Page 45 of The Best Ex of My Life

The corners of his mouth pull up, but he stands firm. ‘Never, and I seriously hope for your future career you’ve not felt the need to prove your twerking skills in front of a bunch of teenagers.’

‘Never.’

Elliot raises his eyebrows, and we’re smiling at each other, and it’s a little glimpse back to how we used to be at our best.

‘Well, you are now,’ Karina tells him, reaching forward and taking his hands. ‘It can be your engagement present to us. Go and dance with Lizzie for this song, and you’ll make our evening complete.’

Out of all the pairings this ex-plan has created, one of the sweetest is the relationship between Elliot and Karina, who get on so well and take the piss out of each other like siblings. Elliot narrows his eyes at her, and she smiles sweetly back before shooing him onto the dance floor with me.

‘You owe me, Karina,’ I say, before downing my wine and handing her my empty glass as she lets out a whoop.

They are all looking on, and there’s nothing else to do but begin sidestepping and swaying our shoulders. Jordan looks bemused at why I’m being so awkward when he’s seen how much I like to dance whenever the chance comes up. I motion for him to come onto the dance floor and join me, but he laughs and shakes his head. Thankfully, the music is loud, so there’s no need to try talking. A few more minutes and Elliot’s crushing embarrassment will be over. I’m hardly loving being up here either, but it’s kind of refreshing to be less uncomfortable than Elliot is in this moment. The melody ramps up and as it does, I think screw it and begin to enjoy the music. My dance moves grow bigger, less restrained. I’m surprised to see Elliot following suit. He matches my twirls and hair swishes, and before long we’re dancing to ‘Proud Mary’ like it should be danced to – as if no one is watching.

We’re sweaty and laughing, and I can tell he’s as relieved as I am we’re this little bit closer to how we used to be when the music suddenly cuts and is replaced by the slow opening notes of a Teddy Swims ballad. All of the energy leaves me, and I feel frozen to the spot, unsure what to do. Everyone is looking at us because we’re still the only two people on the dance floor, and I know I need to move and do something, but what exactly alludes me.

It’s Elliot who moves first, who steps forward and puts one hand lightly on my waist before using his other hand to take one of mine. He pulls me gently towards him before starting to sway us both. At first all I’m trying to do is not think about the pressure of his hand on my body, the heat coming off him and the smell of his aftershave. I stay silent, looking beyond his shoulder at anything but his face.

‘Look what you’ve got us into,’ he says softly into my ear. He’s aiming for lightness, but there’s a slight tremor to his voice that makes my heart race furiously, that makes the wall I’ve spent the last three months building start to crumble. We’re so close to each other, I’m praying he can’t feel it through the thin fabric of my dress. I try to steady it by catching Karina or Teddy’s eye, by breaking the moment and laughing, but someone has dimmed the lights, other people have joined us now, and I can’t spot them.

The dance floor is small, and soon the wide circle of space we had to dance in at the start reduces drastically. He drops my hand so he can press his own hand onto my back and pull me closer. He doesn’t speak, and nor do I. Couples surround us, and at the centre of them, it feels like we’ve disappeared, like we’ve become invisible, and it’s just the two of us. My hands make their way to his back, and I shift him closer to me until my chest meets his and our stomachs collide. He breathes in sharply, and I can feel his heart racing, just as I’m sure he can feel mine.

The song reaches its end just as I’m at the point where I can’t bear it any longer, where the silence and the heat and the solid warmth of his body on mine is pulling me dangerously close to an admission I’ve been managing to avoid for months. Elliot steps back, and I catch one look of the confused expression on his face before he exhales and covers it with a small smile before turning away from me.

I follow him off the dance floor, past the other couples until we get back to the bar and I catch another expression I shouldn’t have seen tonight – Jordan’s. His forehead is wrinkled in confusion as he looks from Elliot to me, and it’s impossible to ignore the hurt in his eyes.

