Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,88

She angled her way over to him. He was talking to three people over by one of the little indoor trees, and he looked like he hadn’t even remembered she was in the room. Letting that stop her would’ve been easy, but she plowed through anyway. If she didn’t ask, it was clear he wouldn’t.

“Hey,” she said, stepping up to his elbow, and when he turned, his gaze went right down her.

“Oh, hey, Taylor,” the girl he was talking to said as she reached out for a hug. “Greg was just telling us all about the dance class. We might be there on Thursday if I can talk Connor into it.”

“Oh, that’s great,” Taylor said. She glanced at Greg and puzzled at how distant he seemed. “But we don’t go every week.” She was hedging her bets like mad because the way Greg looked, they might never go anywhere together again. “But if we do, it’d be great to see you there.” Taking a slow, shallow breath, she asked herself if this was really a good idea as a new song started. “Speaking of dancing…” She looked up at him and put out her hand. “One more before they call it a night?”

The anger was impossible to hold onto, but Greg knew that wasn’t fair. She was here, asking him to dance, and he was going to turn her down… why? Because she’d managed to dance with practically every other guy there? “’Course.”

He took her hand, and together they stepped onto the floor. The song was slower than the one they had danced to before, and he took her in his arms, determined he was going to remember this was all for show. He dipped and rolled her backward away from him, and he heard the room’s response. Yes. It was working.

His hand crossed over and took hers, and he spun her with ease. When she came back to him, he caught her and lowered her into a reverse dip. That drew even more reaction. He brought her up and this spin ended with her back against him. He swayed them twice and sent her out from him. Spinning, he caught her hand behind him and pulled her forward. The dips were getting easier because she didn’t fight them at all.

Pulling her up, he spun her before drawing her to his hip and lifting her right up off the ground. With her eyes only inches away, Greg fought with everything in him not to see the joy in hers. She was absolutely loving this, loving the attention, and the adulation. It had nothing to do with him. He set her down, crossed their arms, and spun her in a high cross. They hadn’t done that move before. It was one he’d learned at his first lesson, but she followed just like she knew it by heart.

He came back around so her hand traveled around his center and they almost fumbled it for the flapping of his jacket. But at the last possible second, his fingers found hers, and bringing her around, he spun her twice. It was so easy to look cool with her. She could make any schlub look like a prince, and tonight, she was clearly doing that for him. As the song wound to the end, he dipped her all the way across the front of his thigh, and the room erupted in cheers.

Mission accomplished.

It took a full ten minutes to make it to the door as everyone there seemed to want to stop and talk to them. The overhead lights had even come on before they got to the door.

“Good night!” Taylor called to a couple of the sisters that had said good night to her. And with that, she followed Greg out into the bitterly cold night wind. She might have frozen, but he hurried them to the car and got her inside.

When he slipped into his seat, Taylor smiled over at him.

“Well, that went great.” She shook her head and let the happiness that it was over wash through her. “The dancing was a hit.”

“Yeah,” he said as he started the car.

“And Sophie wants me to come on Tuesday for the scavenger hunt.”

“Great.”

“Oh, and they also asked if maybe we could come and teach them some of the moves for one of the mixers before the Valentine’s Dance. I told them we’d have to see.”

He reached over and flipped on the heat.

“I mean that is three weeks away, so who knows by then…”

There was