Love In Destin ✎

41 - dancing in the kitchen

"I don't dance,"

"Not with classics, you won't. I'll play us something good." She saunters to the living room to get her phone and starts playing a song.

"Who's this, I ask?" The music blasts through the whole house. It's loud but not loud enough that it'll get the neighbors knocking.

"Billy Joel," she's smiling and twirls her body toward the bowl of wet ingredients. She's so into it it's like she can see the notes floating up to the ceiling. It's cute. "What?" She notices my staring. "You don't like it?"

Do I not like it? If I'm being honest, the beat is not bad, and I'm tapping my foot, but she can't see it. I shake my head, "It's good." She smiles as soon as the words slip and bobs her head to the beat.

After mixing the wet ingredients, she cleans up, and I'm almost done with the KitchenAid. Her favorite part comes on, and she starts outright dancing. She shimmies to me and takes my hands into hers as she tries to make me move along with her. "I'm not dancing, Maya,"

"It's just us, you and me,"

She's directing me, and hesitantly, I'm moving with her, slow at first, then a little faster. I'm not outright jumping and shaking my hair like she's doing, but at least it's something. I'm fighting through this out-of-normal behavior and the shame despite the heat on my cheeks.

"That's the first I've ever seen you act...shy," she says when we're putting the cookies in the oven. "It was cute,"

I bite my lip just as the blush in my cheeks comes back, and I saunter away from her.

"You're doing it again," she says.

We settle on the sofa, waiting for the cookies to finish while we chat. We chat until she hears the rain outside and squeals. I don't understand what she is so excited about until she spills it all out. "I've wanted to dance in the rain with my boyfriend since forever! Come on!" She pulls at my arm, but I'm not budging. She lets go, "I don't want to force you to do this,"

"I never said no,"

Then we're outside. I've left my Jean jacket back inside, and we're barefoot on the wet tarmac as Maya starts jumping in puddles. Not too far from us are kids in colourful rain boots and raincoats jumping in puddles and screaming in joy.

This makes my mind jump back several years when Dad would hear the rain and say, "It's puddle times, boys! Quick before your mom scolds us!" We'd throw on our raincoats and boots and jump in the puddles as Dad chased us around. I swallow hard and finally notice that Maya has gone still, drops of rain sliding down all of her.

She asks me with her eyes, "I just remembered how my dad would take Noah and me outside when it rained to jump in puddles. It was one of our favorite things." I smile, but I know my eyes don't show it.

She takes my hands in her warm ones, giving me that happy-go-lucky smile, "My dad used to do the same. There's so much that reminds me of him,"

"Why don't we make a new memory?"

"A new memory?"

"Yeah, so that the rain reminds you of me and me of you,"

She wraps her hands around my neck and mine around her waist. We sway to the beat of the falling rain. I spin her around and turn her and all the other things that make her feel like she's some princess at a ball with her prince. We sometimes slip, and I know we look silly, but I don't care.

She's laughing, and she's smiling, and so am I. Like, I'm actually freaking and genuinely happy after what feels like eons. This is all that should matter: her smile and my smile melding together into whatever concoction happiness is supposed to be.