Chapter 18

The whole week after the engagement party, I focus on just how grateful I am to be going out with someone like Jordan. Someone who is easy to be with, someone who couldn’t give a cold shoulder if they tried and someone who determinedly shies aways from having awkward, potentially dangerous conversations with their new girlfriend about the way they were dancing with a man they once slept with.

I don’t know exactly what he saw transpire on the dance floor between me and Elliot because he never mentioned it. He let the night carry on as though he’d not seen anything, even getting up and dancing with me a few times, despite saying he wasn’t going to. We went back to my flat together, and the next morning he was as attentive and caring as ever. Him not dwelling on what he saw meant I could try to do the same, could try to push past it, put it down to feeling awkward about how fraught everything has been between us since the dinner party, or it being the Teddy Swims song that would make any two humans in that close proximity have a moment together.

That’s all it was. A moment. A fleeting moment that didn’t mean anything. Yes, it might have made my head spin at the time, but compared to my relationship with Jordan, a few minutes of chemistry on a dance floor with Elliot that neither of us even wanted pales in comparison. I’m sure he’d say the exact same thing if he weighed up that one dance with me against his wonderful relationship with Teddy. Being with Jordan helps me stay clear about what works and what doesn’t. What I should hold on to and what I should forget, and I’m grateful for that too.

By the time I get to Friday, I’ve convinced myself the whole issue is behind me, and I can move forward. Until Elliot decides to take Teddy on another fucking mini-break, and I end up spending a quiet weekend with Jordan that involves constantly checking WhatsApp for updates from Teddy. She must be having such a wonderful time, it takes her until Sunday night to message.

TEDDY: You wouldn’t believe the shops there! I’ve come back with three new pairs of boots, a new coat and the cutest pair of heels you’ll ever see.

KARINA: Hold on a minute. I thought you were meant to be glamping in the Cotswolds this weekend.

TEDDY: We did, but the Cotswolds has shops. Lots and lots of them.

She follows up her message with a picture of her standing on a small stone bridge in a picture postcard English village, the ground around her covered in shopping bags. In her hand is a small paper bag with a logo that I don’t recognise but one that is unmistakably the kind of bag you get from posh jewellery shops. She follows up that picture with a selfie of her and Elliot. They have their arms round each other, and Elliot is pretending to look pissed off, and Teddy is pretending to stick her tongue out at him, but they both look so happy no one would believe that they are having anything but the best time together.

KARINA: Did you do any walking like you were meant to? I hope the cagoule I leant you didn’t go to waste.

TEDDY: Of course we walked. It’s not like the shops were all next to each other. Sometimes we had to walk down entire roads for me to get to the next one!

KARINA: Poor Elliot.

TEDDY: What do you mean, poor Elliot? He came on this trip knowing what he was getting into, and I let him go in a few places of his choice. One of them might have been an ice-cream parlour so he could get a sugar hit and sit down for ten minutes, but that was his choice.

LIZZIE: Just make sure he never takes you to Paris or London – he won’t stand a chance of having a rest if you hit the shops there!

I re-read my message over and over. It was meant to come off light, in the taking-the-piss spirit that Teddy is used to, but I don’t have the easy confidence in my jokes with Teddy anymore, especially when Elliot is involved, especially when they’ve been away again, having another adventure, and it feels a little too much like they’re shoving their happiness down my throat, even when I know full well that would never be Teddy’s intention. She’s happy, that’s all.

When I’m confident I’ve not come across as bitter, or jealous that the highlight of my weekend was a trip to B&Q with Jordan to choose a new light for my bathroom and a quick bite in Nando’s on the way back, I put my phone down and try to get some sleep.

I end up tossing and turning all night. At one point I wake from a dream where I’m on that bridge in the Cotswolds instead of Teddy, and I have all the bags round me, and Elliot is taking a picture of me, but the bridge crumbles, and as much as I try to get back to him, to safety, I can’t get there in time. I wake up with my heart racing and sweat pooling in the small of my back, and that’s how I welcome in the new week.