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The bar is empty, the floor is mopped, and Nick is almost ready to lock up when Jess starts dancing.
It’s his own damn fault. Turning off the music is always the last thing he does; it makes the whole process of closing more bearable. There’s just something about being the only one there, free to lip-synch and head bang and move his hips in time with the bass.
Only tonight, he’s not the only one. Because Jess stayed.
Because Paul is grading papers, and because Cece has an early job tomorrow. Because the music is turned up too loud and it clicked over to that annoying Christmas CD when Nick wasn’t paying attention. Because Jess is drunk on pink wine and holiday spirit and doesn’t want to be alone. Because one day last summer Jess answered an ad on Craigslist, and because not so long after that the girl that lingers just out of reach behind Nick’s eyelids morphed from blonde to dark brunette.
So many becauses leading up to this fragile, imperfect moment when Jess closes her eyes and starts swaying to the beat.
Nick pauses over the cash register and watches her (like always). The night’s takings are crumpled in his hands, the bills damp with beer. He’s lost count, but he can’t bring himself to care.
He has no idea how such a pretty girl got to thirty with no idea of how to dance. As soon as she feels the pressure of eyes on her, she has a tendency to revert to awkward, self-aware thrusting. The first time he saw that move, before the wedding where she was his pretend date, effectively and mercifully killed the first moment that he found himself looking at his new roommate and thinking Fuck. This could go tremendously, fantastically wrong.
This close-eyed swaying is a step above that, at least. Maybe the alcohol has mellowed her out. Maybe she just doesn’t realise that Nick’s watching her (silly, oblivious, beautiful girl). Still, her arms are awkwardly half-raised by her head. One hand is fist-pumping, and the other – are those spirit fingers?
And her hips – Nick observes through hooded eyelids – her hips are jerking from side to side, with seemingly little regard for the rhythm of this (or any) song.
He’s starting to understand why the chicken dance is her go-to move.
Now, Nick Miller is no lord of the dance. Most times he and dance have gotten together it’s only brought discomfort to all involved. Sure, he used to dance alone in his room, occasionally when he was naked, but Jess effectively put the kibosh on that.
He still can’t bring himself to listen to that song without wincing and covering his junk.
No, Nick is not an expert by any means. But something about the way Jess is moving now is making his fingers itch to curl around her hips, to slow down and smooth out her body’s movements in time with his own.
He doesn’t even realise he’s pushed the register shut until he hears its decisive click. Then before he can talk himself down he’s rounding the bar, drawing closer to Jess in eight increasingly terrifying steps.
He stops right in front of her, takes a moment to watch her (what else is new). The Christmas lights strung up around the bar glow in her shiny, pretty hair, refracting shards of rainbows into his periphery. He’s sure that any moment she’ll sense him standing there and her gigantic eyes will pop open, but that doesn’t happen. She keeps moving, and he keeps looking, until he starts to feel like a major creep. Licks his lips and clears his throat.
Jess.
Only the music drowns him out, and he’s left standing there, more awkwardly than before, the taste of her name on his tongue.
So he does the next best thing, and reaches out to tap her on the shoulder. Only what with her moving around in such a bizarre manner, he sort of ends up hitting her in the neck instead. Her eyes finally open at that, and she gives a little shout of surprise, which he mainly deduces from the movement of her lips, muffled as it is by the music.
For some reason instead of jerking his hand away he sort of... leaves it where it lands, letting his thumb trace the soft skin of her throat. As if that compensates for basically punching her in the windpipe ten seconds ago.
Nick Miller, ladies and gentlemen.
Jess’s mouth quirks up in a confused smile. Her pupils look blown, dark and dilated behind those glasses that take up half her face. She swallows, and he feels her throat pulse against his thumb. It feels intimate in a way that scares him, and he quickly drops his hand to his side.
The music is quieter now, as one song fades into the next. Jess looks around, taking in the upturned chairs, the sweet, clean smell of disinfectant.
“Time to go?” she asks him in that low, throaty voice of hers. Her words are gently slurred, her eyes sleepy, and yeah, in retrospect –
- in retrospect, that’s probably the point at which he should have called it a night.
Then the next song starts, and her tongue flicks out to lick her bottom lip, and he’s lost.
“No, I was just... those are some interesting moves, Day.”
She’s already started her swaying again, her body sweetly compliant to the music, and it takes her a moment to register what he said. When it clicks, a grin spills across her face.
“Oh, you mean these?”
That’s when it starts, the frenzied jerking and twirling and all-around ridiculousness. One of her hands flails dangerously close to his face, and it’s only instinct that makes him reach out and grab it.
Honestly, he’s just trying to prevent an injury.
But she’s thrown off balance, and she stumbles towards him, her free hand landing on his chest. And Nick could say that it’s only instinct that makes him slide his other hand around her waist, to steady her.
He could say that, but he’d be lying.
Even so, it’s only once his hand is pressed flat against smooth, hot skin rather than wool that he remembers the way her sweater, the red one with the cartoon reindeer, was riding up as she danced.
Jess’s eyes flicker down to the places their bodies are touching. Nick holds his breath and wonders if this is an ending or a beginning.
“Are you trying to slow dance with me, Miller?”
What else can he do but pull her closer and start to move?
Jess lets out a breathy laugh, and slides her hand up to his shoulder. He can feel the trail of heat it leaves, burning through his flannel, setting fire to his skin.
