The Rom-Commers(59)

“My opinion of you is plummeting,” Charlie said. “This is your type?”

“I have lots of types, thank you. Sexy cowboys. Sexy lumberjacks. Sexy werewolves with tragic pasts. Sexy ghosts.”

“Sexy ghosts?”

“That’s the only kind of ghost I like.”

“What about sexy hicks?” Charlie said, tilting his head at the instructor. “Or sexy corncob-pipe smokers? Or sexy mouth breathers?”

“That man can breathe all he wants,” I said.

But this was really bothering Charlie. “This guy,” he said, “is not sexy. He drove to LA on a riding lawnmower eating fried butter and squirrel nuggets.”

“I don’t think you can knock his food choices, pastrami man.”

“Have some respect for yourself,” Charlie said.

I glanced back at those Wranglers. “I think I’m respecting myself just fine.”

That’s when our instructor, ready at last, adjusted his headset mic and turned to face the audience. And then he started speaking. And it turned out he wasn’t a hillbilly at all.

He was Italian.

“Ciao a tutti,” the instructor said.

Charlie and I looked at each other, like What!

Then we both peered over at the easel with the class poster. It had the instructor’s picture. His name was Lorenzo Ferrari. And he was from Venezia, Italy.

“Did he just get handsomer?” I asked, looking around at all the women in the room who were asking themselves the same question.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Charlie said.

But this really was a game changer. Our instructor wasn’t a hillbilly. He was a gorgeous Italian dreamboat cosplaying as a hillbilly.

“Welcome,” Lorenzo said next, in a perfectly delicious accent.

And then, even as he launched into explaining the class, and how we’d learn three simple dances tonight—he’d do a “teach” first, and then he’d turn on the music and we’d do it for real—I couldn’t concentrate. His voice was like a deep-tissue massage.

Had I brought Charlie all the way here to prove to him that line dancing wasn’t sexy?

Can’t win for losing, I guess.

I blame Italy.

“Try to focus,” Charlie said, punching my shoulder to break my trance.

But I’ll tell ya: Line dancing is not as easy as it looks.

I’d always kind of harbored a suspicion that I might be a secret dancing savant. Not line dancing per se, but just—from all the moves I’d busted in the kitchen while cooking over the years—I’d nursed a secret fantasy that maybe, if I ever really tried to dance, I’d astonish us all.

Ten minutes into that chance, I stood corrected.

I was not secretly awesome.

I was terrible.

We’d need a more humiliating word for terrible.

As Lorenzo led us through the steps of the first dance, I could follow pretty well as long as I could see him—but as soon as we all turned to face the next wall, which happens a lot in line dancing, I forgot everything. My mind went blank. I’d wind up craning my neck over my shoulder to try to keep him in my sights.

Which didn’t work too well.

I’d get all pretzeled up, and then I’d step on my own feet, and then I’d slam into Charlie. Sometimes hard enough to get him coughing again.

“Don’t keep looking backward,” Charlie said.

“I’m a visual learner.”

“Just watch me. I’m right here.”

“But he’s the instructor,” I said. “And he’s Italian.”

We were learning a dance called the Canadian Stomp, which started out easy—a heel touch, a toe touch, and then a very satisfying stomp—but then devolved into lots of fluttery grapevine-ing that flummoxed me. And also forced me to confront that I’d never fully mastered my left from my right.

Was I the worst person in the room?

By a mile.

I was like a bumper car gone rogue, colliding into everybody—especially Charlie.

Every time I slammed into him, he said, “Oof.”

“Sorry,” I’d say, and pat him at the place of impact.

I was bad enough that Lorenzo himself eventually came down from the stage to help me. But having that face and those shoulders and that belt buckle in close proximity only made me worse.

“It’s a scuff with a quarter turn into the jazz box,” Lorenzo said pleasantly, like he was clearing things up.

I’d have to google “jazz box.” “My legs keep getting tangled,” I said.

At that, Lorenzo—good god!—looked down at my legs.

I held very still.

Then he said, “You should tie your shoelaces,” in a voice that made me feel pretty certain I’d never think about shoelaces in the same way again.

For a half second, I wondered if Lorenzo Ferrari, line-dancing Adonis, might actually kneel down and tie them for me.

But that’s when I looked down to realize Charlie was already there.

Charlie Yates. Had dropped down on one knee. In front of me. On the floor of a honky-tonk. And was now tying my sneaker laces in double knots with gruff but unmistakable affection.

Not gonna lie. As much as our instructor was objectively, legitimately, inescapably sexy, and as much as I’d enjoyed teasing Charlie about it … No amount of ogling Lorenzo Ferrari did even a fraction of the things to me that the sight of Charlie Yates tying my shoes did.