Page 64 of Flirty Dancing

Mateo gripped the sides as the boat swayed. “Why did you do that?” he asked, his tone sharp and accusatory. The boat continued to rock as he glared at Archer, until it dumped Mateo right over into the water without a sound.

“Mateo!” Archer screamed, scrambling to reach for him.

But Mateo popped back above the water, smiling, shining droplets dripping from his perfect locks. “Get in here,” he said. “The water is amazing.”

“What?” Archer blinked and looked down at his clothes. He was wearing his whiteRetrojumpsuit. “In this?”

“Take it off first, of course.” Mateo winked. “Take it all off.”

Archer woke up with a gasp, sweaty and tangled up in his sheet. “Fuck.” He rested a hand on his racing heart and rolled over to check the time. It was two o’clock. “Holy shit.” He rubbed his face. “Maybe I am getting sick.” He had even missed the lunch window.

He closed his eyes again, grasping at the threads of his dream before they drifted away. Mateo’s face, sparkling and smiling, floated behind his eyelids. But it quickly dissolved into the more familiar scowl when he remembered the way Mateo had shut down Eileen’s invitation and yelled at him about the autograph. Archer sighed and stretched until his growling stomach forced him to forage in his bag for an extra muffin he had stashed at lunch the day before.

He was sitting up in bed, trying not to leave crumbs, and scrolling his phone when Beau came in.

“Oh, hey. Back from the hike?” Archer asked.

“I didn’t go,” Beau said, hanging his beach towel on a hook. “Ben knows I hate hiking.” He flashed Archer a sympathetic look. “I see Caleb abandoned you, too.”

Archer swallowed the last bit of muffin. “He didn’t abandon me. I wasn’t feeling up for it today.”

“Ah. So he went anyway.”

“I told him to.”

Beau gave him asure, Janlook. “Shouldn’t your partner want to be with you?”

Archer shrugged. “A lot of the time, yeah. But notallof the time.”

“Very well.” Beau’s smile was small and tight. “I’m glad it doesn’t bother you that your boyfriend is off alone in the forest all day with mine.”

“Alone? Didn’t a bunch of people go?”

“Did they? Who else went?”

“I don’t know.” Archer blinked, confused. “I was sleeping, but I assume…”

He trailed off when he saw the expression on Beau’s face. This time it was moreoh, my sweet summer child.

“You know what they say about assuming, Archer. Don’t be an ass.”

Archer went for dinner as soon as the dining hall opened, still with no sign of Caleb, and he was early for warm-up again—some sad attempt to make Mateo like him, he supposed. But Mateo ignored him, headphones firmly embedded in his ears when Archer arrived. The greenroom slowlyfilled up, until Archer realized that, in fact, only Caleb and Ben were missing.

He sent Caleb another message—Hey, where are you? Everything okay?—but it joined the other unanswered texts.

“Have you heard from Ben at all?” he asked Beau.

“No. I’m a little worried, actually. It’s not like Ben to be late.”

Archer frowned and found Betty powdering her face at the makeup table. “Did you go on the hike?” he asked.

“What hike?” she replied, leaning forward to examine her work in the mirror.

“Never mind,” Archer mumbled. He eased over to Dominik at his costume rack. “Did you go on the hike today?”

“Nope,” Dominik replied. “I was gonna, but my hamstring has been bugging me. I think it ended up being only Ben and Caleb.”

“Oh.”

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