She gives the dance floor a passing glance. The last of her espresso martini offers a bitter kick. The grinds at the bottom match her hair, wrapped in a formal chignon. Her exposed shoulders and black dress clash with her fellow patrons’ yellowed t-shirts and cowboy hats. Her perfume is lost to the humidity of stale beer. But she relishes the experience: a fancy dinner followed by a dive bar is among their favorite traditions.
One side of her mouth raises in a half-smirk, half-smile. “Can those old knees still cut a rug?” she asks. The depth of her husband’s smile lines hint at the thousands that have preceded it. “Always,” he says. They walk hand-in-hand to the middle of the dance floor.
The music plays loud and fast. They dance. They laugh. They sing. They spin. They are the only two people in the world. Slow dance follows fast dance follows line dance. Other couples come and go, but they remain. The fifteen-year conversation of their marriage carries on without words.
At last call, they walk off the dance floor leaning against each other. They sweat, they giggle, they swoon. He stops, gives her hand a gentle tug. She pauses. Turns. They look at one another as they once did. They kiss, as they did in their first months together, reveling in the spark that is theirs. Still there after all these years, just below the surface of their everyday lives.
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
They summon their Uber, stagger upstairs, swap into PJs, and collapse into bed.
He senses a ray of sunlight sneaking in through the curtains. But it is the creaking floorboards and hungry pre-teen’s silhouette at the bedroom door that awaken him. He hears the dog’s footfalls cascade down the stairs and stop at the front door. He sighs and rolls out of bed, with only a fleeting glance towards his sleeping wife before his mind is overwhelmed by the busy of the day.