Page 40 of Sparks Fly
Stella didn’t mean to sound so skeptical, but he was the one who said he was raised by white parents who couldn’t speak Spanish. If he learned how to salsa, she knew that didn’t happen at home.
“I took lessons a few years ago,” he said.
Stella nodded. There it was.
“You just randomly decided to take salsa lessons?”
“Uh, no, I—”
Their waiter returned with their drinks, cutting off Max’s reply. Stella, like any decent human being, never wanted to rush a server along or continue speaking like they weren’t there, but she was desperate to know what Max was about to say.
Stella waited a beat after the waiter walked away again, taking a sip of her cocktail, which was delicious, before prompting Max to continue.
“You were saying?”
“Um, right, so the salsa lessons,” Max said. “I took them with an ex of mine.”
Stella expected this answer and still, for some reason, it felt like a punch to the gut. Max had a history. Of course he did. Most people did. Stella was the odd one who didn’t. Not unless going on two dates with someone and kissing them once counted as history.
Somehow she doubted it.
“Oh, just for fun?” Stella asked.
She hoped she sounded as nonchalant as she wanted to feel about this. They were onlycasuallyhooking up anyway. What did it matter if Max had an ex? Or two? Or maybe even three? What even constituted an ex?
He wouldn’t have taken dance lessons with someone he was seeing only casually, so it had to be serious. But he said a few years ago so it couldn’t have been recent. Unless they took the dance lessons a few years ago but they broke up recently. That would explain why he was at a sex club on Valentine’s Day. He was rebounding!
“Stella.”
Max was waving a hand in front of Stella’s face, and she blinked. Oh God, how long had she spiraled?
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, yes, it was just for fun,” Max said. He thankfully seemed unbothered by her space-cadet moment. In fact, he seemed slightly fidgety, like maybe there was more to this story that he wasn’t saying.
“It was actually a salsa class for guys,” Max said.
He wasn’t meeting her eye anymore, and Stella had to duck her head a bit to make eye contact.
“Like to teach guys how to salsa?” she asked. “How does that work? Don’t you need a partner to salsa?”
Max huffed out a laugh, although it lacked humor, and began rubbing his neck.
“You do,” he said. “I don’t know why I’m beating around the bush with this, but yes, it was a guys’ salsa class, as in everyone was a guy. My boyfriend at the time wanted to try it, and it was fun, so we stuck with the whole six-week class.”
His last sentence came out in a rush, and it took Stella a second to parse the words.
“Your boyfriend?”
“Yeah,” Max said, the word coming out on a sigh. He grabbed his beer and took a long swig, tilting his head back. He put the bottle back down on the table, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so he began spinning the bottle in between his fingers.
Stella realized that this was the first time since she’d met Max that he was nervous.
She reached across the table, covering his hand with hers until he finally stilled.
“So are you bi or pan?” she asked. “I tend to flip-flop between the two and usually just go with queer if anyone asks.”
It seemed to take Max a second to register what she was saying, but when he did, his eyes finally met and held hers again, although he still seemed hesitant.
