Chapter 39
TENSION BUT MAKE IT TRAGEDY
Holly
“He didn’t have to say he was hurt. He just stopped dancing like he wanted me.”
Everything felt wrong the second Holly walked in the next morning.
The room was unnervingly quiet, like it had swallowed her whole.
The air felt thinner, colder, like someone had sucked all the oxygen and joy out and left her to suffocate in the aftermath.
Holly swallowed hard, heart already sprinting ahead to the worst-case scenario.
He didn’t even look up when the door opened, just continued his warm-up drills alone in the center of the studio, focused, but closed.
He didn’t clock her presence like he always did. Just gave her a curt little nod, all business, like she was a coworker he’d cc’d out of an email on purpose. No music, no snark, no calling her Martinez or menace or whatever nickname he was using to emotionally compromise her with that week.
God, this was going to suck.
They were working on the Tango this week.
A dance built on tension, desire, dominance.
A dance that lived and breathed in the space between lips not touching, in hands held just tightly enough.
It was supposed to be intimate. Combustible.
Right now she felt like she was in the middle of a hostage negotiation.
She cleared her throat. “Hey.”
“Hey.” Flat. Civil. Like they were strangers in line at LAX security, not two people who’d fucked rough against a glass panel on a rooftop five days ago.
“You okay?” she asked, toeing the line between casual and desperate.
“Yep. Tango?”
Fuck. There it was. The tonal shift of a man who’d walked face-first into a brick wall labeled don’t get attached and was now quietly bleeding behind his polite little nod.
He didn’t ask how she was. Didn’t give her anything except three syllables and the broadest cold shoulder she’d ever seen in her whole damn life.
But that was okay. If this was what he wanted, she’d default to her factory settings.
“Okay,” she said, pretending she didn’t feel the chasm yawning between them. “Let’s start with the hold.”
No smirk. No playful chirp about hand placement, or conspiratorial wink. Nate just gave her a professional nod and the deadpan energy of a man who’d switched his heart to airplane mode. Holly stepped in, lifting her arms like muscle memory might save her.
“The hold for the tango is a little different to our other standard ballroom holds. Your right hand goes here.” She reached behind her back to edge his hand lower, so his wrist was cradling the bottom of her shoulder blade, hand angling downwards on a slope towards her ass.
He moved like a man defusing a bomb until his hand hovered near her waist, barely touching.
“My left hand goes just under your armpit like this.” She demonstrated, fitting her elbow over and around his to lock them into place. “We apply pressure to our elbows like they’re glued together. That’s how we get sharp control. Move your elbow.”
Nate complied without a word, gently swaying. Their connection made it impossible for Holly not to follow, and she let him feel the weight of it before continuing.
“Good. Your leading side will be the same as it is for the other ballroom dances.”
He nodded and lifted his left hand. Holly took it, but there was an immediate lack of presence there which confused her.
She knew his hold by now. She had fucking crafted it.
So why couldn’t she feel his hand on her back, and why was he holding her right hand like he thought she was gonna give him cooties?
She tried to make a joke. Tried to throw him a lifeline wrapped in banter. “You can touch me, you know.”
He hesitated long enough for her to feel the war he was fighting behind his ribs.
“I am.”
No, he wasn’t. His fingers were there. His palm.
His height and breadth and body were technically where they should be, but Nate?
Nate wasn’t there. Not the way he had been.
Not the way he was when he caught her in their contemporary routine, like she was an angel and he couldn’t bear the thought of her going back to heaven without him.
Not the way he’d looked at her in the shower when she broke that night.
His gaze slid past her shoulder, fixed somewhere safe.
Somewhere she wasn’t. A micro-twitch of his hand, like he wanted to pull her closer and couldn’t risk it, his body remembering what his brain was trying to forget.
This wasn’t just awkward. This was we faked dating and accidentally caught real feelings and now we don’t know how to be in the same room without bleeding.
Holly didn’t have the first clue how to fix it.
She’d tried talking to him in the car the day before, and he’d shut her down before leaving.
So she did what she always did when everything turned to shit.
She danced. She led him patiently through the beginning figures of their routine.
Every second made her miss the version of him who used to talk with his hands, laugh with his chest, and hold her like he wasn’t afraid of what it meant.
When they broke apart at the end of the phrase, she held on for a half-second longer than necessary. Fingers curled loosely in the space where his hand used to grip without hesitation.
“I miss my favorite dumb jock,” she said softly, aiming for light, landing closer to please come back.
Nate glanced at her then. Brief. Measured. The corner of his mouth lifted, but barely. A flicker of a smile in a face masked with hockey himbo attitude.
“He’s busy learning the Tango,” he said.
And then he turned away. Closed.
He moved to their little table to grab his water bottle as though admitting she missed him hadn’t cost her pride, oxygen, and at least three years off her life expectancy.
Holly stood there a beat too long, arms hanging useless at her sides, breath still trying to catch up to a rhythm he’d already abandoned.
Her hands were warm with the ghost of him, muscle memory refusing to stand down.
She hated how badly she wanted him to look back, to acknowledge something, and how he absolutely, devastatingly didn’t.
They spent the next hour drilling technique.
Staccato walks, sharp pivots, violent head snaps that should’ve left her breathless, feral, lit on fire.
Tango was supposed to be heat and danger, the art of barely restrained want, all crackle and threat and promise.
It was meant to burn. Instead, Holly felt nothing but a deep freeze settling in her chest, burrowing into the space where he used to be.
Nate didn’t tease when she stumbled. Didn’t flirt when she got close. When their hands brushed, he recoiled as if he was bracing for a blow he already knew how to survive. She didn’t blame him.
Not after the press, and the way she’d let that moment spin out instead of speaking up.
Cameras flashing, reporters poking at scars with smiles on their faces.
She hadn’t defended him fast enough. Loud enough.
At all. Now, he was dancing like it was armor.
And she was the one who’d handed him the fucking chainmail.
She caught his reflection in the mirror with his broad shoulders squared, jaw tight, eyes locked on his footwork like nothing else existed.
And for a split second, it was like staring at the version of him she’d met that very first day.
The one who kept everything in. Who didn’t joke. Who didn’t trust.
Like the real Nate—who chirped her through wardrobe fittings, kissed her like prayer, who told her she was the fire and meant it—was trapped behind glass again.
Watching. Waiting. Bleeding.
In the far corner of the studio, Martin leaned silently against the wall scribbling something on a notepad. Holly didn’t have to ask what. Because of course he saw it too. This wasn’t just a tense rehearsal. It was a storyline.
@glitterballconfessionals on Instagram:
Y’all. This week’s rehearsal footage has no business hitting like a divorce filmed in slow motion.
No teasing. No flirting. Just vibes. Sad, sexually repressed vibes.
#tangno #natelookedsocold #someonepleasehugholly
PopSugar Online:
Two to Tango? Nate and Holly’s Rehearsal Has Fans Worried
After weeks of steamy chemistry and undeniable connection, this week’s behind-the-scenes rehearsal left fans stunned and not in a fun, glittery way.
Gone were the cheeky banter and suggestive smirks.
Instead, Holly Martinez and Nate Eriksson moved like strangers who used to be in love and weren’t sure if they were allowed to be again.
Was it just method acting for the Tango? Or are we… READ MORE →
@ttftldr on Tiktok:
he used to hold her like she was gravity
now he won’t even look at her
don’t talk to me unless you’ve had a man stop dancing like he wants you
#takethefloor #hollyandnate #tangotension