We Broke the Lab's No-Dancing Rule

How it begins

Nora's first rule was no dancing in the laboratory.

Adrian had broken it before she finished the sentence.

He did not touch anything. That was almost worse. He moved between the benches with the precise ease of a person who knew where every part of his body would arrive.

Nora moved a sample tray out of reach anyway.

“The open day is over.”

“I noticed the ceiling.”

A section of it lay beneath a plastic sheet. The leak had soaked two posters, canceled a demonstration and left the department with a repair bill larger than its outreach budget.

Adrian had been booked to lead a movement session in the visitor hall. Instead, he had spent the morning carrying chairs away from falling plaster.

“We could raise the money,” he said.

“By dancing?”

“People have done stranger things.”

“Near expensive instruments?”

“In the hall. I do understand rooms can have different purposes.”

Nora looked toward the door. Her colleagues were pretending not to listen.

She had managed the laboratory for nine years. She could find a missing delivery, negotiate a repair and explain why a dangerous shortcut was not an innovation. She could not remember the last time she had attended an event without calculating how to make it function.

Adrian held out a hand.

“No audience,” he said.

“There are six people behind that glass.”

He closed the blind.

The room became quieter.

Nora took off her identification badge and put it on the bench. She left the safety glasses where they belonged. Then she followed him into the empty visitor hall.

The first step was small. The second was embarrassingly difficult.

He did not laugh.

“Again?”

She looked at the wet patch on the ceiling, the stacked chairs and the man waiting without assuming she would continue.

“Yes.”

For a few seconds, there was nothing to manage except where she chose to put her feet.