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Val was just a little bit shorter than her, even with her high heels on, which was kind of adorable. She squeezed Taylor’s hand gently.

“Don’t be nervous, you’ll be great,” Val said. Hmm, maybe Avery should be with Val. She was so encouraging.

No, Taylor—the point of tonight was for Avery to flirt, not just to learn how to salsa dance, remember?

Taylor glanced over at Avery and her partner. Avery’s hand was on her partner’s shoulder, and her partner’s hand was on Avery’s waist, and they were hand in hand, just like they were supposed to be. But Avery was very stiff, and at least from behind, she still looked nervous. Though Avery had incredible posture, she always looked stiff.

“Wonderful, you all look beautiful,” Elena said. “MUSIC! I’m going to count again, and you’ll start on my second count of eight. If you mess up, which many of you will, that’s okay, just stop until you get to the one again, and start again. Alisha and I will walk around and help you. Now…one two three four five six seven eight, ONE two three four five six seven eight.”

Step, step, step, pause; step, step, step, pause. At first, Taylor was too busy dancing herself and trying to follow Val to even look at Avery. Elena and Alisha had made this look so much easier.

After a few rounds, though, Taylor managed to look up and over at Avery and her partner. Avery still had ramrod straight posture, but she no longer looked as anxious. She was dancing away with her partner, like she’d been doing this for years. Her partner’s hand was now more toward the middle of Avery’s back, and…were they closer together?

Taylor stepped forward when she should have stepped backward and landed on Val’s toe.

“Sorry, sorry,” Taylor said.

“That’s okay, sweetie, don’t worry about it!” Val said. “Remember what Elena said, we’ll just stop and start back up again. And…one two three four five six seven eight.”

Avery laughed at something her partner said, and her partner smiled at her. Huh, that was going much better than she thought it would, at least this early on.

Taylor almost stumbled again, but Val held on to her so securelythat she found her footing. Thank goodness Val knew what she was doing; Taylor was weirdly distracted by watching Avery and her partner. Why did that distract her so much? She had to focus.

Avery’s partner leaned closer to her, and Taylor stumbled again. And then it all became clear.

She was jealous! That was all. She wasn’t the jealous type, but she was so sexually frustrated because of this stupid bet;shewanted to be the one with her hands on Avery, watching her body move, smiling at her and making her laugh. It all made sense now. Well, she’d deal with that problem with her favorite vibrator later tonight. That would calm her down.

Once she diagnosed the problem, Taylor did a much better job dancing with Val and her other partners. After an hour and a half of dancing with only quick breaks to change partners and learn a few more moves from Elena and Alisha, the music stopped.

“My friends, my darlings, my wonderful dancers!” Elena said. “It breaks my heart to say this, but our class is over for this evening. You all were a joy, especially you beginners, who exceeded my already high expectations for you. Thank you, thank you for everything for this evening, and please come back to our class next month!”

The class broke out into applause, and there was even more cheering than the first time. After one particularly loud “woooooo” on her part, Taylor felt a tap at her shoulder.

“Remind me to have you in the audience if I’m ever performing at anything,” Avery said.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Taylor said.

The crowd was loud and friendly and euphoric on the way out of the community center. Taylor and Avery both stopped to thank their partners on the way out of class, and Avery had a big smile on her face as they exited the community center. Taylor turned to Avery.

“Did you—”

“Taylor!” They both turned to find Liz, Callie, and Rex behind them. “Hey!” Liz said. “Did you guys have fun? We’re heading out to get a drink and something to eat now. I’m starving after that—do you want to join us?”

Taylor was also starving, and she would usually say yes to that, but she wanted to do the class debrief alone with Avery.

“I wish,” Taylor said. “I have to get up early tomorrow morning, so I think I’m going to go home and crash. Next time, though.”

The three of them looked disappointed, but they all exchanged hugs and goodbyes andnice to meet yous with Avery before Taylor and Avery walked off toward Taylor’s car.

“I don’t actually have to get up early tomorrow morning,” Taylor said as soon as they got in the car, “but I figured you might need a break, and I didn’t want you to think you were still on the flirting clock if we went out with them.”

Avery laughed as she clicked in her seat belt.

“Thank you. Tonight was fun, but going home to eat something and crash sounds great to me. But your friends all seemed nice; I’d love to hang out with them again another time.”

This was maybe the most enthusiastic Taylor had seen Avery so far. Even more so than when they’d been at the winery party and Avery had been about five glasses of wine in.

“We’ll do that sometime,” Taylor said. “Did you have fun tonight? I can’t believe you were even slightly nervous about this; you looked great while you were dancing.”