Grease Monkey Jive (26 page)

None of this was choreographed. All of it was making her breathless. When she finally looked into Dan’s face, his expression was all challenge. He reached for her, put his hand to the back of her head and when she thought he might dip her, he surprised by wrapping his fist around her pony tail, sliding it down the length and pulling so her chin came up and they were eye to eye, amber to blue, match to flame.

They were so close Dan could see the gold flecks in Alex’s eyes, feel her outtake of breath on his throat. They were so close, the only sensible thing left to do was to kiss her, especially since she started it. Last night was no implanted alien memory; she’d kissed him and now he was going to kiss her back in a way that left nothing to her imagination. Her lips parted and her eyes closed, she was pressed against his hips and chest. He lowered his head, more than ready to taste her.

“Who’s having tea?” called Trevor, from the kitchen, seconds before stepping into the room with a teapot in his hand.

Dan’s head jerked back. He let go of Alex abruptly and pulled away, leaving her reeling, unsteady on her feet. He ran his hand quickly across his face trying to compose himself as they picked up where the choreography left off.

He felt fleeting relief not to have been caught out, but there was a hot ball of frustration lodged behind his eyes. They’d almost kissed – he’d almost got away with it. He had no idea where that heat-saturated, mad moment had come from, but he was scared it was over and it wasn’t coming back.

They were both safely inside the formal structure of the dance before Scott looked up. But Alex stumbled and Scott got to his feet, studying them. Then he fired the remote at the stereo. “Can the tea. Change of plan,” he said, and from the smug, knowing look on his face, Dan knew he hadn’t gotten away with anything.

Now it was a sure bet. Now it was part of the show. Now all the madness was turned into an exact plan with precise actions. Now he was in trouble. They both were. Bugs under a microscope. And Dan wouldn’t put it past Scott to pull his wings off and laugh maniacally while doing it.

He knew it was going to happen. In four bars of music, Alex would kiss him. It was all part of Scott’s diabolical change of plan: nothing unexpected, nothing surprising or heated, more like kissing a relative at Christmas, about as sensual as the steering wheel of the Valiant.

He shook out his hands and ran through the instructions in his head, how to hold her, one hand to the back of her head, one by his side, how long to maintain the kiss, and how to release her. He rolled his neck, heard it crack – that felt marginally better – dragged his fingers through his hair to lift it off his forehead.

Shit, he was nervous. That’s what the twisting in his stomach was – not lack of lunch. But what the fuck, he’d wanted to kiss her for days and he’d almost done it a half hour ago without any help from choreography. Now the kiss was just a dance move, it meant nothing, so why the frig was he nervous? It wasn’t like he’d drop her or tread on her – he sure as fuck knew how to kiss.

Alex was across the room, crouched down, doing something with the elastic strap of her shoe. Now she was up, testing it, flexing her foot, rising on her toes, giving a little stamp.

The music started up a couple of beats before she was due to begin the movement towards him. She was looking at him now, or looking through him. Playful Alex, teasing, hot, Alex was gone, lost to him. This was cool, collected Alex. It was a good reminder this meant nothing to her, of course it didn’t. It was just the dance. It didn’t even cross the line. It was just a way to win the prize money. Get a fucking grip.

When Alex started towards him, Dan felt his body brace for the inspired assault of having her in his arms again, and then when the phone rang and she broke off with a wave of her hand to answer it, leaving him standing there, anticipation a wave of want in his chest.

He watched her lean on the counter to mark something in the student register. She was long lines and lean muscle. She was wearing the dance equivalent of a wetsuit, a second black skin from her waist to her knees and a fitted sleeveless top that stopped well before her pants started, exposing acres of taut belly and jutting hip bones.

She was back in less than five minutes, but it felt like he’d grown old waiting. Scott started the music again. Two beats before she was due to start, she said, “Scott, I think it’s better if I’m on my right leg to start off,” demonstrating the move as she spoke.

Scott stopped the music. “Makes sense.” He looked at Dan. “Just keep standing there, Neanderthal. Don’t you change a thing.”

Dan dropped his head, anticipation now a tsunami sucking all the calm out of him minutes before drowning him in expectation.

