“Just got the feeling you hate me a little bit.”
I stumble and almost miss the final step into the outside world but manage to steady myself against my bike.
“Who said I hated you?” I say as soon as he’s out on the sidewalk. The sunlight is so bright, I have to squint against it to frown at him properly.
He notices my squinting and takes a couple of steps to the right to block the sun with his head.
Thoughtful. Now I can frown at him without squinting.
“Your entire body language says you hate me,” he says.
“Leave my body out of it. Look at my mouth instead.”
He focuses on my mouth.
Because I just told him to.
Some days I just shouldn’t speak.
I clear my throat. “What I’m saying is I don’t hate you.”
He holds on to his guitar straps with both hands. “Sure you do,” he says.
I swing onto my bike. “I’m not going to stand here arguing with you about how much I don’t hate you.”
“Okay, what do you want to argue with me about, then?”
“I— What?”
He gives me that enormous brain-cell-destroying grin, and I realize he’s just been teasing me this whole time.
“You’re right,” I say. “I do hate you.”
“You don’t even know me,” he says.
“Yes, but once I do, I’ll probably hate you.”
He tilts his head to the right again. It’s his thinking pose. “Oh, you can predict the future?” he asks.
I stare at him for a little too long. What would happen if I told him Yes, I am able to predict a kind of future?
I stand up on my pedals, getting ready to go. “Why are you doing this?”
“Gramps asked me to. It’s a big deal for them if we win. Also, I have a just say yes philosophy.”
“What does that mean?”
“I say yes to anything anyone asks me.” At the disbelieving look on my face, he clarifies, “Nothing immoral or illegal.”
“But why?”
“Life’s short. Seize the day. Live in the moment,” he says, smiling. “You have any philosophies I should know about?”
Does don’t banter with extremely hot and possibly smart and interesting guys who are very definitely players count as a philosophy?
“I don’t have any philosophies,” I say.
“You should try the say yes thing. It’s very freeing.”
“No,” I say.
“I see what you did there,” he says with a smile. “I also have a no small talk policy.”
“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 HAVE trouble 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?”
“Sexy is 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 DANCE number two but with marginally less toe bruising.
CHAPTER 17
Dance Number Four
“KEEP DANCING, I put 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.”