87

Natasha really cannot dance; it’s so bad, it’s painful, but she seems to embrace it like a champ, and we end up giggling ridiculously. I try showing her how to shimmy but she just can’t, how to sexy wiggle, which is worse than bad, and even for the life of me, I try showing her how to just sway side to side and fake a dance, but each and every attempt is just hopeless. I have never known a woman have such little fluidity to her movements as her, and she seems so prim and proper out there that I have to rescue her before this starts to become embarrassing. I shake my head when it’s clear the new faster beat to the next song is beyond her capabilities and drag her back to the bar above, back into the fold of Arrick’s friends in a happier mood, strangely light and forgetting everything else for a minute.

When we get back up the stairs, I notice he’s standing at the bank of windows with Nathan and a couple of other men. They’ve been watch