Free Payback by Kim Brogan

“Thank you so much for a wonderful—”
    He interrupted me.  “Okay, if not a fast dance, then , band—” he turned to the leader of the band across the sound stage, “give us a slow song.  Something from Elvis.”
    The band switched gears , as everyone continued to stare at us. Caden gave me no choice.  He smiled warmly as he firmly grabbed my hand and tugged me to where the dancing was taking place.  Sounds of Can’t Help Falling in Love started playing, and I knew I was in trouble. Had this occurred in my living room, away from hundreds of watchful eyes, it would have been my most romantic dream—Caden Kelly holding me in his arms and dancing to this song.  Now it was my own personal circle of hell.
    He pulled me in close enough that I could smell him; it was a mixture of sweat from dancing all night and his own woodsy, masculine smell, which was rather pleasant.  In fact, I would grow to love that smell and frequently stop to sniff his clothes just to be reminded of our intimacy. We started dancing around the floor, but I was so nervous I wasn’t concentrating on what I was doing. 
    He whispered down to me, “Are you really trying to lead?”
    An audible gasp came out of my mouth. “Sorry. I used to take ballroom dancing, and we never had enough men in the class. I always had to play lead.”
    “I have that problem too,” he teased. “I tell you what, you just relax. You’re safe in my arms, and I promise not to make you look stupid in front of anyone. We’ll go slow and steady.”
    “How do you know that I’m scared?”
    “You’re trembling.”
    “Oh.”
    I took a deep breath and made my muscles relax. My body automatically curved along the muscles of his body so that our moves were so fluid that I didn’t have to think where to step next. He was a trained dancer. I don’t mean trained dancer as in Gene Kelly, but he had been trained for the movies on how to dance properly and, like most things, he did it well. After a minute, I noticed that more people were dancing next to us and chatting away. We were no longer the center of the universe…thank God. The song isn’t that long, but I have to admit that when it ended and he dipped me back—our faces only a romantic few inches apart—I didn’t want to go. But I’d made such a big scene about leaving, I felt that I should.
    “Thank you, Caden,” I managed , as he righted me. “I also want to thank you for starring in the film. You went beyond what I had imagined and made the movie something more than I had written.  You’re a real artist.”
    He shook his head , and I could see in his eyes that he held a certain admiration for me.  “ You are the artistic genius.  I’ve never had a screenplay placed in my hands as eloquent as yours.  What little I added was nothing compared to the work of art that came out of that pretty Irish head.”
    I chuckled at his reference to my Irish heritage.  “Well, I better get going.”
    “Why?” he asked. His voice seemed to be pleading in that one word for me to stay.
    I knew I was reading more into his tone than I should; that he was a trained actor and was meant to sound politely disappointed in my departure.  I pulled away, but as I did, I squeezed his hand in a gesture of thanks, and he squeezed back, but then he wouldn’t let go.  I looked at our hands and then into his eyes, and he shook his head.
    “I can’t let you go.  I can’t stop thinking about how I went wrong that night.  If I could do it all over, I would , but of course, this time I wouldn’t have walked out.  You’re so naïve and thunderstruck over stars and Hollywood that you don’t think I could be genuinely interested in you.  I don’t know how I can convince you that I want to get to know you.”
    I was flabbergasted and uneasy about holding a conversation in the middle of gyrating couples.  “I don’t think this is the best place to discuss why I think we should just be friends.”
    With no warning, he