Page 61 of Illegal Formation
“I’m also old.”
“Twenty-nine is not old.”
“It is in dance.”
“Then they’re fucking stupid, because you’re the most beautiful person on that field every time your sneakers touch the turf. You steal the show. You…” I laughed. “God, Emily, you make it impossible to look away. Trust me, I know. I’ve tried.”
She paused, eyes slowly finding mine as a smile curled on her lips.
“I’ve noticed.”
Again, the words sat like an anchor dragging the sand between us.
After a moment, Emily sighed, her eyes on her nails again. “I always thought I’d have it all figured out by thirty, you know? Havethejob. The house. Maybe the husband and the kid. Iwatched my parents have it all so effortlessly, I just assumed that was how it was.”
She flicked a piece of her mat away.
“You love this,” I said. “Dance. I’ve seen the way it lights you up. You beam when you’re on that field, when you’re in rehearsal.”
“Maybe,” she admitted. “But I have an expiration date. And then what?”
“Whatever you want. Keep dancing. Find a new studio. Go on Broadway.”
She laughed.
Then, a thought came to me, a memory of the flag football jamboree.
“What if you taught?”
Her brows crested. “Taught what, exactly? How to fuck around so much in your twenties that you end up jobless and broke by thirty-one?”
“Dance,” I said, not entertaining her deflection. “I saw you with the girls at the football event this summer. You were so good with them. You loved helping them, and the way you talked to them and made them feel seen… that’s rare, Em.”
That earned me a smile. “I like that,” she said. “When you call me Em.”
There it was again — the shift in the air, the charging of electricity.
“Yeah?” I asked, nostrils flaring. My heart kicked up the pace in my chest, the pounding of it thundering in my ears.
Nothing had happened.
But my body knew before my brain did that I was about to do something reckless.
“Should I say it again?”
I reached out, finding the strings of her hoodie and toying with them between my fingers. The moment I made the connection, Emily’s next inhale stalled in her throat.
Stop.
Don’t do this.
Her eyes dropped to watch my fingers playing with the strings before she slowly dragged her gaze back to mine.
It was heated now.
She was meeting my dare like it didn’t scare her one bit.
“You’re fucking beautiful, Em,” I said roughly, twisting the strings over my fist once.
