Page 38 of The Best Wild Idea (Off-Limits #3)

At first, we dance like all the other couples around us.

He plants his left hand just above my hip, and we glide in unison, swaying back and forth a few times while I grin into his shoulder, barely shuffling left to right on the balls of our feet.

Then, he pushes me out gently by the hip and I spin around once under his arm while a few more unabashed couples walk onto the makeshift dance floor, giving us less room to move so freely, caught up in the small but growing collection of hopeless romantics dancing under this old street light in Spain.

He gently pulls me back into him following the spin, and I wrap both of my arms up around his neck. The closeness between us shields my face again from his.

Then he says what we both must be thinking.

“This is one of those moments that was never supposed to happen.” His lips brush that sensitive spot just below my ear.

“But is it wrong to enjoy?” I ask, before I can think twice, flushing right after the words come out.

“No,” he whispers back. “Of course not.”

I lean into him when the music dips into a slower melody. The dancers around us sway back and forth against each other, just like us.

“We don’t stick out like a sore thumb,” I tell him quietly, smiling.

“Is that what you thought would happen?” He laughs quietly into my ear, and a layer of goosebumps spring out down both of my arms. “You know, I’m not completely awful at dancing.”

“No, I remember you having moves back in college, actually.”

“How else was I supposed to get any ladies with a mug like this?” he asks, sarcastically, pulling back.

He knows he’s impossibly handsome.

I scoff, and push back gently, but he draws me in closer.

We sway for a few moments while my heart pounds in my ears.

The guitar, the dancing couples, the waves sloshing below — it’s all too much. It’s the kind of moment that makes me ecstatic just to be alive. My whole face hurts from smiling most of tonight. Laughing more than I have in well over a year.

“I want to have this memory. Dancing on a Spanish sidewalk with you. Right under the moon,” he tells me. “I know, I know, you’re probably hating this but—”

I lean back to find his eyes, then shake my head at him.

“There’s nothing to hate about this, Si.” And I mean it. “Maybe this moment was never supposed to happen, but I’m glad it is.”

Before he tucks me back into him, we grin at each other as the song transitions into a slow Spanish rendition of “Moon River.” The song is beautifully haunting and one of my favorites, but a few of the couples reluctantly meander their way off the sidewalk, moving on with their night while the melody drifts after them down the sidewalk.

Silas and I continue to sway together under the soft glow of the flickering streetlamp. Neither one of us quite ready to break the unexpected spell of the evening, or bid this exact moment farewell, because as long as we’re still living it, we don’t have to acknowledge that it’s happened.