Emma perused the flyer in the break room. Ballroom dance classes. No partner needed. Could she get the school to pay for the classes if she turned around and taught it to her fifth graders? She supposed not since she wasn’t a PE teacher. And how many fifth graders would want to learn ballroom dance? Most were too hooked to their booty shaking vulgar lyric stuff she’d never allow. Not at that age. Ballroom dance could be good for them. For posture. For grace. Health. She needed it for her own health, for her stamina.
The thought of doing it just for herself pulled at her, even if he’d laughed and said she was too entirely uncoordinated for dance. She didn’t think she was. And the idea of having something of her own for a change pulled at her hard. Why shouldn’t she? If she could arrange for someone to watch Patty that long...
With a sigh, Emma expected the fight of that would make it not worth the hassle.
Still, she thought about it through the rest of the day, through ten year olds giggling when they were supposed to be studying, through drumming history into their heads they’d forget through summer break.
It was nearly summer break. She should be able to insist on time off for herself at least twice a week. Maybe she would do extra tutoring to pay for someone to come sit with Patty just long enough for two classes a week. Some responsible teenager should be willing, and capable enough, and looking to make summer dough.
Deciding to ask around the break room the next day, Emma sighed a huge inaudible breath of relief as the last bell rang and told them all to have a good night and to study...
Her voice trailed off. She’d lost them. They wouldn’t hear if it she said it, so she didn’t bother.
Could she choose which ballroom dances she wanted to learn? Not the Latin dances. Too sexy to do with some stranger who also ended up there without a partner, especially if she got stuck with another woman, which she figured was entirely possible. How many single men went to ballroom classes on their own? And of those who would, how many would she want to Latin dance with? A light shudder ran through her system. Maybe she’d get a video instead and teach herself on nights she didn’t have Patty.
~~~
Pieces of Light is part of the Dancers & Lighthouses series.
Find it HERE
With Alice dead, Nick has moved to York, a mediaeval city of crooked half-timbered houses and tight cobbled streets where Viking re-enactors thrill the tourists. But York was once a Roman colonia that garrisoned the Ninth Legion, and the Sixth Victrix, and the stains of older, sacrificial, deaths lay buried deep in modern cellars. When a female student disappears the police start asking awkward questions about Alice, and Nick finds himself a suspect. Why has an artefact from the Temple of Mithras appeared on his desk? Could Alice and the girl be trapped together, and if he frees the girl can he return Alice to him? 
For the trilogy to work, Nick, and to a lesser degree Alice, have to evolve as people across the three books. From the euphoria of youth in Book 1 to being riddled with regret and guilt in Book 2, when Book 3 opens – three years later for symmetry – Nick has empowered himself with both knowledge and belief, and self-knowledge and self-belief, trusting them to be his sword and his shield. Life, though, no matter the plane, is never quite that simple. If it was I wouldn’t have a novel.
Remember the old romances? They tended to be rich and deep with all kinds of things weaved into the storyline. And their covers … were actual art. Drawn and painted.