Free Kiss of Surrender by Sandra Hill Page B

from side to side. No twirls or fancy steps. But just then Trond noticed that the band had changed songs. “Oh no! Not now!” he said on a groan. Coming to an abrupt halt, he pressed his forehead against Nicole’s.
    “What now?”
    Why does she say that as if I’m always in trouble?
    Maybe because I often am. “It’s that song,” he explained and groaned again.
    “Aretha Franklin’s ‘Chain of Fools’? What about it? I know you’re a fool, but what else is new?”
    Sarcasm ill suits her, but I will not tell her so. See, I can be wise. Is anyone listening up there? “Did you ever see the movie Michael starring John Travolta?”
    “Yeah,” she replied, frowning with confusion.
    “My brothers and I have watched it dozens of times,” he revealed. If she only knew, a bunch of vangels didn’t have much else to do on long winter nights when holed up together. That and Michael Jackson videos to appease the youngest vangel in their ranks, who fashioned himself a born-again moonwalk dancer, like the King of Pop. He only hoped the band didn’t decide to play “Thriller.” He might just have to slit his wrists and drink his own blood dry.
    “And the chains song?” she prodded.
    “Makes me want to dance,” he admitted, reluctantly.
    “I thought you didn’t like to dance.”
    “I don’t.”
    It was probably some subliminal impulse implanted by Mike into the vangels, or at least the VIK. Sort of an archangel joke. Stepping back from her, he closed his eyes in concentration, then began with his arms raised, palm spread as if feeling for something in the air. I must look like every village idiot ever born.
    “Are you crazy? Stop it! People are staring,” he heard Nicole say in a mortified whisper as she tried, to no avail, to tug him off the dance floor.
    The beat of the music was in his bones now. He opened his eyes and did the forefinger pointing move with four rhythmic steps to the right, then four rhythmic steps to the left. Then he repeated the pattern, grinning at Nicole the whole time. You couldn’t help but grin when you did the Michael dance.
    He heard Cage yell out, “Hey, guys, come here. You’ve gotta see this. Trond has turned into John frickin’ Travolta.” Cage was considered a really good dancer. If he was impressed, then Trond must be doing something right. Or wrong.
    A gleeful F.U. yelled, “Shake yer booty, Easy.”
    He was going to shake something on F.U. sometime soon, and it wasn’t going to be his ass.
    “Show us your moves, stud!” Nicole’s housemate Marie urged.
    He had moves, but they weren’t ones to be displayed in public.
    People were starting to clap and the crowd began to sing along whenever the band got to the “Chains, chains, chains” refrain. Now that he was in the groove, he glanced around. Son of a troll! He was the only one dancing.
    He continued to dance, sometimes bending his knees and thrusting his hips, other times using his fists in a punching motion as he danced forward. The whole time he kept beckoning Nicole with the fingertips of both hands to come closer. She kept shaking her head no, and laughing, even though some women, and a few men, began to join him in a line dance.
    She wasn’t the only one laughing. So were Cage, Sly, JAM, Geek, and F.U., who stood behind her. As well as Donita, Marie, and Kendra.
    Just great! That’s me. A Viking court jester! Lord of the Fjord Dance! “C’mon, Nicole. Be a sport,” he urged. Said the dancing spider to the fly.
    “No way!”
    Trond put his hands over both eyes as if wounded by her rejection, but her refusal was a challenge he couldn’t ignore, and he danced over to cull her out from the herd, so to speak. Hey, he could be a cow person, too. Now that he was behind her, he put one arm around her waist and tugged her close to his body. Real close! When his hips swayed, hers did, too. Against her ear, he whispered, “Gotcha!”
    “That better be your belt buckle pressing against my rear.”
    He just