Chapter 12 Jack & Jill #5
The next morning, we get up very early and have our first morning dance around my coffee machine and toaster.
This could be every day, I think. I could get used to the kisses over breakfast and the carefully washed dishes. I could get used to amazing sex with someone who puts me first.
It isn’t scary. I’m not caught up in the thrill of whether he’s going to stay or go. I can just trust that he is going to be there.
When I go back to my bedroom to get ready for a shower, my phone buzzes, and I glance at it.
I immediately relax when it isn’t Abby. Hannah is fine.
Everything is fine. Abby is going to be flying back to New York with Hannah in another day or two, and then Abby will stay on my sofa for a few days while she visits and writes her financial articles in her pajamas.
It is Helen texting me.
Guess who went viral? her text reads, and I click on the link, expecting to see Dion smoothly drifting across the floor with Paula.
But no. It is me and Connor, dancing together with the label: ‘Newbie dancer with two months experience and Connor Yung. IMPROVISED DANCE!!!!’
Who even posted this? I scan the page, then quickly text back to Helen.
Dion Reyes posted this???
She replies, He reposted someone else’s video, but he added the label. He must like you!
That is when I finally sit back and watch the video.
It has over eight hundred views already, which is pretty astonishing.
I look good, I can admit to myself. Not amazing, and nothing compared to someone like Paula or Yukka or Eliana.
But I look good for a beginner. And more importantly, I look like I’m having fun.
I dare to read the comments, and most of them are about how hot Connor is, and how he can make any partner look good, which is fair.
Then there are comments about how I could not have only been dancing for a couple of months, which I decide to take as a win.
Finally, there is my favorite comment of all, the one that I’ve seen on dozens of my favorite videos: There is no way this was improvised!
That had to have been planned in advance.
I know the feeling. It was exactly how I felt when I first saw an improvised dance: I felt like the dancers were so connected to the music that everything must have been choreographed ahead of time.
Now I realize it’s just about experience and being in the zone, like being in a jam band.
It’s something I could talk about with Nick, if we ever reach the place where we can talk about things like this. I hope we will.
I decide to ‘like’ the post on YouTube. Maybe I’ll get a TikTok account now, too, just to follow whatever Dion is up to.
Two days later, on Tuesday night, I meet Abby and Hannah at the airport after work.
By the time we’re at baggage claim, it’s clear that their patience with each other has grown thin.
Three weeks is the longest that Hannah and I have ever been apart, and Abby has had to set some ground rules in order to get her work done.
They are sniping at each other when I see them, and they never do that; Hannah has always worshipped the ground that Abby walks on, but now she is groaning the words “I knooooooooowww” when Abby guides her out of the path of someone’s luggage cart.
Once we are tucked into a taxi, though, they start flipping through photos on Abby’s phone, updating me on their trips and swimming holes and whale watches, and I sense that everything is going to be okay between them once I get Hannah tucked back into her own bed.
“It was a long trip for her,” I say quietly when Hannah starts to nod off.
“It was good for the first two weeks,” Abby replies with a shrug.
“That may be the limit next time, then,” I say.
“Well, she’s getting older. We’ll see.” Abby grins at me. “And how are you?”
I smile, too. I’m glad that she’s not upset with me or Hannah. I’ve missed her so much it’s like a physical wound.
Later that night, we sit on my sofa, the sounds of New York rumbling through the windows behind us. Hannah is passed out in her own bed, three stuffed animals back in her arms.
“It still feels like home whenever I come back to New York,” she says. “Sometimes I talk about moving back here with Paul, but I don’t know. Newfoundland is growing on me.”
“It’ll always be your home here.”
“Technically, Troy is home, but I don’t feel that when I go there.” She gives a little shrug. “Home is the place you feel most like yourself.”
“And the person you feel most like yourself with.”
She looks thoughtful. “So what happened with your swing dancing event? You didn’t tell me whether you won the whole thing or not.”
“Oh! I went viral.”
I hand her my phone, and she watches the video of me and Connor, then looks back at me. “You sassy bitch. Is the hot guy the one you were in love with?”
“No, that’s Connor Yung. I didn’t show you a video of Ollie dancing yet?”
“There are videos of him dancing?”
“Here’s Ollie.”
