The Dating Game

THIRTY

If someone would've told me a month ago that I'd be learning how to salsa dance with Chase Matthews in a children's park of my own free will, I would've asked how much sleep they'd gotten that night. Yet, here I am, carefully following along the counts of six, trying my hardest not to absolutely butcher the dance entirely.

I can hear Chase chuckle every time I switch up one of my feet or accidentally step on my own toes, but he instantly tries to help me instead of making matters worse by trying to make fun of me. I have to admit, I did ask him to show me a few examples before we started—I'm a visual learner, what can I say?—but he seemed to have zero complaints about that.

And now, with his arms on my waist and my hands on his shoulders, I fully realize just how sensual this style of dance is. Our chests and pressed tightly against each other and our footwork is so in sync that it begins to feel like second nature and I'm worried that Chase and I are actually working together for once instead of clashing. When I come to that conclusion, I push him off and refuse to continue dancing out of fear that I might start to find him appealing.

We take a seat on the bench while we catch our breath, a good few inches between our legs. I push myself to the very edge of the bench, trying my best to keep my distance from him. After all, this game is clearly a lot harder when salsa dancing gets involved.

"So?" he asks, huffing and puffing like he's about to blow a house down. Wait, no—that's me.

"So what?" I ask, struggling to get the first word out.

"Fun, right?" he asks, perfectly stable. Not bending over, not holding his hand over his heart to feel how fast it's beating. He's barely even breathing hard at all, which I expected, though I can't deny it really makes me rethink my physical health.

"Sure," I try my best to answer. "Until we did it again. And again. And again. And-"

"Okay, I get it," he interrupts.

I shake my head and continue to calm my breathing with slow, gentle breaths. Chase just watches from beside me, not bothering to offer any water or anything, not that he even brought any. Why would he? It's Chase.

"Wow," I finally say, begging myself to break the ice after a painful moment filled solely with my heavy breathing. "I am so out of shape."

"Yeah," Chase agrees.

I tilt my head as I look over at him. "You're not supposed to agree with me, asshole."

He shrugs. "You want me to lie?"

"How about you just stop talking?"

Although I mostly mean it as a joke, Chase seems to take me seriously and zips his mouth shut with a sour expression. He throws away the imaginary key behind him and leans against the bench, dragging his knees open and throwing his arm around the top of the bench, almost touching me. Instead of giving in and showing him I feel bad, I take the rare moment to enjoy the silence for once.

But when I take a second glance at him, he looks all but amused. Despite his careless posture, his expression is dark and upset, his lips set in a frown and his eyebrows stitched together like I'd never really seen them before. My heart stops for a moment as I realize I made another mistake and need to apologize immediately.

As soon as I open my mouth to say sorry, Chase decides he wants to end his silent treatment and make a dig at me.

"I don't know what I was thinking," he says suddenly, crossing his arms and taking a heavy breath. "I should've known you'd find a way to make a playground boring. If I knew you'd be this much of a buzzkill, I would've taken you somewhere you'd actually have fun—like the movies."