Page 111 of Just One More Thing

I look down at Mo. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she says. “You?”

“Yeah.”

She searches my face like she’s looking for something I’m not saying.

I squeeze her hand once. “Dance with me.”

Her expression eases. “Okay.”

Mrs. Kravitz is standing at the edge of the dance floor holding her scoring paddle. Earlier she gave Humphrey a two. He hmphed about it for twenty straight minutes.

I take Mo’s hand and lead her onto the dance floor, and for a while, I let the night move around us. Because once Blue Crab Bay gets going, you don’t really attend the party so much as get absorbed by it.

Ryan’s dancing with Elizabeth now, head bent toward her so he can hear whatever she’s saying over the music. She says something that gets a low laugh out of him.

Charlie’s out here dancing with Bethany. They’re easy together. They look like friends who’ve known each other forever and never had to think about it.

Wayne turns away from the drink table and stops dead.

He’s holding his drink perfectly still.

Wayne Kerr is never still.

Somebody calls his name, and his expression resets to factory default sunshine, but I caught it before he did.

The second Charlie steps away from Bethany, Wayne’s there. “Bethany,” he says, holding out a hand. “Dance with me.”

She starts looking around.

“What?” Wayne asks.

“I was looking to see if hell had frozen over.”

“Don’t be like that, Bethany. I’m an excellent dancer.”

“You tripped over a cone tower this morning.”

“That was structural, not rhythmic.”

Bethany eyes his outstretched hand.

Wayne waits her out.

Finally she takes it. “If you step on my feet,” she warns, “I will end you.”

“That is an incredibly romantic thing to say.”

“It wasn’t meant romantically.” But she doesn’t let go of his hand.

Beside them, Lainey’s dancing with Ryan. She’s telling him something with great enthusiasm while they move, and he’s nodding along with the careful concentration of a man trying to keep up.

There’s a woman near the food table I don’t recognize. Thirties maybe. Dark hair. Charlie ends up beside her, which is how this town works. You start dancing with the people you know and end up talking to the people you don’t. By the end of the night, there’s usually not much difference between the two. I make a mental note to ask Charlie about her later.

Wayne, meanwhile, asks Mrs. Kravitz to dance. This is either very charming or the world’s most elaborate attempt to influence his score. Possibly both. Mrs. Kravitz considers him for a moment before setting down her paddle.

They are, against all logic, excellent together.