Before he could wonder if she was talking to him or the person next to her, she grabbed Zhi’s hand and tugged him out on the dance floor. She began the shuffle step dance. He knew this. He could do this.
With sure steps, he fell in line next to her. Her steps were a little different than Spin’s. Parker added hand movements and hip swivels that Spin hadn’t shown him. He kept with the basics. But after a few repetitive verses, it got old quick.
He looked around at the moving, glowing, rainbow bodies. What was he doing here? Was he consigning himself to a life of this?
He leaned close to Parker’s ear. “Can I talk to you?”
“What?” she shouted as she moved about the dance floor.
“Can we talk?”
He was standing motionless in the center of the dance floor and getting dirty looks. Then he was jostled to his left when someone shuffled by. Finally, Zhi put his hand at Parker’s low back and guided her off the floor.
“What’s up?” she asked when they were away from the booming speakers.
“I just wanted a minute to talk to you.”
“Okay.” Parker looked up at him expectantly, giving him her full attention for the first time since they’d met.
Now that he had her alone, he didn’t know how to begin. Except with the truth. “You have no interest in me, do you?”
“Interest?” she asked. “What do you mean?”
Nope. She didn’t. He knew enough to know that if he had to clarify it, she didn’t feel it. “I can’t do this.”
Parker put a hand on his arm. There wasn’t a single spark where her bare fingertips touched his skin. “Zhi, what are we talking about? Where’s Spin? Did you guys have a fight or something?”
His ear prickled at the sound of Spin’s name. His heart didn’t skip a beat, it thudded at the front of his chest. “You think there’s something between me and her?”
Parker cocked her head as she regarded him. “It’s pretty obvious.”
Was it? Why were his feelings for Spin obvious and not his pursuit of Parker?
“You two always had your heads together on the ship,” Parker continued. “Then you invited her to stay with you. If you’re not an item, then I don’t know what?”
But he and Spin couldn’t be an item. He had responsibilities, a duty. A duty that would make him as unhappy and miserable as his father.
Looking down at Parker, Zhi saw the truth. He’d make this woman unhappy and miserable. He’d never hit her or say an unkind word, but being with someone when he had feelings for another was a kind of abuse.
Spin’s voice sounded in his head. That’s the worst kind of abuse. You’re abusing yourself.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“What for?” asked Parker
“For what I almost did to you.”
“To me?”
“You haven’t seemed to notice, but I’ve been trying to seduce you.”
Parker burst out laughing. Then sobered. “Oh. You’re serious. Zhi, you know I don’t play for your team?”
He had no idea what that meant? Another reason this relationship would never work. He needed an urban dictionary just to understand this woman.
Parker put her hands on his shoulders and turned him around. “Go find Spin. She’s the one that needs the seducing.”
But Zhi hesitated. He could go and find her. And then what? He had nothing to offer her. And he’d have the baggage of his family and staff coming along with him.