17. Invitations and Interference #2
The dance floor was more crowded than I’d expected, which was both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because there were plenty of other people to hide behind if I made a fool of myself. Terrifying because there were plenty of witnesses to my inevitable dancing disaster.
But Levi’s hand was warm and steady in mine, and when he placed his other hand on my waist, I felt something settle in my chest. Something that said this was right, this was where I belonged.
“Just follow my lead,” he said quietly, close enough to my ear that I could feel his breath against my skin. “Don’t think about your feet. Just listen to the music and move with me.”
It was easier than I expected. Not easy, exactly, but easier.
He guided me gently around the floor, keeping us to simple steps and never making me feel clumsy when I inevitably stumbled.
When I did step on his foot—which happened twice—he just smiled and kept moving like it had been part of the dance all along.
“You’re not bad at this.”
“You’re a good teacher,” I replied. “And possibly a liar.”
He laughed, the sound vibrating through his chest where my hand rested. “Maybe a little of both.”
The song was winding down, but instead of feeling relief, I felt disappointed.
I didn’t want the dance to end. I didn’t want to go back to our table and the careful distance we usually maintained.
I wanted to stay exactly where I was, in his arms, moving together to music that seemed written just for us.
When the last notes faded, we didn’t immediately step apart. We stood there on the dance floor, still holding each other, while couples moved around us and the band shuffled through their sheet music.
“I like this,” I said, looking up at him.
“Me too,” he said, holding me close.
There was something in his voice, in the way he was looking at me, that made the rest of the room fade away. For a moment, it felt like we were the only two people in the world, suspended in this perfect bubble of possibility. His arm around me and his breath on my neck, making my insides giggle.
As the band launched into a faster song, I waited for him to let go, prepared for the moment to end.
But he didn’t. Instead, his hand rested on the small of my back as we returned to our table.
Something inside me shifted (something invisible between us now changed) and I knew I never wanted to return to the way things were before.
The rest of the evening passed in a haze of conversation and laughter, but I was hyperaware of Levi beside me.
Every casual touch—his hand on my back when he helped me with my chair, the brush of his fingers against mine when we reached for our glasses at the same time.
When he held my hand—it was electric, charged with new meaning.
The looks Levi stole made my heart jump in ways I never thought imaginable. The way his thumb brushed along my fingers, keeping my attention on his touch, was quite possibly the most romantic thing ever.
By the time the evening finally wound down and people began gathering coats and saying their goodbyes, I felt an ache at the thought of letting go of him or the night that had changed things between us.
The community center felt magical tonight, a place where it seemed natural to take risks and where dancing with the man you’d been falling for felt right.
“I’ll take you home,” Levi said as we stepped out into the crisp night air.
“You don’t have to—”
“Cassie,” his voice reverberated through me. “I want to. Besides, it’s on my way.”
It wasn’t, not at all. His house was in the opposite direction from my house. But I didn’t point that out.
He parked in the guest house driveway. We walked slowly up the steps onto my small porch.
Neither of us seemed eager to rush toward whatever goodbye waited at my door.
The snow crunched softly under our feet, and our breath made little clouds in the cold air.
Above us, the stars were brilliant and sharp, scattered across the sky like someone had thrown diamonds against black velvet.
“I had a good time tonight.”
“Even though you had to dance?”
“Especially because I had to dance.” I glanced at him sideways. “Though I’m pretty sure the whole thing was an elaborate setup.”
He chuckled. “You think?”
“Janet had a dress in my exact size, Kathy showed up with professional-grade makeup, and we were seated together at a table with the town’s most notorious matchmakers. If that’s not a setup, it’s the most elaborate coincidence in the history of small-town social events.”
“And how do you feel about being set up?”
I considered the question as I turned to face him. “Grateful, actually. I never would have asked you to dance if the town crochet cult hadn’t essentially peer-pressured me into it.”
“I’m glad they did.”
We reached my door, but instead of ending the night, we lingered on the doormat. The porch lights cast a warm circle around us, and I could see tiny flakes of snow that had started falling again, delicate in the golden glow.
“Cassie,” Levi said - the notes of his deep voice called to me.
He was standing closer than I’d realized, close enough that I could see the way the light caught in his eyes, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him despite the cold night air.
“Yeah?”
“I’m really glad you asked me to dance.”
“Me, too.”
He lifted his hand, slowly. His fingertips caressed my cheek, gentle and warm, and I leaned into the contact without thinking.
This was it. The moment I’d been both hoping for and dancing around for weeks. The moment when we stopped pretending we were just friends, when we accepted that what’s been building between us since that first night in his cottage after the storm became more.
He leaned down, and I tilted my face up toward his, and for a heartbeat that felt like eternity, we were suspended in tantalizing possibility.
Then he kissed me.
His movements were soft, sure, and full of promise.
His lips were warm against mine, gentle but certain, and I could taste the wine we’d shared and something that was purely him.
When his arms came around me, pulling me closer, I melted into the contact like I’d been waiting my whole life for this exact moment.
It wasn’t our first kiss—we’d been stealing sweet moments on my couch and during quiet dinners for weeks now. But this was all too different.
His hands grasped the back of my dress, and my hands clutched at his shirt.
Then, with a gentle squeeze, Levi slowly pulled away and rested his forehead against mine.
We were both breathing hard, and I knew this was something new.
Not just attraction or affection, but the fact that I loved this man.
“Cassie,” he said softly, my name carrying more weight than it ever had before. “I love you.”
The words slipped into the room like something fragile and eternal. My breath caught, the world narrowing to the sound of his voice and the warmth of his hand covering mine.
No fireworks, no grand gestures. Just truth. Gentle and steady, like him.
And in that moment, it undid me. My heart thudded traitorously, my throat tight with the reply I couldn’t quite speak yet. Not because I didn’t feel it, but because feeling it this much scared me more than I wanted to admit.
I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t. Instead, I let my fingers curl into his, holding on like maybe if I stayed very still, I could keep the moment exactly as it was —unbroken and impossibly tender.
I wasn’t ready to say it back, not yet. But I knew, deep down, that hearing it from him had already changed everything.
“I know,” I whispered, because I did know. I knew that he loved me, too. Whatever we’d been before had morphed into something that felt permanent and precious and absolutely amazing.
Because the truth was, somewhere between the shared dinners and stolen kisses and easy domesticity of the past few weeks, I’d stopped thinking of this as a beautiful friendship with a kissing bonus.
I’d started thinking about forever. About waking up next to him every morning and building a life together and maybe, someday, teaching our own kids about science and the proper naming of garden gnomes.
The thought should have scared me. Instead, standing there in his arms under the stars, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
“Goodnight, Levi,” I said, though I made no move to step away from him.
“Goodnight, Cassie,” he replied, pressing one more soft kiss to my forehead before reluctantly letting me go.
I stayed on the porch and watched him walk back to his truck, my heart dancing in my chest. As he drove away, I touched my lips and smiled, because for the first time in my life, I was ready to find out what forever looked like with Levi Marshall.