I was glad I got to try, and had the experience, but I didn’t even know if I liked it or not.
I did figure out one thing. Well, I was more comfortable with one thing I sort of already knew.
Joanne? I liked her.
9.Cue the Music
Guacamole! No, dancing.
Ryan’s Totally Not Insane List of Activities to Activate
Fight a robot
Build a robot and fight other robots with it
Paintball
Dungeons & Dragons just to try it, but might need new friends who won’t make fun of me?
Learn sweet dances and dance moves for prom
Become king of Siberia
Run a marathon… half marathon… 5k.
Karaoke
I really wanted to learn to dance. If that happened, then I picked up a new skill and did what I set out to do. If not, I still got to press my body to Luke’s body. I also really wanted that. Either way, I won.
My boo and I had danced before at a club, but like, I want to dance. Dance! I wanted to explain that better but never having danced the way I’m thinking of, I don’t know. Dance!!!! Yeah, the extra exclamation points really cleared that up.
The kind of dancing you need lessons for. Ballroom or tango or salsa or something, I’m not picky. Guacamole! Wait, that’s not right. I think?
Also, there was the thing I often did where I tripped over my own feet. I tried to be just a guy in the world but then suddenly I was a guy looking up at the world from the floor. Not doing that would be great.
I could learn coordination and sexy moves and at the very least, I could maybe not embarrass myself anymore than I had to at prom. Maybe getting ahead of myself, but I was going to try this new thing I’d heard of called opteemissum. That meant Luke and I would still be together then and whoever sold us the tickets would actually sell us the tickets and we’d get to go and dance and have fun.
I wanted that.
Now we were here.
In the dance classroom. We apparently had a dance classroom. Maybe even a whole dance team. Who the hell knew? They weren’t here at the moment. The classroom was empty except for us. My favorite way of being with Luke, nothing except for us.
Good thing Luke had already done this before because he could teach me. That saved us from classes where I somehow stepped on everyone’s feet and broke Luke’s leg and shattered all the mirrors.
Luke’s blue t-shirt stretched enticingly over his shoulders and I put my hands there, to encourage him to get the ball rolling. To feel his shoulders, warm and strong as always.
“There’s been a mistake here,” he said and I started thinking of how to blame it on him. “How can I teach you how to dance when I don’t know how?”
I stared at him for a second and he only looked like always: cute and confused. “You can dance,” I reminded him. The mistake was simple. He was wrong.
He gave me a no-nonsense look, which never once worked on me and wouldn’t now, but I appreciated the effort. “Think I would know if I knew how to dance, Ryan.”
Luke might not be an expert, he might not get all the moves right or be perfectly in time with the rhythm, but he knew how to dance. Both Zach and Luke’s mom had told me this. If only Zach had mentioned it, then the intel might be sketchy. Luke’s mom had even showed me pictures. He had danced before, with steps and waltzes and whatever else dancing involved.
I waited patiently for him to remember this.
…