Alex went to the edge of the floor again. Scott started the music and she said, “Wait,” and bent from the waist, straight legs, to fiddle with the elastic strap of her shoe.

Dan groaned audibly. This was agony. He’d never waited for a kiss for so long in his life. Never had such a staged kiss either, of course, but what was she doing? Drawing it out. Deliberately torturing him. He rolled his neck again, hoped he wasn’t showing how keyed up he was. That would be most uncool.

Alex looked at Dan sideways as she pretended to adjust her shoe. What the hell was wrong with her? Not half an hour ago she’d been playing with just this kind of fire, so what was all this stalling about? Just get over there and kiss the guy.
It’s not like it means anything, for God’s sake
. She’d only kissed him last night in the heat of the moment and just because he looked better than chocolate cake didn’t mean she could forget he was just set dressing, not much more than a display dummy in the scheme of things.

It would be easier if he wasn’t so damn beautiful to look at, standing there in loose cotton workout pants hanging from his hips over the curve of his tight, muscled butt, the loose singlet with its low cut arms and neckline showing off his hard chest muscles. He was covered with a fine sheen of sweat and if he did that thing with his hair one more time, she’d take a pair of scissors to it herself.

It was just a kiss. Their bodies would be no closer than they were for any other part of the routine and it was way less provocative than that slap he’d given her. It was just a kiss and she’d done it countless times with Scott and less theatrical variations of it with Phil. Hell, she’d been kissed to within an inch of her life before, so what was the anxiety about this kiss?

She took her shoe off and gave it a shake, as though the delay was all bound up in the need to agitate her dance pump. She was the one who was agitated.

Scott and Dan were watching her closely now, a knowing look on Scott’s face and an intense one on Dan’s. As she slipped her shoe back on and adjusted the straps she thought, ok, the worst that can happen is he’s a lousy kisser.

Scott cued the track and Alex stood, gave the errant shoe another shake to make it look convincing and stared at Dan across the floor. There was tension, a panther wariness about his stance, like he could spring at her any moment, like he wanted to. Then he smiled and quirked his head and the panther lay down to have his belly scratched. Alex’s last thought before she started towards him was that he still had claws.

Dan knew the smile wasn’t part of the plan. He was supposed to be a serious Latin lover, not a grinning geek, but he couldn’t get lips to behave. She was five seconds from being in his arms, and then she was there, her body pressed against his, her pale eyes wide and her mouth open.

She laughed. She put her hand on his chest, pushed him back, and laughed.

“What?”

“Sorry, Dan,” a hand to her mouth to try to contain the mirth. “You put me off.”

“How did I put you off? I’m just standing here.” Dan swung his head to look at Scott to see if he registered any clues to what just happened. Scott just looked bored.

“You’re not just standing there. You’re grinning like an idiot!”

Dan sucked his lips back against his teeth and put his hands up in surrender. “Ok, ok. I’ll be serious.” He turned away, feigning irritation, but really giving himself time to weather the torrent of desire scoring through his body. Any more of this teasing and Alex would get a whole lot more than an idiot grin to contend with. He cracked his knuckles to ease the twitching in his hands.

Scott’s arched eyebrow told Alex he was on to her. “You ok, girlfriend?”

No she wasn’t ok. She was bewitched by this surfer dude, grease monkey with his impossibly deep blue eyes and unfathomable charisma. This kiss wasn’t a good idea. It was damn near dangerous. She bit her lip to try to still the fizz of anticipation. She rolled her shoulders. She could still smell his scent – sweat, the beach – it was making her mouth water.

“Ready, children?”

Scott started the track too soon; she wasn’t ready at all. This time Dan wasn’t smiling at her. His lips were drawn down, like he might scorch her if she got too close.

This time if she hesitated he’d know there was something wrong and she didn’t need to be interrogated about this. She picked up the beat, moved through the sequence and stepped into his body, rising on her toes, tilting her head back and wrapping one arm around his neck to pull him towards her.

