Page 52 of Just Friends

“Let’s go.”

Parkerisanamazingdancer. He moves with fluid grace, and those strong arms mean he’s able to dip and lift me with ease. His body is a firm wall against mine as we go through the movements. Both of us have caught on remarkably well, despite my lack of any dancing skill as a child, adding our own flavor to the basic movements the instructors have been teaching us.

Alex and Rayne, however, have not. It seems that Rayne, like me, wanted to dress the part. But while we were doing our warm-up stretches, she told me that the only cowboy boots she could find at the thrift store this week were steel toed, which meant that when she stepped on Alex’s foot halfway through the lesson, I could hear the crunch over the sound of the music. He’s still dancing, but I swear he’s not putting his full weight on his left foot. Which is impeding his movement even more so than before. Because I was right. Whatever Zumba instructor told Alex he had natural rhythm just wanted his number. Alex is, and I say this as someone who has been tomanyrandom dance parties with acquaintances in LA, the worst dancer I’ve ever seen.

His movements are stiff, his body tensely shifting and jerking as he tries to follow the instructors’ directives. He looks like a baby foal taking its first steps in the world, not a grown athletic man who spends hours in the gym every week. It’s like years of running and strategic workouts have killed his body’s natural ability to follow a beat.

I grimace when I hear Rayne’s raspy “sorry!”

My gaze drifts back to Parker, who’s smiling again. That beautiful grin was replaced only momentarily each time the dance instructors showed us a new move. His brow would crinkle in concentration as he committed it to memory, and then he would turn back to me, that excited smile back on his face and ask if I was ready to try it. The truth is, even if I wasn’t enjoying this so much, his natural excitement would urge me on. It’s like taking a child to the zoo. You have no interest in standing in the sticky heat with the smell of animal dung soaking into your pores, but when the child’s face lights up at the sight of a giraffe’s head poking out from around a tree, you can’t help but be excited too.

There’s a pale blue smudge on the side of Parker’s long neck, and when I realize it’s paint, my lips curve into a smile. I trail the tip of my finger over it. “You have paint here.”

His eyes focus on mine, and a faint pink colors his cheeks. If I were to mix this color up on a palette, I’d use watermelon and chiffon to make the rosewater shade.

“A couple of my upcoming seniors came to my classroom to help paint the walls earlier today,” he says, not even winded as we move through the dance steps.

We’re going slowly because the instructors are working with a few couples one on one to correct their missteps, but I still feel a pinch in my side that signals I probably need to work out more. Maybe I’ll join Alex’s gym. I don’t have a broad enough imagination to picture what Parker would look like with sweat glistening over those taut abs while he’s running on the treadmill.

“I bet you’re a cool teacher,” I tell him, my own words punctuated by little gasps for breath.

Parker slows our movements so I can catch my breath, his hands tightening on my waist. “I don’t know about that.”

“Oh, absolutely. My high school art teacher was my favorite person in the world.”

“Me too,” he says, his grin somehow widening. “She’s who made me want to teach.”

“I considered it for a while too,” I say. “But I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“I don’t know. You were really patient with Alex earlier.”

I was. I stopped to show Alex one of the moves he was struggling with at the beginning of the lesson. It wasn’t until I saw the bright slash of red across his cheeks that I realized I’d embarrassed him. Shortly after that was when Rayne stepped on his toe, crunching bone with steel, and I can’t help but feel partly responsible.

“I don’t think it’s the actual teaching part I would struggle with,” I say, working through my thoughts. “I just like the freedom of freelance. I like having a new project to work on every few weeks and the ability to do it from anywhere. I didn’t go to college, because the idea of tying myself someplace for four years felt suffocating.”

He nods as if he understands, and a bolt of surprise slices through me at the admission. I’ve rarely told anyone my reasons for skipping college. I told everyone I wanted adventure, or to get out of my hometown. That I missed my brother after he moved away. But the truth was, I didn’t want to wait to start my life until I was twenty-two. I wanted to start it at eighteen and not look back. Good and bad came from that decision, but now, ten years later, I’m just starting to see the appeal of slowing down. I don’t regret the path I took, but maybe I’m ready to try something new. And that’sreallywhat prompted my move to Tennessee after Sebastian broke my heart in his headboardless bed in his minimalist apartment that he was actually just too cheap to decorate.

“That’s great, y’all!” The dance instructor duo, a tall, tan man and a peppy, blond woman, who are dressed like they’re headed to a rodeo-themed party—but not an actual rodeo, please note the difference—take their places back at the front.

“It seems like everyone’s got the moves down now,” the woman says.

“Or as well as they’re going to,” the man mutters beneath his breath, eyes dashing to Alex and Rayne in the back corner.

“So we’re going to just turn on the music for the last fifteen or so minutes and let y’all test it out, make sure you’ve got those moves mastered before you hit Broadway tonight.”

“We should go tonight,” Parker says suddenly, right as the music is starting up.

My hands find their places on his body, one palm curving over his shoulder, the other wrapped in his. “Go where?”

“Downtown,” he says, starting to move us through the motions, slow at first, with the tempo of the song.

My muscles move on instinct after almost an hour and a half of practicing, so I’m able to focus on his words instead of the dance.Go downtown. Tonight.One part of me immediately shoots the idea down because this night is supposed to end at a picnic table with ice cream dripping down my fingers and Alex’s smile warming me more than the sweltering summer heat. But another part of me can’t erase the sight of Alex pulling Rayne back into his arms after I tried teaching him the dance move he couldn’t nail. Of the way they look with his chin coming to rest against her temple, of the words they’ve been murmuring too quietly for me to hear.

Dancing hasn’t been a good date for Alex and Rayne, but they seem to be hitting it off. So maybe this will be good. Maybe extending my night with Parker will mean shrinking that little bit of me that’s still focused on Alex’s touch until it disappears like a star winking out in the night sky. Maybe it will give that tender bud forming between my two best friends a chance to blossom.

So I say, “Let’s do it.”

Thetableisshakingwith the force of my knee bouncing beneath it. I’m at a Waffle House, sipping my second cup of stale coffee while I wait for Hazel to arrive, all the patrons waiting for a table shooting me heated glares.

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