Free How We Met by Katy Regan Page B

are making erratic and alarming jerking movements, as if he’s desperate for the toilet or suffering from a neurological disorder. He catches sight of himself in the mirror again, blinks in disgust and looks the other way, only to be greeted by his red-faced reflection once more, his mouth hanging open in concentration. This is like a grim exercise in public humiliation.
    He looks over at Karen. She’s a natural, of course she is, her hips and the rest of her body working in harmonious, fluid movements, which make her look sexy and stylish. He’d be proud of her if he wasn’t so busy being bitter. Why didn’t she tell him she was some Darcey Bussell wannabe as a kid? That gives her a totally unfair advantage. Not that this is a competition or anything.
    He looks up, just at the moment that she does, and she gives him a tight-lipped smile that kills Fraser because he knows it’s a sympathy smile, and there’s nothing worse than a sympathy smile, except perhaps a sympathy snog.
    He wouldn’t mind, but they’re only trying to master the ‘basic salsa step’ on their own as yet. If he can’t do that, what hope does he have for proper dancing in a pair? Or of ever achieving his goal?
    Fraser is not a gracious loser and has a tendency to become despondent quickly when he can’t do something, especially in a public situation like this where his dignity is on the line. He remembers – just as the mood descends – that he also tends to become sullen; get a ‘face on like a smacked arse’, as Liv used to say, and he doesn’t want Karen to see him like that. ‘Smacked arse’ is one thing in front of your long-term girlfriend, but quite another in front of your new squeeze. He tells himself to get a grip and imagines what Liv would say if she could see him now: ‘Wipe that look off your face, Fraser John Morgan. It’s
deeply
unattractive.’
    It’s not helping that the woman next to him in a leotard – a fucking leotard, for crying out loud – is muttering something and giving him funny looks. Fraser’s sure she’s trying to get his attention, but he’s choosing to ignore her. If it’s just so she can tell him he’s cramping her style, she can bugger off. How rude. He perseveres, concentrating as much as possible on Calvin’s feet and encouraging smile, but then she jabs him in the side with her bony little elbow.
    ‘Ow!’ He turns round, annoyed. ‘What?’
    She’s pointing at the floor, jabbering on about something in a foreign language, but he can’t tell which one because the music’s too loud.
    He frowns at her, shrugs his shoulders, and tries to turn back the other way, but she starts pointing more angrily, throwing her hands in the air, and Fraser begins to think she must just be mad, until the next thing he knows, Calvin is beneath his feet with a dustpan and brush.
    It’s only then that he looks down and sees that all over the floor are little clumps of dirt – like molehills or animal dung. All sorts of terrible, unspeakable things come to mind, until Fraser realizes it’s just mud, mud that his filthy trainers have been depositing for the last fifteen minutes; half of Hampstead Heath all over the pristine white floor.
    By the time they have a break, halfway through the class, Fraser has fought the sullen mood all he can and is in the full grip of smacked arse.
    After the humiliation of the muddy trainers scenario (Calvin said not to worry but Fraser still feels mortified), they did pair work, the girls moving round the circle so that they got a chance to dance with every bloke. Woman-in-a-leotard refused to look at him when it got to her turn because he stepped on her toe by mistake. She was lucky he didn’t stamp on both feet, silly cow. There was some light relief when it came round to Karen, who was sweet and encouraging, but all in all, he feels like a loser.
    ‘Buddy, don’t worry, it is much, much harder than it looks.’
    Now he is having to go through the further humiliation