished here?’
I blink and stand up. Two guys are awaiting their turn, pool cues in hand.
‘It’s all yours,’ Sam says, clearing his throat.
‘Yes, go ahead. We’re off to dance.’
At that, I grab him by the hand and hear him groan.
‘Oh . . . must we?’ He’s still shaking his head in protest as we get down the steps.
‘A deal’s a deal.’
‘I’m terrible. I’ve told you. I have zero co-ordination.’
‘I don’t mind!’
‘Oh, you will. I was a dad dancer before I was even a dad.
I strongly suggest you back out now. Save yourself.’
I am laughing hysterically now but shake my head, refusing to let him off.
‘That would be no fun at all,’ I say, as Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance with Somebody’ explodes through the speakers.
I find a small corner of the dance floor just for us and I start to move my body. Sam, meanwhile, sort of . . . shuffles.
Contrary to claims, he isn’t really a dad dancer. To be that, he’d have to actually dance. Instead, he simply sways in time to the music, looking self-conscious in a way I’ve literally never seen him before. And I can’t help it. I try not to let it happen. But a smile spreads across my face.
‘I told you!’ he protests, laughing.
‘I’m not smiling at you,’ I grin, innocently.
‘Now who’s patronising?’
‘I just can’t help thinking that it might help to relax into it if you actually . . . you know . . . moved. Come on. Nobody knows you here. You can look as bad as you like. It’s never stopped me.’
I raise my hands above my head as the music beats in my sternum and, for a blissful, probably drunken, moment, I close my eyes and lose myself in it. Self-awareness creeps over me within moments. But when I open my eyes, he’s still smiling at me.
‘Don’t stop,’ he says.
And the way he looks at me then just dissolves me, like sugar in hot milk. I snake my hips towards him as he slides both hands around my waist, drawing me in. I rest my hand at the side of his neck as he sighs into my ear. ‘You are so gorgeous. Always were.’
I pull back slightly as the music fades in my ears.
He dips his head for a small, testing kiss.
It instantly overtakes us both. We make out on the dance floor like teenagers at a prom, uninhibited, oblivious to the world around us.
It’s only the jolt of an elbow in my back, followed by a swift apology from its owner, that brings me back to earth. I look up at Sam.
‘What do you think. Should we get out of here?’