Sway with Me

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Top Three

Cristiano smiled pleased that he had done well, he wanted to win this for Isabelle; she had done something amazing for him and he wanted to do this for her.

“Your quickstep is stunning, it is one of my favourites. You maximized the floor space and that was a very strong start,” Aída Gómez said as she smiled at Cristiano, she was impressed at how far he had come since he had started on the show.

Isabelle smiled as she felt Cristiano squeeze her side, she knew that he was pleased with himself; she was aware how hard he had trained for this and she knew there was nothing that he could do to let himself down now.

“You came, you danced and you conquered. You danced the quickstep with timeless elegancy and I loved it,” Santi Rodríguez said as he grinned at the couple, he doubted anyone had thought that Cristiano would get this far; he had proven to be more than just a footballer, he had done more than anyone would have thought.

“I absolutely loved it,” Víctor Ullate said giving a nod of respect to the couple, he was seriously impressed with what Cristiano and Isabelle had done; he had no doubt in his mind that they could make it to the next stage if their next dance was good.

Pilar smiled as she nodded her head before she allowed the couple to walk away and head up to the lounge; everyone was impressed at what he had done.

Stepping into the lounge, Isabelle hugged Cristiano as a smile formed on her face; she was proud of him no matter what had happened that night, she knew that they had done their best and they had made it this far.

“Ten,”

“Ten,”

“Ten,”

“Ten,”

were announced as the scores were revealed, making Isabelle pull back from Cristiano surprised; they had only scored thirty-nine when they had first danced the quickstep, she hadn’t thought they would get a forty.

Cristiano grinned as he pulled his girlfriend into a kiss, he knew that they could do this and he was going to do this for her; he brushed his fingers through her hair knowing that she was going to have to change it anyway for their next dance.

“We better get ready for our showdance,” Isabelle whispered knowing that they couldn’t run behind, they only had two other competitors and one of them would be knocked out in the next elimination.

***

“You can do this,” Isabelle whispered as she gave her boyfriend another kiss, she was sure that they had a good showdance; the red head didn’t care if they won or not, she was just proud of Cristiano for everything that he had done.

Cristiano nodded his head as they headed out onto the dance floor so that they could do their showdance, they would be dancing to Great Balls of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis.

The footballer sat down on the steps so that Isabelle could sit behind him with her legs over his, he took a deep breath as the crowd clapped as they were announced.

As the song started, Isabelle pulled her legs back and grinned as Cristiano got to his feet and removed his leather jacket and threw it away; she was wearing tight black leggings and a black crop top while her boyfriend was wearing black dress pants and a red top.

Carefully getting to her feet, Isabelle walked over to Cristiano with a sway in her hips; she rested a hand on Cristiano’s shoulder before she twirled away while he did some tricks with the microphone stand.

Twirling back to Cristiano, Isabelle wrapped her legs around his waist so that he could dip her; they had decided to add as many tricks and flicks into the routine as possible.

The couple had been determined to add as many of the moves that Cristiano had learnt over the past twelve weeks into their routine knowing that they needed to impress if they wanted to make it to the next stage.

Cristiano was impressed that Isabelle could stay on the tips of her toes while she danced, it was something that he knew would have taken years of training for her to be used to doing it.

The routine was quick and flashy, just like the couple had hoped they had wanted to do something that they hadn’t done before; the routine was soon over and Isabelle wrapped her arms around Cristiano as she pecked his lips.

Brushing some of his hair from his face, Isabelle stepped back from him as Pilar appeared so that they could get their results from the judges; they had done all that they could to get through to the final stage of the competition.

Cristiano glanced over to where he could hear all of his team-mates cheering and rolled his eyes, he wasn’t surprised that they had all turned up to support him.

“If you were a stick of rock… you’d have talent written right the way through you,” Boris said smiling at the footballer, he hadn’t been expecting a dance like that from the couple and he had to admit that he was impressed; a lot of the showdances ended up looking the same or similar it was nice to have a fast moving one.

Cristiano nodded his head as he wiped his head on the back of his sleeve, he took a deep breath knowing that he wouldn’t change anything that had happened between him and Isabelle not for the world.

“I loved the concept, the jiving was fabulous, the lifts were verging on dangerous but you pulled them off,” Aída said as she smiled warmly at the couple, she had never thought the footballer would have been able to pull something like that off.

“You had impressed strength and physicality, I loved the mix of jive and rock and roll,” Santi said as he nodded impressed that they had done something like that; he couldn’t fault them for what they had tried to do.

“You have enormous about of talent, you proved it in that routine,” Víctor said as he nodded at Cristiano, he really hoped to see the couple go through to the next round.

***

Cristiano took a shaky breath as suspense music filled the air, it made him even more nervous than he already was; he glanced at Isabelle who was stood beside him.

The red head squeezed his hand softly as Pilar stopped her piece and prepared to announce which two of the three had made it through to the Grand Final tomorrow.

The room was plunged into semi-darkness as three lights focused on the couples; Cristiano felt his heart bound in his chest as he realised that this was it.

“I can now reveal the couple with the lowest votes and not going through to tomorrow’s show is…” Pilar said as she waited for the name to be given to her, she looked over the three couples knowing that they all deserved to go through.

Isabelle took a deep breath knowing that whatever happened, they would be okay; she was proud of him for making it this far, she had seen how he danced normally.

The beating of the drums made everyone more nervous and Isabelle could feel the tension mounting and she knew that it was getting longer each season; she had been here last year and placed second.

“Manuel Bandera and Iveta Lukosiute,” Pilar said making Cristiano sigh in relief as Isabelle moved to give him a quick hug, tomorrow they would have two more dances to do.

###

Author's Note: 

The Quickstep video is on Chapter 25. The video for the Freestyle is connected to this chapter.