Chapter 78 Take the Floor
TAKE THE FLOOR
Holly
“That kiss was for every version of me who thought love was a trap.”
The press line was a fever dream of sequins and flashbulbs. Questions overlapped. Someone asked about ‘chemistry’, and someone else asked about the NHL. Holly smiled while Nate was charming and noncommittal. Then it was over.
A production assistant herded them toward the stage entrance where the final three couples were gathering before the results.
Nick stood with Cherry, composed as ever, one hand folded neatly at his wrist like he’d wandered in from a BBC period drama and simply never left.
The third couple, Luca and Dominique, hovered nearby.
Holly felt Nate’s hand brush hers, almost like a warning. She looked up and saw her.
Sophie. Immaculate in a tailored cream pantsuit, headset angled like a crown. Ah yes. Corporate Villain Barbie, enter stage right.
Holly didn’t hesitate. She stepped away from Nate under the guise of adjusting her heel and approached Sophie with the serene smile that ballroom dancers perfect early on in their competitive careers.
“Congratulations,” Sophie said smoothly, in a detached way that Holly clocked instantly. She was uncomfortable. “No matter what happens next, you two made for excellent television.”
Holly tilted her head. “We absolutely did.” She waited a beat before continuing lightly, as though discussing catering options. “You should know I’m aware of what happened earlier this season. The shoes. The necklace. Lars.”
Sophie’s expression didn’t even flicker. “Allegations are dangerous.”
“So’s documentation,” Holly said, her voice just as quiet. “Good thing Lars kept receipts.”
Holly let the implication sit there between them like a loaded envelope. It was too late for Sophie to fuck with her one last time, but not too late for Holly to repay the favor.
“Do you think he’s the type that’d go straight to the media?” Holly mused. “Or would he lawyer up?” She tossed Sophie an appraising glance, almost like she actually cared. Then she smiled. A real one. “Guess it all depends on how you ended things with him, right?”
Sophie paused deliberately, before her fake smile sharpened by half a millimeter. “Careful.”
Holly nodded, her expression melting into fake seriousness. “Yes… I would be, if I were you.”
Behind her, a shadow detached itself from the wing curtain.
Nick stepped forward with the quiet precision of a man who had never once rushed a moment in his life.
His suit was immaculate, his expression unreadable, but his gaze had already taken in Sophie’s posture, Holly’s smile, and the tension in the air between them buzzing like static before a storm.
He ignored Sophie and looked straight at Holly, standing by her side. Silent Ally Mode activated.
“You alright?”
Holly glanced from Nick, to Sophie, and then back again as she decided the other woman wasn’t worth another second of her time.
“I am now.”
Nick studied her for a long moment, as though carefully weighing those words behind his infamous composure.
And then voice rang out like champagne uncorking. “Finalists to stage!”
Holly took a deep breath, grabbed Nick’s hand and gave it a squeeze.
“Come on.” She grinned, towing him over to where the others were waiting. “Time for me to prove I’m a better dancer than you.”
His mouth curled at the corner with the smallest smile.
“Let’s not ruin a perfectly good friendship with delusion, darling,” he told her, allowing himself to be led.
Nate glanced at the pair of them as they joined the group, and Holly just shook her head in an, I’ll tell you later gesture as Nick went to join Cherry.
The silence of the audience felt almost physical, a living thing pressing against Holly’s ribs.
The three remaining couples stood in a tight line at center stage, hands clasped and shoulders squared, smiles stretched thin with tension.
Above them, confetti cannons loomed like ceremonial artillery, primed for either triumph or devastation depending on where you fell in the results.
Indie stood beside them in a blaze of sequins and camera-ready chaos, vibrating with the glee only live television could produce. She lifted the mic with theatrical reverence.
“This,” she declared, voice ringing across the tv studio, “has been one of the most explosive seasons in Take the Floor history. Romance. Redemption. Ratings. I mean, I personally require a lie down.”
The audience rumbled in response, applause ricocheting off the roof as the final seconds stretched tight as wire. Holly braced, because if she was going to pass out on live television she at least want it to look dramatic.
