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the Atlanta office.”
    “Congratulations on that man. I’m going to let you get back to your evening.”
    Jason turned to Loren.
    “Loren, always good to see you.”
    “Likewise Jase.”
    After Jason walked away, Loren turned her attention back to Mike.
    “Just in case I haven’t said this before, I’m so proud of you guys. You are not letting any grass grow under your feet in the business world,” Loren said.
    Mike agreed. He and his partners were certainly on their way up in the business world. Landing the most recent multi-million dollar contracts was what they had dreamed about when they were together in college at Howard University.
    “Yeah. Things are moving pretty fast. We’re just lucky to be able to keep up with the demand for our services. I volunteered to run the west coast office because someone had to do it so that we wouldn’t lose out on the potential work from new clients. I love Atlanta, but I have family on the west coast that I don’t get to see too often and though I was born and raised in New York, I have always loved visiting the west coast and besides there is great opportunity for the business by expanding, so I’m doing my part. I also know my mother will be happy about the west coast move. Though she lives in New York, she loves the west coast and now she’ll have more reasons to visit. Your brother, of course, wants to stay in the Atlanta area to be close to the family which I understand.”
    Loren understood what it meant to be near family. She loved being close to hers.
    “So now that the work discussion is over, would you like to hang around a while and do some dancing? I know you said you don’t get out often, that is, unless you have other plans for the evening.”
    Mike hoped she’d say yes.
    “No, I don’t have any plans and dancing sounds great,” Loren replied.
    Mike stood and made a path for Loren to get to the dance floor.
    They danced and Loren admired how Mike moved. He definitely knew his way around the dance floor. When the fast song ended and everyone started clapping and cheering, they went right into a slow song. People on the dance floor started pairing up and Loren and Mike stood looking uncomfortably at each other. It appeared neither knew how to proceed into dancing to a slow tune and the moment seemed awkward.
    Mike wanted to dance with Loren and couldn’t wait to hold her in his arms, but he didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable at the intimate nature of a slow dance. He had been thinking about it since the moment they hit the dance floor.
    Loren started to nervously nibble on her lip as she looked around at all the couples that began to dance around them. Feeling like a spotlight was on them since they were the only two no longer dancing, she started to turn to head back to their table. Before she got too far, Mike grasped her elbow to turn her back around.
    “Would you like to dance Loren?” he whispered softly, letting her know she didn’t need to feel awkward or uncomfortable around him.
    “Sure,” she said nervously.
    She moved into his embrace as he placed his hands on her hips, drawing her in closer to him. Other than for a friendly hug, Loren had never been this close to Mike before and her heart sped up at the immediate contact her body had with his. The contact wasn’t too intimate in reality, but in her mind, they were as close as two people could get.
    As Mike drew her closer, Loren reached her arms up and grasped his arms, feeling the bulging muscles through his shirt. She fell right in step as he swayed to the soft sounds of the band. What she really wanted to do was reach her arms up and wrap them around his neck, but that seemed too personable for the kind of friendly relationship they had.
    Mike was enjoying having Loren in his arms. For a moment after he asked Loren to dance to the slow song, he regretted doing so. He knew he should have let her go back to the table, but instead he did what his first thought was instead of