He had his lashes lowered and his body perfectly positioned for her and in the microseconds before she put her lips to his, he opened his eyes and the expression she saw in them made her gasp, but then her lips were on his and his hand was cradling the nape of her neck and they’d done it. And in the blaze of it, she lost track of the music and what she was supposed to do next, only knew the feel of his lips still and warm, the salt tang of his skin, the press of his hand against the small of her back and the echoing sense that this was where her heart wanted to be.

Alex’s lips were soft and moist and full and Dan didn’t press the kiss, though he wanted to, wanted so much to feel her mouth open, and her lips and tongue move on his, to forget where his hands were supposed to be, forget what came after this. There was only this. He held Alex hard against his body and breathed her in, lost himself to the wonder of having her so close, to the fantasy of having her so intimately his.

They didn’t hear the music stop, didn’t come back to reality until they heard Scott cough exaggeratedly, and then it was to spring apart and turn away as though they’d both been unexpectedly scalded.

Scott’s tone was droll when he said, “If you’re quite finished, we have a whole sequence to get through in the next hour.”

It was done.

Phil was out of her life. For real. For good. And it was good, but right now it felt anything but that, and what Alex needed most was a good cry. She turned her face to the night-blacked window of the taxi and tried to hold it in.

She was not going to cry in the back of a taxi. She was not going to cry about what he’d done, what he’d said, how little he cared, or how hurt she felt. She was not going to cry over lost time, false expectations, and being made a fool of. Tears for dishonesty, deceit, pretence, and deception would have to wait. She was not going to give Phil the satisfaction or the driver the stress.

And if she didn’t cry in the taxi, maybe she didn’t need to cry at all. It was freshest right now, this hurt. It might be stale by the time she got home. Except she couldn’t go home either. Couldn’t face Mum and Gran, not the questions, not the concern, not Gran being not so secretly pleased, not Mum going on about men and how you could never rely on them.

She could only think of one place she wanted to go and it was such an inappropriate choice, it made her nauseous.

Jeff’s wet whimpering in Dan’s ear woke him up, and then he heard the knocking. He squinted at the blue digital glow of the clock – 2am. This had to be trouble. He said, “Yeah,” to the back of the closed door, and heard Alex say his name before he flung it open.

She was backlit from the ambient night light and he couldn’t see her face, but he could hear her uneven breathing. “Alex, are you alright? What happened?”

“Can I come in?” Her voice was ragged and he stepped back to allow her into the hall, Jeff’s toe nails clacking on the floorboards as he backed up too, wagging his tail uncertainly into the wall and Dan’s legs in turn.

Now he could see her, eyes glassy, tears shining on her cheeks. “Wow, what happened?” he said, closing the door.

She made a half laugh and tried to collect herself, but he could see it was an act. Something was terribly wrong. He opened his arms and she came crashing into him, now sobbing uncontrollably.

“Alex, tell me, is someone dead, what happened?”

He felt her shake her head and relaxed a little. He held her and let her sob and Jeff sat and leaned on his leg, and it didn’t feel like two in the morning any more.

When the worst of her tears passed, he said, “Can I get you a cup of tea?” and felt her nod. He took her hand and led her down the hallway, Jeff bringing up the rear.

He left the main kitchen light off and flicked the light on under the range-hood; it was kinder and would be enough to make the tea by.

“Mum does that.”

“Makes tea when you cry?”

“No, she wouldn’t like these tears. She’d tell me I should have expected them and it was my own fault. I meant she uses the range-hood light too.”

“Ah.”

“I’m sorry. I had a bit of a rough night and I just couldn’t go home yet. I didn’t know where else to go.”

“I see, I think.” Did it matter what brought her here? It should be enough she’d come and she trusted him to help. Fuck yeah, it mattered. “No, actually I don’t. What are you doing here, Alex?”

“Do we have to talk about it?”

Dan reached for the kettle. “I guess not, if you don’t want to.” He made the tea and set the pot and two mugs with the milk and sugar on the table. He sat down opposite her and changed his mind. “Yeah, we have to talk about it. You can’t show up on my doorstep, crying your heart out, and not tell me why.”

“Dan, please, can I just drink my tea and gather up my embarrassment and ask you to pretend this never happened? This is so far over the line as to be on another court.”