Chapter 4 #2
Curious as to where he was going with this, she waited for him to continue.
“So, I have this kid who is dragged out of bed at the ass crack of dawn by his father to exercise, and he hates every minute of it. His dad is a ‘bro’—into gym-ing and flexing. His kid is not”—Dane hesitated, and Wren knew he was looking for a tactful way of saying what he wanted to say; out in the field, she suspected he would just do what he wanted, and to hell with it—“the jock his father wants him to be.”
Why was he telling her, and Luna, this?
“I saw him standing in front of the community noticeboard in the square, looking at your poster,” said Luna.
She had posters? Wren darted a look at Luna, who lifted her eyes to the ceiling. The witch.
“The kid lives on my street, and we talk sometimes. I was wondering whether I should encourage him to join your dance class.”
Wren was glad some of the stigma of boys learning to dance had faded, but there were still pockets of dinosaurs who still called it “gay.” Like gay was an insult; some of her favorite people in the world carried that label with pride. As they should. “He should, even if I don’t end up teaching it.”
“You’ll still go ahead with it if Wren bows out?” Dane asked Luna, who pursed her lips, obviously irritated.
“Of course we will, as I went to the expense and effort of printing the posters and brochures,” Luna replied. “But, trust me, Wren will be their instructor.”
Wren’s hands shot up into the air. She might as well try to convince a particularly stubborn concrete wall. Dane didn’t look convinced. “Will he be the only guy? I think this kid has enough issues about being different without being the only male in a dance class.”
“I don’t know. Luna?”
“I’m a font of information, darling, but that’s more detail than I know. I’ll ask Marsha to send you the contact list,” Luna declared, then glanced at her watch. “I need to get going, I’m very late for my appointment.”
Wren nodded. “I’ll see you at home. Do try not to bully and boss too many people today.”
Luna grinned at her. “I refuse to hamstring myself,” she gaily replied before sailing out of the room. Wren watched her go and shook her head. She caught Dane’s reflection in the huge mirror and saw that he was looking at her.
“You don’t look that unhappy about having to teach dance,” he said, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants.
She gripped the barre behind her. “I’m not, not really, but don’t you dare tell Luna that!”
“I won’t.”
Wren watched as he walked over to the sound system, looked at it, and bounced on his toes, testing the floor. He nodded, as if satisfied. “It’s a good floor, with plenty of bounce.”
“You sound like an expert,” she commented.
“Hardly.” He met her eyes and shrugged. “My high-school girlfriend was a ballroom dancer. I spent many hours watching her practice, I must’ve absorbed some stuff by osmosis.”
Wren knew how many hours of practice ballroom took. “Watching her must’ve been pretty boring for you,” she stated.
He shrugged, smiled, and her stomach clenched. His smile was meteor-strike dangerous. “Her partner had a crush on her, so I was protecting my interests.”
“Ah.”
“And watching her was always a pleasure. The girl,” he smiled wickedly, “had some moves.” Dane tapped the top of the sound system with his index finger. “What’s your style of dance?”
“I guess you could call it modern contemporary, but I did hip-hop, jazz, and ballet for years. I’ve been exploring K-pop and funk. I hate being labelled.” She could turn her hand to most disciplines, and frequently incorporated various styles from popping to swing in her choreography.
“Have you worked with anyone I know?” Dane asked.
She wondered how deep his knowledge of popular culture went. “I’ve worked with a few big names, including Kyro, K-Solo, and Shoozy.”
“I’ve actually heard of them,” Dane said, pleased with himself. “But if you asked me to name one of their songs, I couldn’t. So, you’re good at what you do, right?”
She nodded. “I’m very good at what I do.” Placing her elbows on the barre behind her, she resisted the urge to show off and drop into a deep split. God, she wasn’t a teenager anymore.
“So am I,” Dane said, staring down at the floor.
“So why aren’t you doing it anymore?” she asked softly, her voice threading through the tension that had invaded the room.
She felt it in her chest—the ache of wanting to reach across, to bridge the gap between them.
He might be hot and confident, but at that moment, she’d never seen a man who looked more in need of a hug, some solid, human connection.
And she wanted to be the one to give it—to hand him some steady, to make him feel like someone had his back, really had his back.
You cannot touch him, Dunlop.
But I want to…
Hands. Off.
