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“Your own fault she’s so darumbled out loud

A piece of newspaper picked up by a gust of hot surey footpath in response

Ryder scrunched up the pink note and lobbed it into an overflowing garbage bin

He tugged at his cufflinks as he sauntered up the front steps It was a ht, oppressive in a way Melbourne rarely saw, and he wasday And the very last thing he wanted to do right noas cha-cha with so heavily of the bottle of Crè antsy And he’d spent enough years keeping the antsy at bay to know revisiting the high-school waltz would be less co with one of his sister’s frantic phone calls

“One lesson,” he said, wrenching open the heavy red door and stepping inside

A Do Not Enter sign hung askew fro His eyes followed the cables to their origins, but all he saere shadows, dust, and cobwebs so old they drifted lazily by way of a draught coht not to

Less ied up the steep narrow staircase that wound its way around the lift shaft, the space lit by a string of lalass so pocked and dust-riddled the weak glare made his eyes water

And the heat only grew, thickened, pressing into hiround floor apparently untenanted, the second floor wallpapered with ragged posters advertising student plays from years past As it tended to do, the hottest air collected at the top where a faint light shone through the gap at the botto the one downstairs announced that the big black door with the gaudy gold hinges led into the Amelia Brandt Dance Academy

Ryder turned the wooden knob, its ainst his face as he stepped inside He loosened his tie, popped the top button of his dress shirt and made a mental note to throttle Sam the very next moment he saw her

The place appeared uninhabited but for the scent of soruously funky beat of sohs and French lyrics