Page 51 of Changing the Playbook
The performer looks in my direction. “And what did you learn?”
I could deflect. Make a joke. Protect myself.
Instead, I swallow hard and decide to go for it. “That he notices things that most other people miss. And that he cares too much about making sure everyone else is OK, even when it means denying himself what he wants and maybeneedsto be happy.”
Surprise flickers across his features before something warmer takes its place. We stumble off the platform to scattered applause. My legs shake—from dancing or proximity or emotional whiplash, I can’t tell—but Mike’s hand finds the small of my back, steady and sure.
“You OK?” he says.
“Ask me after another drink.”
I sit back at our table as Mike heads for the bar, glad for the moment to compose myself. My hands won’t stop trembling. What am I doing? This was supposed to be casual, right? Two friends supporting each other’s artistic endeavors, right?
Not… whatever that was.
Mike returns with two glasses of amber liquid. “To new experiences.”
“To surviving public humiliation.”
“That wasn’t humiliation. That was?—”
“If you say ‘beautiful,’ this whiskey’s going in your face.”
“I was going to say ‘character building.’”
We clink glasses. The burn down my throat feels clean, clarifying. Nothing like the cheap shots Maya and I usually do before our nights out. This is sophisticated. Like I’m someone who slow-dances with beautiful men and reads poetry about my feelings instead of stuffing them down until they explode.
“So.” Mike leans back, studying me. “Want to talk about it?”
“The dancing? The poetry? The part where I almost—” I cut myself off.
“Any of it. All of it.” He shrugs. “Or we could discuss Frond Guy.”
A laugh escapes despite everything. “He was very intense.”
“I’m concerned about his succulents.”
“His whole garden, really.”
We grin at each other, and the tension eases. This is what I can’t figure out about Mike. One moment, we’re so deep in emotional territory I can’t see the surface. The next, we’re laughing about horticultural erotica. The whiplash should be jarring. Instead, it feels like breathing.
“The dancing,” I hear myself say. “It was different than I expected.”
“Different how?”
“Less awful?”
“High praise.”
“You know what I mean.” I struggle for words that won’t reveal too much. “I spend all my time in my head. Planning. Worrying. Monitoring everyone’s everything. But up there…”
“You weren’t.”
“No.” I study the amber depths of my whiskey. “I wasn’t.”
Mike’s quiet for a beat. “I get that. After my injury—” His jaw tightens. “I spent months stuck in my own head. Overthinking every decision, every movement.”
“What changed?”