The fight inside her only increased her yearning. It was far too much too soon, but she’d forgotten how to backpedal.
His eyes, when they met hers, looked a little haunted, a lot sad. “Like you, I guess I simply need a break.”
“But I imagine it’s a lot harder to ‘take a break’ from what you do than it is for me from dance,” she replied. “I can just refuse a job, you can’t refuse a request to save lives. It had to have been quite bad for you to decide to come here.”
She’d gone too deep, far too quickly, and that wasn’t like her at all. She tended to keep things light and breezy, and it was the men in her life who, usually, pushed for a deeper emotional connection. But she’d wandered into unknown territory without a map or GPS signal. Good Lord.
Dane looked past her into the mirror, and Wren knew he wasn’t looking at her or his reflection.
He was somewhere far away, some place where she couldn’t reach him.
Not knowing him well enough to tell him to snap out of it, or to hug him to give him some comfort, she stood there, stiff and tense.
What should she do? She bit her lip, about to go to him, to touch his arm, hoping he’d come back, when he looked at her, his expression bleak. “I needed to step away.”
He’d barely finished his sentence when the blast of an old-fashioned march filled the room. It lasted a few beats, but it was enough for her to jump out of her skin and for it to jolt Dane out of whatever dark place he’d stepped into.
Wren slapped a hand to her chest, eyes wide, heart hammering. He looked just as stunned. “What the fuck was that?” he demanded.
As her heart rate dropped, Wren’s brain kicked in.
His hand was still on the sound system and, seeing it there, she thought of an explanation.
“You must’ve hit a button,” she told him.
“I think this room is also used for senior dances, so maybe they left a CD in the system and you mistakenly turned it on.”
He shook his head. “My hand didn’t move, and that wasn’t waltz music. It sounded military.”
Wren joined Dane at the sound system and frowned when she noticed the power button was off.
If her theory was correct, then Dane had mistakenly switched the power on, hit the play and stop buttons, and also switched the sound system off.
That seemed like a lot to accomplish from a simple brush of his hand…
A little trepidatious, she powered up the system, waiting for the lights to come on, and then hit the play button on the CD player. Nothing happened. Goosebumps tickled her spine, and she pushed the eject button. The tray opened, and it was empty.
“Huh,” Dane said.
Huh, indeed. Although she primarily used streaming music these days, she knew her way around a sound system, and checked to see if there was anything else that could’ve caused the rousing chorus. “No joy,” she said, tapping her foot.
Dane rubbed the back of his neck. “It did happen, right?”
Luna often talked about hers and the other residents’ ghost encounters, but that was Luna being Luna. Ghosts didn’t exist. But this was super weird. “Your phone?” she asked, grasping at straws. “Maybe it connected to the Bluetooth.”
Dane looked skeptical. “By itself? Also, I don’t have music on my phone.”
Wren frowned, distracted. “Why don’t you have music on your phone?” she demanded. To her, music was the way she navigated the world—her compass, her ballast, her built-in metronome. She needed it like air and water … and wine. Wine was essential.
“I prefer vinyl. Could it be your phone?” he countered.
“I do have music on my phone—lots of it,” she said, patting the top of the system.
“But there’s definitely no military music on my playlist. And yes, while this setup is Bluetooth-enabled, it has to be paired—whether we used your phone or mine—so I kind of jumped the gun suggesting your phone connected to it. ”
He looked at her, and she looked at him, and Wren knew that neither of them wanted to mention the fact that they were currently living in a town believed, by some, to be powered by the supernatural.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” she stated, deciding to bite the bullet and voice what they were both thinking.
When he didn’t respond, she frowned. “Come on, you don’t think… No way!”
He lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “As I said before, I’m open to the possibility.”
He was a doctor, for God’s sake, a scientist. “How can you believe in ghosts when nobody can prove their existence?”
“You believe in human consciousness, right?” She nodded. “Well, we all experience it, but we can’t prove it exists outside our minds. Through string theory, scientists are convinced other universes exist; the math supports it, but it can’t be proved.”
Okay, that was a logical response, but she wasn’t convinced. “I refuse to believe that ghosts are haunting my very new, hardly used dance studio.”
Dane smiled. “So, looking on the bright side…”
“There’s a bright side?”
“It didn’t shuffle your Spotify playlist to send you a message.”