“And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for,” Indie grinned wickedly. “In third place…”
A drumroll.
“…Luca and Dominique!”
Applause thundered as Luca and Dominique stepped forward.
Dominique’s smile trembled but held, bright and unbreakable as she blinked back tears, while Luca pressed his forehead briefly to hers in a quiet, private acknowledgment of everything they’d built together.
They bowed with the grace that only comes from having given everything you had.
The crowd rose for them, a standing ovation that felt less like consolation and more like respect as they moved offstage.
Indie turned back to the remaining couples, the tension rewinding tight.
Nate’s thumb brushed once against Holly’s knuckles, subtle but calm.
They stood in the middle of it with sweat still cooling on her skin, and for one insane heartbeat she thought, We might not even win and it still wouldn’t matter, because the real victory was right here: the way Nate looked at her as if she’d hung the stars herself and all he’d ever wanted was permission to polish them.
“And the winners of Take the Floor season 12 are,” Indie purred, drawing it out until the entire country leaned forward.
Holly heard Nate draw a huge breath beside her.
“HOLLY AND NATE!”
Confetti exploded.
It burst from cannons like the ceiling had finally given up holding itself together, raining silver and gold over the floor in a glittering avalanche that made the stage lights strobe like a nightclub.
Holly barely registered it as the roar of the crowd hit her like a tumbling wave she hadn’t been quite ready to catch.
There was screaming, chanting, feet stamping hard enough to shake the cameras and all of it sounded distant, like she was underwater.
Everyone hugged everyone, and Holly felt Nick give her an extra squeeze that told her without words that he didn’t mind it being her and not him.
And then the floor blurred as Nate yanked her into his arms. Her feet left the ground and she laughed as he spun her like she weighed nothing.
He was laughing too, the big, helpless kind, the kind that made his eyes crinkle and go bright, and she realized with a jolting tenderness that she’d never seen him this unguarded in front of anyone else.
Not even on their best nights. Not even when they’d burned the ballroom down.
This was pure boyish joy, as though the teenage Nate in that photo had somehow made it all the way here with them both.
Her throat tightened. Her vision shimmered. She tried to tell herself it was just sweat and lights and confetti in her lashes, but her heart knew better. This is it, it whispered. This is the part where you finally get what you wanted and you don’t know what to do with how big it feels.
When Nate finally set her down, he didn’t let go. His hands slid to her waist, as if he was afraid the ground might betray her again. And then he leaned in, close enough that only she could hear him over the studio bedlam.
“We did it,” he said, voice rough with wonder.
Holly stared at him like he was a miracle, still trying to breathe around the truth of it. She’d nearly lost him to her own fear, having spent so long on the run that she’d been so certain love meant pain. She opened her mouth to say something smart, something cool, something like herself.
But Nate glanced around, scanning the chaos like a soldier in a parade, and then his focus snapped back to her with a sharpness that made her pulse trip.
His expression shifted with intent, as though he’d remembered something that mattered more than the cameras, more than the confetti, and the screaming audience.
“C’mere,” he murmured, and it wasn’t a question.
He threaded his fingers through hers and tugged her off their mark.
Not far, just a few steps sideways, into the small pocket of shadow between two camera rigs where the lights didn’t bite quite as hard.
The crew still swarmed, one camera guy training his lens on them.
Indie and the crowd were still going, but Nate moved like this moment had narrowed down to one thing and one thing only.
Her.
“Are you okay?” Holly asked, a laugh still caught in her throat.
“Yeah,” Nate swallowed. His jaw flexed like he was bracing for a hit, and for a second she saw the old Nate flicker behind his eyes. The man built out of impact and punishment. Then it cracked, and what was underneath was raw and almost shy. “Just take this.”
He reached carefully into the inside pocket of his tux, and handed her a photo.
Holly’s breath stopped. It was her.
Not now. Not the ballroom assassin in rhinestones with her name in the credits.