Their bodies move together, left to right and back again. He hasn’t really said anything in a while, but the music’s building again to an obnoxious Christmas crescendo, so he thinks maybe it doesn’t matter. The sound system is crooning - Beautiful, what’s your hurry? – and Jess is singing along under her breath. He can tell by the way her lips lovingly shape out the words.
Her breath feathers across his neck, and her fingers reach up to toy with his hair. She’s flushed and smiling and he’s more than halfway in love with her. The thought surges through him like electricity. He’s overcome by the irrational fear that she’ll look up and see it in his eyes, all his bottled up love and lust and longing. Nick Miller has never been one to wear his heart on his sleeve, but Jess is slowly, sweetly breaking all his rules.
So he does the only thing he can think to do. He raises their joined hands, gently pushes her hip away from him, and she’s slowly turning in his arms. She’s facing away from him now, and all he can see is a tumble of dark glossy hair and the perfect curve where her neck meets her shoulder..
Jess’s feet shuffle, she makes as if to keep spinning, but Nick grips her waist again and holds her in place. Yes, this is a much safer angle. No big doe-eyes looking up at him, coaxing him to spill his secrets.
Only maybe not, because at least face to face they could make like they were play-acting; a parody of a romance. Now his front is very nearly pressed against her back, and his hand has settled on the front of her hip, his fingertips brushing against the top of her skirt. Their other hands remain joined in the air, and he gently lowers them to rest on her shoulder. Tries to make his movements slow but sure, like he’s not living moment by moment as he walks a precipice between desire and panic.
Jess’s free hand hovers, then hesitantly settles on top of his at her waist. And they’re moving, left to right and back again, and Nick’s the dumbest boy in school for thinking this would make things easier.
The tension desperately needs breaking; Nick’s hand is flat against Jess’s stomach, and he’s pretty sure she hasn’t taken a breath since he sent her spinning. He slides his other hand from her shoulder to her hip, and gripping her gently, starts to move her hips from side to side.
“See, you gotta do it like this,” he murmurs directly into her ear, and tries not to read too much into the way she shivers. He’s having a good old chuckle before he realises that he’s never mentioned his whole ‘guys teaching girls how to do stuff from behind’ theory to Jess. Which means she doesn’t realise he’s doing this ironically. Which means she just thinks he’s... physically trying to show her how to dance.
Oh god.
Then Jess’s head tips back against his shoulder, and she sighs. He looks down at her. Her eyes are closed, her lips are parted...
It’s almost like she’s turned on.
Nick bites back a groan and just keeps moving, left to right and back again, afraid to do anything that will break the spell. Jess’s hands, where they rest on top of his, start to move. Her left fingertips trace the back of his knuckles. Before he can register what’s happening, she’s pushing his fingers down – with just barely enough pressure, and he has a feeling that if he called her on it, she’d deny it – but she’s pressing on his fingertips until they slip below her sweater and dip under the waist of her skirt. Until they settle on bare skin, lightly skimming the elastic of her underwear.
Nick closes his eyes and tries to hold onto this moment before it becomes a memory; tries to memorise the electric crackle of her skin under his fingertips. He spreads the fingers of his other hand wide, spanning as much of her stomach and ribcage as he can. Again Jess nudges him, infinitesimally, moving his hand upwards until his thumb brushes her breast. He drags his thumb back and forward, hypnotised, the underside of her breast round and heavy against his knuckle.
Jess sighs again and leans back into him, settles full against his body. There’s no way she doesn’t know the effect she’s having on him at this point. He feels wild and daring, and tightens his grip on her, just enough so her ass is flush against his groin – just enough to make his head foggy with want. And she’s pressing back, there’s no doubt about it, and she’s nudging his fingers in her waistband lower still. Nick lets his head fall forward, overcome; presses a kiss against that perfect curve where her neck meets her shoulder. Just one kiss, his lips barely parted, his tongue scarcely glancing her skin as he pulls away. He breathes into her ear, somewhere between a plea and a prayer. Jess.
Then the song is ending, and behind the fading music, a phone is ringing.
For a moment everything’s still. They're so tangled up in each other that it’s unclear whose hands are whose. Then Nick’s stumbling backwards, and Jess is lunging forwards, to where her phone chirps on the table in her favourite booth
Nick charts the progress of his heart from his throat, noting with interest as it slides between his lungs, skirts the aching in his groin, and twirling down his tired, heavy legs, lands with a thud on the freshly mopped floor.
That song must have been the last on the CD, because silence prevails in the dimly-lit bar; silence and Jess’s voice, saying Done already huh? and Um, yeah, I guess I can come over. She sounds dazed and guilty, and Nick wonders if Paul knows her well enough to tell.
Then she’s turning to Nick, and they’re making eye contact for the first time in what feels like forever. She’s still on the phone, saying mm and definitely but the real conversation is in the spaces between. Her eyes are begging permission, and forgiveness. Nick’s eyes are wondering why she still hasn’t realised that he’ll give her anything she asks for.
So he nods, and shrugs, and tries to smile. Jess grabs her bag and makes for the exit, I’ll just grab a cab, her voice bright and loud and trying too hard to pretend nothing’s wrong.
At the doorway she pauses and looks back at Nick, his feet still fixed to the spot. She covers her phone with her hand for one moment, and he holds his breath. But she just mouths, sorry, and with one final apologetic glance, is gone.
Nick counts out the quarters and closes the safe. Steps out into freezing air that stings his nose and cheeks, and methodically locks the doors.
Knows without a doubt that they’ll pretend tonight never happened.
He pulls his hoodie tight over his face and starts walking.