Page 91 of Flirty Dancing

“But withCaleb?”

Caleb bristled. “That’s rude. Ben—”

“I’ll kindly ask you to shut the fuck up right now, Caleb,” Mateo said through gritted teeth.

“Stop telling me what to do!” Caleb screeched at him. He charged at Mateo.

“Oh, fuck,” Archer had time to gasp, before he threw himself between the two.

But Mateo was having none of it. He growled and launched himself back at Caleb. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Mateo yelled. “Who does shit like this?”

“I’m sorry I’m not as perfect as you!” Caleb screamed back, trying to dodge around Archer.

“Perfect?” Mateo reached for him. “Perfect?You’ve done nothing all summer but tell me how shitty I am!”

“Boo-hoo, Broadway star!”

“Stop!” Archer cried amid the wheeling fists. “Please, stop, both of you.” He worried what might happen to Caleb if Mateo landed a solid hit, but Mateo was mostly only trying to hold Caleb’s wrists to keep him from landing a punch.

Caleb’s panted gasps turned into sobs once Mateo had a firm grip on him, then he slumped against Archer, the fight gone.

“Sit down, Caleb,” Archer said, easing him into a chair. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he wept.

Archer met Mateo’s eyes over a sobbing Caleb.What now?he asked.

Mateo shrugged. “Nice shiner,” he said, mouth twitching.

Archer felt only slightly insane when he laughed. “Thanks.”

“Uh, guys?” Betty swayed in her chair. “We go on in twenty minutes.”

“Oh, God,” Mateo groaned, checking his watch.

“Okay.” Archer stood. “We can do this. Beau, do you think you—” He stopped when he saw Beau’s chair was empty. And so was Ben’s. “Er…”

“They left,” Dominik said from behind his bloody tissue. “When Mateo and Caleb were swatting at each other. Beau took off and Ben went after him.”

“Why didn’t you stop them?” Archer asked, exasperated.

“Oh, excuse me for not solving the world’s problems while bleeding from myhead.”

“Please. It’s barely a trickle now,” Mateo snapped. “Suck it up.”

“And where’s Stewart?” Archer asked, realizing his chair was empty, too. He wondered if now was an appropriate time to start panicking.

“He got a call, said something about Judy,” Yuki informed them. “He said he had to go.”

Another giddy laugh bubbled up Archer’s throat. It came out as a hiccup.

Mateo stood, eyes determined, jaw clenched. “You all have five minutes to get dressed,” he announced. “We have a show to put on.”

Archer slid into hisLatincostume at record speed, thenmet Mateo at the whiteboard as he was scribbling the numbers and pairings.

“This is going to be tricky.” Archer frowned. “Seta will have to tango with Caleb, but we’ll be missing an opening duet. Plus, the B-Boys have their paso doble showcase.”

Mateo chewed the insides of his cheeks as he studied the list. “What if we made our duet twice as long to fill the gap and did the paso in their place?”

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