It was a gangly teenage girl with braces in an old leotard, hair scraped back, face flushed with exertion and joy, caught mid-laugh like someone had told her the future would be kind.
The photo looked worn at the edges, as if it’d traveled. Been loved.
She stared at it so hard her eyes stung, because she knew that photo so well. It had lived in her mom’s purse since the day it’d been printed. And she’d given it to him.
“Nate…” she whispered, because what else was there? How did you speak around something like this?
His thumb brushed her knuckles. “Flip it.”
Her hands shook as she turned it over.
There it was on the back, in messy, masculine, ink pressed deep like it had been written with force.
Picked my star. It’s always been you.
Holly felt it like a gut punch and made a humiliating sound. A broken little inhale that turned into a sob before she could stop it.
“Jesus,” she choked, every version of her who’d clawed and scraped and fought to be good enough collapsing into one breathless moment. Confetti landed on the photo. She didn’t even brush it off. Her lungs forgot how to work. Tears blurred the ink, the edges, the whole damn world.
Nate had looked panicked for half a second as if maybe he’d accidentally offered her a grenade instead of a gift. Holly made a sound that might’ve been a laugh and a cry at the same time and then she lunged.
She slammed into him like a tackle, arms wrapping around his neck as she clung to him with the desperate force of someone who’d been starving and didn’t know she was allowed to eat.
Nate staggered back a step but caught her like he always did.
When she buried her face against his shoulder, she realized he was shaking too.
“You—” she tried, but the words kept dissolving into sobs. “You absolute—what the fuck, Nate!”
He laughed sheepishly. “Is that… good?”
She yanked back just enough to glare at him through tears, mascara probably bleeding into her soul. “You’re such an idiot,” she cried, furious at him for being this kind. Furious at herself for nearly missing it. “You’re such a—” her voice cracked. “Stupid beautiful idiot.”
She reached into the bodice of her raspberry-red dress and pulled out her own photograph. Young Nate. Oversized jersey. All grin. She pressed it to his chest, right above his heart.
“He’s still in there,” she whispered, voice breaking on a smile. “I made sure.”
Nate glanced down with a slightly confused frown, took the photo, and turned it so he could see it properly.
For a split second, he looked like he couldn’t breathe.
For a moment they just stood there with two hopeful children held between them.
Proof of who they had been… and who they had chosen to become.
When Nate lifted his gaze to hers his eyes glassy, and it destroyed her.
Because this was the man who’d been told he was only good for damage.
Who kept thinking love would flinch away from him.
Holly cupped his face with shaking hands, thumb brushing over the corner of his mouth like she was proving he was real.
And then she pressed up onto her toes and kissed him.
It was messy, wet with tears and laughter, her hands fisted in his tux like she needed to keep him in the world. Nate made a sound that was half sob, half groan before he pulled her closer, kissing her back like he’d been waiting his whole life for permission.
The crowd screamed louder when they saw it. The cameras flashed like paparazzi strobe lights. Indie’s voice ricocheted through the studio: “OH MY GOD! THEY’RE DOING IT! THEY’RE KISSING, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!”
Holly didn’t care. Nate pulled back and rested his forehead against hers, their breaths tangling. Years of internal independence speeches, undone by one emotionally literate hockey player.
“You okay?” he whispered.
“No,” she laughed through her tears. “I’m ruined.”
Nate grinned, that wide, playful fucking grin of his that brought her full circle to the day he’d walked into cast orientation. “Good.”
Holly realized with awe that this was the payoff. Not the trophy, or the applause. Not even the money.
It was how Nate held her like she was his favorite thing in the world and he couldn’t believe he got to keep her.
Looking down at that ink on the back of the photo and finally believing she deserved to be someone’s star.
The way the fear was still there, but outweighed by so much more than she’d ever dreamed of having.
So she kissed him again, just because she could.
And below the Hollywood lights, in the middle of a live finale full of screaming strangers, Holly stopped running from love and finally let it catch her.
“You ready?” she asked.
He glanced at her curiously. “For what?”
She just grinned.
“Everything.”