The Favor

Chapter 4

The studio was empty at 9:17 pm.

I knew because I'd checked the time on the wall three times since 8:40, each time telling myself I'd leave after this next run-through. Professor Iyer's voice was still in my head from Monday — you're bracing for something — and I was trying to prove her wrong to an empty room.

My feet hated me. The music from my phone speaker was too quiet and too loud at the same time. I kept tripping over the turn in the second eight count.

"Again," I said to no one. Hit replay.

The door opened.

I didn't look up. The campus was safe. Probably. "Studio's booked for—"

"You're here late."

My stomach dropped and then did something else.

Luke. Hoodie instead of the button-down from class. Hands in his pockets. No clipboard, no reason to be here. Just standing in the doorway like he'd been expecting to find someone and wasn't surprised it was me.

"Just practicing," I said. Too fast. "Didn't think anyone would be—"

"You're tripping on the turn," he said. Like we were mid-conversation. "Second eight count. You're anticipating it."

I stopped the music. The silence was worse. "I know."

"Show me."

It wasn't a question. It was the same tone he used in class. Frame. Follow.

I hit play again because my body didn't know what else to do. Got to the turn. Tripped. Again.

"Stop." He crossed the floor, but not all the way to me. Stopped a respectful distance away. The distance he used in class. "You're thinking about falling."

"I'm thinking about the steps."

"No." His head tilted. That look. The one from the library. "You're thinking about what happens if you get it wrong when someone's watching."

I didn't answer because he was right, and I hated that he was right.

"Again," he said. "Don't think. Listen."

He didn't touch me. He didn't need to. He just stood there, weight shifted, and I could feel where he would have put his hand if this was partner work. My body adjusted to it anyway.

The music started. I hit the turn. Clean.

"Better," he said. One word. No smile. And my chest did that stupid thing anyway.

Then he didn't step back the way he did in class. He crossed the rest of the floor instead, closing the distance he'd kept a moment ago, and this time his hand actually found my back — not correcting anything, just there, like he'd decided the lesson was over and something else had started without announcing itself.

"Again," he said, quieter now. "With me this time."

I didn't hit play. He didn't seem to need music.

His hand moved, just slightly, at the small of my back, and I felt it the way you feel a current before you've touched the wire — a kind of anticipation that arrived in my skin before anything had actually happened. He turned me through the same eight count I'd been butchering for twenty minutes, and this time my feet didn't fight it, because I wasn't thinking about the steps at all anymore. I was thinking about how close he was standing. Close enough that I could smell him — something clean and low, cedar maybe, or something more expensive than cedar, nothing like the department-store cologne every guy on this campus seemed to share.

I made myself look somewhere that wasn't his face. His hands first — steady, sure of themselves, the kind of hands that never seemed to hesitate about where they were allowed to go. Then, because I couldn't help it, his face. This close I could see things the distance of a classroom usually hid — a small scar near his jaw, barely there, the kind you'd only notice if you were standing exactly where I was standing. His eyes weren't on the mirror, checking our form the way Professor Iyer always told us to. They were on me.

My heart was doing something it had no business doing over a dance turn.

"You're doing it again," he said.

"Doing what?"

"Thinking too hard." His mouth moved, almost a smile, the real one this time, not the flat one he wore in class. "Just feel it."

I felt it. God help me, I felt it — his hand at my back, the warmth of him a few inches away, the particular electricity of being looked at like I was the only thing in the room worth looking at. It was terrifying how easy it was to stop thinking about anything else.

The song in my head ended before the real one ever started. He stepped back — not all the way, not like before, just enough to put a normal amount of space between two people who'd been dancing.

He glanced at the clock on the wall. 9:22. "You should go. It's not safe to be here alone."

"I'm fine."

"I didn't ask." Still not unkind. Just... accurate. "Go home, Ava."

My name. Out loud. For the first time. Not mouthed across a crowd. Said. Low. Like he'd tested how it felt and decided it fit.

I shut my phone off. Grabbed my bag. Didn't look at him while I walked to the door because I was pretty sure if I did, I'd do something stupid like ask him to stay.

At the door, I remembered. "You left your water bottle."

It was on the piano. Black. Plain. Nothing about it.

"Keep it," he said, already turning away. "You looked thirsty."

I did not look thirsty.

I took it anyway.

Walking back to my dorm, the bottle was warm in my hand. Not from him. From me holding it too tight.

Reese was asleep when I got in. I put the bottle on my desk and told myself it was because I didn't want to lose it. Not because I wanted to see if it still smelled like him.

It did. Faintly. Soap and something else I don't have a name for yet.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and replayed "Better." One word.

I told myself it didn't mean anything.

Luke was probably like that with everyone.

I didn't believe it.

But I wanted to.