Page 49 of Lost Love on 6th Street

Eleanor’s face falls. “Oh no . . .”

“Two-stepping!” I say with a cheerful smile.

“Please, god, don’t make me dance,” she says, putting her hand over her face.

“Eleanor, I’m not friends with people who don’t have rhythm.”

“That’s not true, because I’m—"

“Nope. It’s the truth. The universe wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if you had bad rhythm.” The universe wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if I had been honest from the beginning either.

Eleanor laughs and shakes her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

I can think of a few things. I lean in a little closer. I’m not going to take the moment, but if she takes it, I won’t say no. “Come dancing with me,” I say in a low voice, one I save for those “Wanna get out of here?” moments at a bar.

Eleanor’s teeth settle onto her lower lip. Does she have to do that? I’m a gentleman, but she’s making it so hard not to just kiss her. “Fine,” she says. “But you have to promise that if I’m bad you won’t get mad at me.”

“You won’t be bad,” I say. My eyes swoop across her mouth. So kissable.

Eleanor darts forward and, for a second, I think she’s going to kiss me. Finally. But she misses my mouth and lands the kiss to my cheek. Polite. Not passionate. Dammit.

Still, her lips brushing against my stubbly cheek sends a shiver down my spine.

I’m head over heels for her and she doesn’t even know it.

Eleanor draws back. Not far enough to make my heartbeat slow. “Thank you for everything.”

All the guilt creeps back in. I swallow. “No thanks necessary.”

“Don’t do the modest southern boy thing,” she says.

“You do the modest Midwestern thing all the time,” I reply pointedly.

Eleanor scrunches her nose and pushes me away by my shoulder. “Oh, whatever.”

I laugh and retreat back to my side of the car. “So, Saturday?”

“It’s a date,” she replies.

My stomach drops. “Is it?”

Eleanor shrugs one shoulder and pushes her door open. “It’s a figure of speech.”

Fucking Eleanor. “Right . . .”

Before she closes the door, Eleanor gives me a final smile. “Text me when you get home.”

“I will. Night, Eleanor.”

As soon as she makes it inside her apartment, I let out a breath I’ve been holding in since the moment we met. The lie. The closer Eleanor and I become, the heavier the weight. I don’t know if I’ll survive getting as close to her as I’d like.

But the image of her hearing Diane’s song for the first time doesn’t leave my mind. The whole ride home, I remember. The joy. The contentment.

Knowing I helped make it possible.

I’m so consumed by the image that I forget to text Eleanor until I’m in bed. I hope she’s dead asleep by now.

I’m tempted to type out a lyric from Diane’s song, one that stuck so clearly in my brain.

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