I click on a video. and she watches it for a long moment. “I mean, I get it. I can see why he managed to get you tangled up.”
“We’re actually back together.”
“What? Wait, what? Why didn’t you start with that?”
Abby swears a lot when she’s excited. It’s one of the things we have in common. I get a full twenty seconds that would be removed from network television before she shoves me. “Make him come over. Now.”
“It’s late, and he has work in the morning.”
“Do I look like I care? I want to see him in person.”
“It’s after nine. You can meet him tomorrow.”
“Just do it. For me. Please. It needs to be tonight. I’m dead serious. Right now, Laura. I’m not kidding.”
“Okay, fine. I’ll see if he’s free.”
Ollie arrives at a little after 10 p.m. She gives him a thorough looking over as he shakes her hand. His face is still a little bruised, but he has his usual polished appearance otherwise.
“How’d you get here so fast?” she asks. “You’re on the Upper West Side, right? Did you drive? Taxi?”
“Taxi.”
“How much was that?” Now I can tell Abby’s planning on giving him a hard time. I want to ask her not to. This is too new.
“Well, she asked me to come right away,” he says.
“This isn’t a booty call for my sister, you know. You can’t spend the night.”
Ollie laughs. “I hadn’t planned on it.”
“So you were planning to just hook up with her and go home? Shameful.”
Ollie still looks amused, which is a relief. “I was hoping to meet her sister, actually. The famous Abby.”
I step in. “Okay. I think that’s enough torturing him.”
“No, no, no. I decide when he’s had enough. So why’d you give her such a hard time? Dating, not dating, all that nonsense…”
Ollie sighs. “I was scared things weren’t over with her ex.”
“Nick?” Abby considers this. “Yeah, I could see that. But only because Nick is such a manipulative weasel. That’s not Laura’s fault.”
Ollie grimaces. “Well, I’m glad she’s not with him, then.”
“So what are your intentions?” she asks. I try again to interrupt, but Ollie doesn’t bat an eye.
“Serious ones.”
“So you’ll still be together in June?”
“I hope so.”
Does she mean…? “Wait. Why?” I interrupt.
“Because that’s when my wedding is. Hannah and I looked at locations together. We’ve got a date!”
“That’s amazing.” I give Abby a huge hug.
She looks at Ollie with a smile. “And now that I’ve decided that Oliver is acceptable, he can come, too.”
Ollie grins. “What did I do to earn the acceptable label?”
“You dropped everything to show up here at ten at night just because she asked you to.”
“Well, she wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important to her.”
Abby smile slowly widens as she glances at me. “Yes, he’ll do.”
There are few things as terrifying as arriving at work to find a meeting invitation from someone who is not part of your department. Destiny has asked to see me, so I head up to her large corner office, which turns out to be as elegantly styled as she is: all cool whites and understated paneling.
“So,” Destiny says. “Someone came into my office this morning to discuss something with me, and I think you need to be informed about it.”
I sense that this is not good news, but I can’t be sure. “Okay…?”
“Apparently people in the office have been following Ollie’s swing dancing career?
” Destiny says it with skepticism, like she’s asking whether Ollie is part of a Dungeons and Dragons club or a hacky-sack tournament.
“And I guess there was some story about Oliver confessing his love to you at an event? In the middle of a crowd? I didn’t get all the details.
But does that sound right? That you two are seeing each other? ”
“Oh.” My voice suddenly sounds like a teenage girl’s.
“I gather there’s video of you dancing at a party, as well?
” Destiny asks it like it’s a question, but I know that it is not.
“My concern is this. Our committee is creating a report about how everyone in the company should act with regard to disclosing a relationship, and it will look extremely poorly if two members of the committee were getting together in the middle of it. Which is why I asked that question at the beginning of the process.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Ollie and I were not in a monogamous relationship at that point. We didn’t know what to report, and then we put things on hold for several weeks entirely, and then broke up, and last weekend, we did end up getting back together.
But I thought our committee work was essentially done. ”
“Done but not presented. You should have told me about this immediately.”
I take a breath. “The truth is, unless the people are reporting to each other as manager and employee, relationships are usually too complicated to define them in the early stages.”
“I can respect that. But someone felt concerned enough about this to report this to me and your managers.”
“Was it Brant?” I ask.