“Me too,” I say. “You were right.”
He pulls me into a hug. “I’m right a lot. You’re going to have to get used to that.”
“Oh, shush,” I say. Our eyes connect. The air between us shifts from teasing to wanting.
“When I said get to know each other, I did not mean biblically,” Fifi says loudly and with a cackle from the doorway.
We spring apart. Fifi cackles more.
“Danceball is only six weeks away. Is time to get serious.”
We practice for two hours straight. By the end, X and I are both sweaty and exhausted.
“That was best practice yet. Chemistry is much better,” she says with a wink. “But unfortunately, need more than chemistry to win.”
She sets us a grueling practice schedule. Mondays are for bachata. Tuesdays are for salsa. Wednesdays for West Coast swing. Thursdays for the Hustle. Since Argentine tango is the hardest, she schedules three days of practice: Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
After we agree to the schedule, she claps her hands together. “Now is time to see what you two are really made of,” she says.
CHAPTER 36
Salsa Tuesday
<Tuesday, 12:13 AM>
X: Fifi is not in her right mind
Me: More caliente! More caliente!
Me: I think caliente is the only Spanish word she knows
X: How many times do you think she said that?
Me: Fifty or sixty
X: Maybe more
X: So I’m reading that book you told me about
Me: Which one?
X: Cupcakes and kisses
X: I wasn’t expecting it to be so DIRTY
Me: You’re at the first bakery scene
X: Frosting belongs on cake
Me: So narrow-minded you are
X: What are gorgeous mounds of flesh?
X: I didn’t learn about that in bio
Me: They only teach that stuff 2nd semester senior year
X: Ouch
Me: Sorry
X: For real tho, I don’t think this thing with the frosting is sanitary
Me: Goodnight X
X: Never going into a bakery ever again
Me: I’m sleeping now
X: Who even knows where those cookies have been
X: Secret sauce my ass
X: You still there?
Me: Yes, sorry. I was dying of laughter
X: I like making you laugh
Me: You’re pretty good at it
CHAPTER 37
West Coast Swing Wednesday
I’M FAST ASLEEP and dreaming when my phone chirps at me.
X: You up?
Me: Yes
X: Can I call you?
Me: Yes
My phone rings right away. “Hi,” I say, trying to sound like I wasn’t just fast asleep and dreaming.
It doesn’t work. “Oh man, I woke you up,” he says.
“No, it’s okay,” I say, blinking into the dark. “How are you? How’d your show go?”
“Show was fine,” he says. He doesn’t say anything for a while. I hear the rustle of his sheets and I tug my blanket up under my arms and nestle down into my pillows and wait for him to go on.
“My pops called. We got into it again,” he says.
“About what?”
“Same thing we always argue about. How I’m throwing my life away with the music nonsense.”
“I’m sorry, X.”
“Yeah,” he says. We slip into silence. It feels like we’re lying side by side in a small boat floating down a dark and quiet lake.
“Want to know a secret?” he asks. His voice is scratchy and soft.
“What?”
“Sometimes I wonder if he’s right.”
I’m too surprised to say anything right away. I would never guess X has doubts about music, not from the way he talks about it and not from the way he is onstage.
“You remember when we were playing pool and you said when you found out about your dad’s affair, it was like he betrayed your idea of who he was?”
“Yeah.”
“I think maybe that’s how Pops feels about me. Before Clay died, the band was just a hobby. Pops and me always had an understanding—nothing too explicit—that I’d go to college and major in something practical. After Clay died, though, everything changed for me. I started trying to make sense of the world and my place in it.”
His voice is so quiet now I have to press my phone closer to my ear to hear him. “In the end all I could come up with was how much I loved playing guitar and singing and being onstage. I figured out that being in the band meant more to me than I thought it did. And once you figure out what you love the most, you don’t really have time for anything else. I couldn’t get Pops to understand that, though. I get why he’s mad at me. I changed the rules on him.”