He caught me watching him. His eyes locked with mine, and we played stare-down chicken, neither of us willing to break eye contact first. The room narrowed and blurred, my breathing suddenly heavy in my own ears, the seconds seeming to slow. There wasn’t a particular, easy emotion I could pin to his stare, like malice or desire. I studied him, sweat beginning to run down my brow.
Intensity. There it was, the best approximation of an emotion I could come up with. Elliot was thinking something that made his eyes burn like cold fire. Then, finally, he blinked and looked away, and I felt a surge of triumph. But then Elliot was moving, taking quick, confident strides across the room and heading straight for me.
“Dance with me,” he commanded, coming to a stop in front of me, offering me his hand.
“What?” I stammered out, sure I’d misheard him.
“I know you love to dance, so no excuses.” He struggled on the last word, replete with sibilant sounds that proved difficult to his drink-loosened tongue. But Elliot’s grip was strong as his fingers encircled my wrist, though he didn’t pull. No, he always let me take the lead, set the pace. And against my better judgment, I felt my feet move.
I longed for my glass of wine, left behind on the sideboard, as downing the rest of it might have inured me against my current panic.
Thankfully the music was upbeat enough that it didn’t warrant too much close contact. Elliot was doing an awkward yet endearing step-shuffle thing, while I was gently bobbing up and down to the beat. I would not allow my hips to loosen, my arms to flail. I was stiff with unease. I sent desperate pleas to the music player not to turn to a slow song and beg the question of a slow dance, though I glanced over at my sister and Ben, who were wrapped up in each other’s arms in spite of the tempo.
But then Elliot grabbed me by the hand and pulled me almost flush against his chest, only to push me back out again. Right, we were dancing, I reminded myself. He wasn’t trying to cop a feel or initiate an intimate encounter. I forced myself to loosen up enough to be spun under his arm, let him lead. It was just like the space walk, only without the comforting barrier of full-body spacesuits.
The song changed. Still up-tempo. I smiled in relief, but Elliot must have thought it was for him. He grinned back, shuffled closer. Suddenly my head was spinning as Elliot’s hand found the small of my back. I had forgotten that one could easily dance very close—too close—to up-tempo music, too. I never danced like this. I loathed the intimacy with strangers, the way boys in the club and at parties felt entitled to my body, used dancing as an excuse for a cheap thrill. Usually, at this point I would wrench violently away, barbs springing from my lips; I’d dress them down and put them in their place.
But I didn’t pull away from Elliot. He wasn’t a stranger. I could feel the heat of his body against mine, but not the hard edges. Elliot was respectful to a goddamn fault. It made me want to inch closer, close the gap, take the plunge.
“Your sister is practically asleep on my shoulder,” a voice broke through the haze. I jumped back from Elliot and turned toward the voice. There was Ben, expression sheepish, with a sleepy—or perhaps just drunk—Carina lolling against his side. “I’m going to help her get to bed.” I must have made a face, incredulous, I was sure, because he quickly continued. “No funny business, I promise. I will be a perfect gentleman.”
“And I’m a lady!” Carina giggled, then hiccupped.
“We’re bunking below decks. Stairs are behind the kitchen,” I instructed Ben, and then they stumbled off, leaving Elliot and me conspicuously alone.
The music changed. Slow this time, the beat languid. Elliot smiled sheepishly, offering his hand once more. “Shall we? For old times’ sake?”
I looked to his proffered hand, then the door. I could leave right now, escape before I did something I would regret, like spill out all my pent-up feelings that he surely couldn’t return. We were caught up in the artificial mood of the room—the fireplace, the music. That was it. This wasn’t alarmingly close to being romantic, no.
“You think too much.” Elliot’s voice was soft, bemused . . . close. My head snapped up, and there he was, having closed the distance between us quietly and with purpose. He settled one hand on my hip and joined the fingers of his right hand with mine. Instinctively I placed my hand on his side, lightly gripping the fabric of his shirt. There it was. We were dancing—swaying, really—everything simultaneously terrifyingly intimate and frustratingly chaste.
“You invited Nora to dinner,” he said.
“I did.”
“Klara’s going to give you hell for it later.”
I shrugged, my arm moving his arm. “Let her try.”
He led me into a little spin, then cleared his throat nervously.
“I have to tell you something. It’s hard for me to say, and I just hope you’ll be happy for me . . .”
My heart sank into my shoes. His prelude was prompted by asking about Nora. The song we were swaying to crystallized in my ears.
Must have been love. But it’s over now.
“Do you have to tell me now?” I wanted him to wait. Break my heart any other time. Let today be perfect.
“I guess not. We can just dance.”
So we danced. There was just enough space between our torsos to avoid impropriety, but his face was so close to mine that I could count the individual eyelashes framing his at-last-unguarded gray-blue eyes. He was staring at my lips, and I wondered if they were stained purple from the wine. The hand that held mine gripped a fraction tighter, making me suddenly painfully aware of his body, and of mine.
“Leo . . .” he started, like he’d changed his mind about talking, but then he trailed off. He licked his lips, and I was mesmerized, pulled back in time, to when this was my normal. To when Elliot was my world. When kissing him was everything. I leaned forward a fraction of an inch.
I could feel the heat of his breath on my face, smell the sweet, earthy musk from the whiskey. Wait, how drunk was he? My eyes darted up to his eyes—there was a wink to them, but they were clear enough. This wasn’t a mistake. Or I prayed it wasn’t. I needed this. A perfect day. I parted my lips, went to close the gap, and—Elliot’s head whipped back like he’d been shot through with electricity.
“I . . .” He frowned. “I, um, need to go find Ben.” And then he left.
I blinked at the space where he had just been, stunned. I waited a minute, then two. Elliot didn’t come back, nor did anyone else. I deflated down onto the bottle-green couch, spread my arms and legs out like a drunk starfish.
Elliot had been going in for a kiss, right? Or was it all me? If he’d been about to confess his love for Nora to me, did that make me a horrible person? That I still loved him and wanted him for myself? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
My wrist tab chirped a notification. I swiped into the Valg app and checked to find a mysterious message.
You are over ninety percent compatible with someone!
Say yes to more participants to find out who.
Oh, that was just evil—forcing us to randomly accept people until we found out who had also picked us? I picked up a nearby tablet and signed into my account, opened the Valg app, and scrolled to the participant master list. The already-yeses were on the first screen, sorted by percentage. I swiped over to everyone else. The noes from speed dating were on top—I guess any engagement, even negative engagement, was weighted heavily in the app. My finger lingered on Elliot’s line, drifted over to the no button. All it would take was a quick swipe to reverse my earlier decision. See if he was the one who had matched with me over ninety percent. Had he run off to check? Say yes to me and see if I’d reversed my decision?