“You should try thesay yesthing. It’s very freeing.”
“No,” I say.
“I see what you did there,” he says with a smile. “I also have ano small talkpolicy.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Just getting it all out there,” he says.
I squeeze my handlebars and adjust myself on the seat. “Okay,” I say, “I’m going away from you now.”
“I promise to step on your toes less tomorrow,” he calls out.
I pedal away and tell myself that my heart is speeding because I’m riding so fast. Not because I was having so much fun bantering with him right there on the sidewalk. Really, I should know better than to banter. Why? Because in every romance book ever written, banter is a gateway drug. Banter leads to actual conversation, which leads to dating, which leads to kissing, which leads to coupling, which leads to heartbreak.
I turn the corner onto my street and remind myself that the only reason I’m entering this competition is so I can figure out a way to get rid of the visions. Despite how it might seem, this is not a love story.
CHAPTER 15
Dance Number Two, Excerpted
“YOU ALWAYS HAVEtrouble telling left foot from right foot?”
“You are leading her, not kidnapping her!”
“Unless toes are broken, keep dancing.”
“Get closer! Is his breath still stinky?”
“Sexyis small word. Why so difficult for you to understand?”
“No, no. Now you look like giant flightless bird. Elbows down!”
“Loose arms!”
“I danced tango with sprain ankle one time. A little toe bruise is nothing.”
“No rocking side to side. You are not little teapot.”
“Frame is sloppy. Why?”
“Music is privilege, not right.”
CHAPTER 16
Dance Number Three
SAME AS DANCEnumber two but with marginally less toe bruising.
CHAPTER 17
Dance Number Four
“KEEP DANCING, Iput music on now,” Fifi says twenty-five minutes into our fourth practice.
I’m so shocked I miss a step.
X misses his too. “Holy shit,” he says. “If we earned music, I guess we’re not so bad.”
