My Oxford Year(47)

I smile brightly. Too brightly. “Great, you’re all here! Let’s go! Let’s go dance!” I start back down the stairs, but when I don’t hear them behind me, I turn around. “What?”

Maggie smiles placatingly, as if she’s about to talk a jumper off the ledge. “Sorry, but it’s half five, love.”

“So?”

“No clubs are open at half five, love.”

I huff out a breath, devastated. “Well . . .” My voice breaks as I toss my hands out helplessly. “What should we do?”

They all look at each other, then back at me. Charlie holds up the whiskey bottle. “Pray about it?”

BY THE TIME the club opens, we’re drunk. Drunk enough to think riding our bikes there is a good idea. Only Charlie doesn’t have a bike, so he perches on the handlebars of Tom’s bike, Pippa. The entire ride there, Charlie mutters about the decline of the monarchy and the ascent of the “feckless bourgeois heathens” (I can only assume he means the Middletons).

We drop our bikes in the alleyway leading to the club and stagger to the front door, where a handsome, smiling face awaits me. “Ella,” he says warmly, “beautiful night for a bike ride.”

I forgot to mention it’s pissing rain.

I also forgot to mention that about an hour ago Connor texted me asking if I’d thought any more about going to London tomorrow for Thanksgiving. I didn’t answer his question, but I did tell him he should meet us at the club.

Apparently, he did.

Smiling back at him, I wipe the rain off my face and introduce my friends. Maggie blushes shyly and Tom gets all blokey, slapping Connor on the shoulder and editorializing about women and dancing, something like, “What are you gonna do, eh? They like it when we shake it.” I’m not really paying attention, because I’m watching Charlie elevator-assess Connor. Thoroughly. When he finally sticks out his hand, he side-eyes me, conveying a silent but nonetheless very loud, He’s no Jamie Davenport. I glare back with an equally loud look that says, Shut up.

Charlie brushes past me, murmuring, “Just so long as you recognize it,” and continues forward into the dark entryway of the club. We all follow.

I’m not a club expert, but as soon as we’re inside I can tell this one is a dive. First, it’s a dance club in a town with arguably the highest nerd-per-capita ratio in the entire world. So I wouldn’t call what’s happening in the middle of the floor dancing so much as controlled convulsing. Second, instead of being sweltering as most clubs are, this one manages to retain that bone-deep chill that’s uniquely British. Third, it’s a Wednesday. So nobody is here because they should be. There’s either a very good or a very bad reason.

Given the state I’m in, it’s perfect.

“Drink?” Connor whisper-yells into my ear.

“I’m good for now,” I call back.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, we pregamed.”

“Just let me know if you want something.” He turns to the bar.

Connor is so nice. So unaffected. I miss American men.

I should dance. Dancing would be good right now.

I leave everyone at the bar and slip into the throng, letting the body heat (minimal though it may be) lure me into the center of the dance floor. Within a minute I’m fully assimilated, just another rain-slicked body in the crowd.

I love to dance. Ever since I was a kid. It was therapeutic. Why did I stop? I used to dance every day after school. Put on the radio and just go to town. When did I become the serious adult who runs five miles a day instead of dancing by herself in her own damn apartment?

I don’t know how much time passes, but enough to work up a sweat and no longer feel quite so tipsy. At a song break, I slowly resurface, opening my eyes and finding myself back in this awful club. I see my friends at the bar. With Connor.

I catch his eye. He smiles at me, sets his drink down on the bar, seems to tell the group he’ll be back, and walks directly toward me. A warm rush travels through me as he arrives. Right now, the fact that he’s no Jamie Davenport is a good thing. A very good thing. He boldly brushes a still-damp lock of hair back from my face and says warmly, “Dancing becomes you. You look happy.”

A smile takes over my face. “Do you like to dance?” I ask him.

“Does any man, really?”

I start moving again and he joins in. He’s not bad. Who would have guessed? We smile at each other. He leans in to be heard, his breath stirring the hair at my ear. “You’ve got some moves.” He pauses. “And there’s no way to say that without sounding like a total creeper. Sorry.” I laugh. I pull away and flutter my hand at my face like an antebellum fan. He gives me a big, luscious smile. Now he shouts, “Really like your friends. Who needs Americans?”

I laugh and lean into him. He seamlessly drops his hands to the back of my waist. They settle on that no-man’s-land between lower back and ass. It’s neutral territory in the way demilitarized zones are technically neutral territory: a hair-trigger away from not. I’m weirdly proud of Connor in this moment. He clearly has more game than he lets on. My guess? He’s had a few serious girlfriends, a couple of years each. He’s experienced, but not in a promiscuous way, unlike Jamie and his legion of dropped knickers. There’s just something solid about Connor. Predictable.