VERSUS (Second Chances 2)

He can’t be more than twenty-four or twenty-five. He took time and care with his appearance.

His jaw is closely shaved, his hair neatly trimmed, and the cologne he’s wearing is expensive. At first glance, it would be easy to make the assumption that he works in an office tower in the heart of the city.

The callus on his thumb and the tanned skin of his nose and cheeks tell a different story.

He works hard for a living, somewhere in the sun.

“Eden,” I offer back as I slide my palm into his hand.

“As in the Garden of Eden? Are you the paradise I’ve been looking for?” he jokes. “Dance with me?”

It can’t hurt. There’s a certain comfort that comes from having the strong arms of a man wrapped around me as I move to the music.

It’s heaven if the man can keep the same rhythm as me.

Dylan can. He always could.

The first time I asked Dylan to dance I was sixteen-years-old. He picked me up from a modern dance class so I could tutor him before football practice.

The ride in his shiny red Mustang was a treat, but the dance we shared before we left the rehearsal hall was what got my pulse racing and made my knees weak.

He took me in his muscular arms. I placed a hand on his broad shoulder and shivered when his hand slid down my back.

He twirled me in circles, his blue eyes never leaving mine, as the room cleared and my infatuation bloomed into a full-on crush.

It was a crush on the boy who saw me as the coach’s daughter.

That’s all I was to him until two nights ago.

“I hope you can keep up with me,” I say to Hank.

He pulls me close, his breath skirting over my cheek. “I have no doubt that I can.”

He leads, clumsily, as the music shifts from a throbbing fast beat to a slow, smooth pace.

He spins me once toward the bar. I steal a glance, not wanting to make eye contact with Dylan.

My heart stutters for a beat when I realize that the stool he was sitting on is vacant.

He’s either left with someone or is on this dance floor, sweeping another woman off her feet, just as he did with me.

We had a moment in time that I never thought we would. It was a moment that I had dreamed of when I was a seventeen-year-old girl watching the boy she wanted walk away from her.

“Eden?” Dylan’s voice behind

me drags my gaze over my shoulder.

I lock eyes with him.

He glances at Hank. “She’s with me, pal.”

“Are you?” Hank asks, disappointment edging his tone.

I look at his kind face. On another night, in another club, things might have been different.

“I requested our song next.” Dylan moves to stand next to me. “You belong in my arms for that one.”

Our song? My curiosity is strong enough to pull me away from my current dance partner.