“I don’t dance,” Clark said, just as she knew he would. Almost every activity she proposed received some sort of push back from him; she expected nothing less from this challenge. If he didn’t cut loose enough to know how to decorate a Christmas tree, of course he wouldn’t dance. Dance required an openness of the heart she wasn’t convinced he actually possessed.
“No?” she pressed, biting in her own confidence even as he sunk into the nearest chair and seemed content to stay there forever, if possible.
“No.”
As Clark sank into the armchair, he wondered vaguely if he could literally melt into the fabric and disappear. When that line of thought proved frivolous, he made himself a promise: You will not get up and dance with her. No matter how much she might want you to. Don’t you dare do it. You’ve made a fool of yourself a hundred times over today, but draw the line here. Dancing is a stupid, pointless activity and you’re not—I repeat, not—going to do it. Especially not with Kate.
His place in the corner of the room afforded Clark the perfect view of Kate’s preparations. Bickering words popped between them like whacked baseballs as she dragged furniture towards the walls. A few hours ago, a move like that would have earned her Clark’s annoyance, annoyance he now knew to be fruitless. She’d gotten her way all day. Objecting earned him no points with her.
This time, though, she wouldn’t get her way. Let her turn the room into a pseudo-ballroom if she wanted. He wouldn’t join her.
“Why don’t you dance?” she asked. The smug smile tugging her pink lips told Clark everything he needed to know. She thought she was going to get her way with enough prodding. Well, joke’s on her. He was in his chair and in his chair he would stay.
“I just don’t.”
“You don’t do Christmas either,” Kate reminded him.
“I’m putting my foot down at prancing around the room like a drunken reindeer.”
“Someone’s grumpy.”
“There’s no way you’re getting me to dance.”
The coda of that sentence, with you, never made it out of his mouth. In his mind, there was a distinct difference between not wanting to dance at all and not wanting to dance with her specifically.
Floor clear, Kate pulled off the little slip-on red and green shoes she’d been wearing with her pajamas, leaving her feet covered by an equally busy pair of socks covered in a pattern of Santa sleighs.
“I didn’t want to dance with you anyway. I can dance on my own.”
“Good. Enjoy yourself.”
He reached for a nearby newspaper. The headline read something about the end of The Christmas Company. That page ended up discarded on the floor; the comics section always interested him more than any part of a newspaper, anyway. Determined to ignore Kate and whatever stunt she pulled, Clark only glanced up in time to see Kate walk over to the couch and coquettishly solicit an imaginary suitor for a dance.
“Me? You want to dance with me?”
“Really?” Clark deadpanned.
“I’d be delighted,” she told the imaginary man as she took his invisible hand and led him to the newly made dance floor. Without a triumphant smirk in his direction, her lips wrapped around the whistling notes of a Christmas tune Clark heard a million times before but couldn’t quite place off the top of his head.
“You’re making a fool of yourself.”
“I think you’re making a fool out of yourself. You’re letting a beautiful woman dance alone.”
Beautiful woman. She was that and so much more. Clever. Decisive. Loving. Damaged and beyond hopeful. Over the top of his newspaper, he watched her, this woman who invaded his house, his life and perhaps his heart. Watching her directly would make her think she’d won. Discretion was key here.
Clark lived firmly in the real world. Two feet on the ground. Head firmly out of the clouds. Business. Practicality. Frugality. These ideals guided his simple, prosperous and quiet life. He didn’t like superhero franchises or any books about unrealistically clever detectives. Movies rarely made an appearance on his weekly leisure schedule. Television, even less frequently. He saw the world and everyone in it as they were, not as how they wanted to be seen or as he wanted to see them.
…Then Kate curtseyed to an imaginary partner, and Clark’s firm grip on reality dissolved in a haze of magic, magic he didn’t believe in or trust, but that took hold of him all the same.
Before his eyes, the world changed, as easily as turning a page in a book. Kate no longer stood in socked feet on an ancient rug. Her partner wasn’t invisible. Her pajamas were replaced with a ball gown. Her hair swept up into an elaborate updo. The living room was a ballroom, decorated even more grandly for Christmas than before. An orchestra replaced her whistling. A handsome man lifted her and swanned her around the room, making her fall more and more in love with him every step they took together.
And Clark was jealous. Jealous of an apparition. His throat dried. His chest tightened. Leaving her to dance with this imagined rival was no longer possible.
He stepped into this new reality, this historical fairy tale he conjured around them. He crossed the ballroom. His heart pounded louder than the orchestra. And he tapped the stranger on his black suit-clad shoulder.
“May I cut in?”
When Kate’s face sparked into an all-consuming smile, his heart rate quieted and the music once again dominated the room.
“I’d be delighted.”
The language was as dated as the fantasy, but she was very much real, a fact only confirmed when her warm hand found its way into his while the other placed itself on his shoulder. His found her waist. They drew close. Close enough to fall in love.
“I don’t know how to dance like this,” he confessed.
“Just follow my lead.”
Kate stepped simply, nudging him along. Never judging his lack of confidence or shouting out when his foot accidentally grazed her toes.
