“Three minutes,” he said. “Want more?”
Finn was staring at his clipboard. He had not written anything on it. The clipboard was blank, which was unprecedented because Finn documented everything.
Finn wrote notes on notes.
But he had no notes on Adrian or his audition.
“No,” Finn said. “That was sufficient.”
Adrian jumped down from the bar, landed cleanly, then pulled on his shorts and shirt.
“Thepastelillosare beef and cheese,” he said, nodding toward the bakery box. “Myabuelasays if you don’t eat them while they’re warm, you’re disrespecting her, and she will know. Trust me, shealwaysknows.”
He sat down across from Finn in the booth. The audition morphed into a conversation. The conversation revealed the rest of Adrian Voss.
He was twenty-six, born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, but raised in West Tampa by his grandmother after his mother moved back to the island when he was eight. He studied culinary arts at HCC for two years before realizing he didn’t want to cook in someone else’s kitchen. Currently, he worked mornings at apanaderíaowned by his grandmother’s friend, making bread and pastries from 4 a.m. to noon, which left his evenings free for what he actually loved, which was performing.
“I’ve been go-go dancing since I was twenty-one,” he told Finn. “Mostly in clubs here in Ybor, some places in St. Pete, and a few private events. I’m good because I love it, not because I need it to be something else. Some guys dance because they’re waiting for a modeling career or an acting break. I dancebecause dancing is the thing. Dancing is the point.”
I felt something move in my chest when he said that.
Dancing is the point.
I’d said something close to this once to my mother, years ago.
Dancing is the point.
It isn’t the applause or the career or the thing it leads to. The movement itself is everything. It’s the body in conversation with music and the brief, beautiful fact of being alive in a way that requires every part of you at once.
Adrian said it the way I’d said it, with the conviction of a guy who’d found the thing he was built for and wasn’t going to apologize for molding his life around it.
“What’s your availability?” Finn asked.
“Evenings and weekends. I’m done at the bakery by noon, so I can be wherever you need me by four.”
“We’re launching themed nights on Saturdays to start, potentially expanding to Fridays. Lightning games andHorny Rivalswatch parties kill for us, but those seasons only last until they end. The dancer will be a key part of the atmosphere for these new theme nights. He should help elevate the energy and deepen crowd engagement, but tastefully. We’re a sports bar, not a club. The vibe hereis—”
“Warm,” Adrian said. “I noticed when I walked in. This place has a warmth to it that most bars fake with lighting. You guys have it in the walls.”
Finn cocked his head, and I watched his face do something it rarely did, which was register surprise.
Finn and Mark had built Barbacks from the ground up. The warmth Adrian had identified was the thing Finn had worked hardest to create. It was also the thing he was most protective of. Hearing a stranger name it in his first five minutes in the building was, for Finn, the equivalent of a candidate correctly answering the one interview question that wasn’t on the clipboard.
“When can you start?” Finn asked.
“Saturday?”
“Saturday works.”
They shook hands. Adrian stood, stretched with the physicality of a man whose body was his primary tool, and walked toward the bar where Jacks and I were standing.
“Thanks for the music,” he told Jacks. “Good pick. Most people go EDM for auditions. That R&B was better. I could feel it in my chest.”
“Good luck Saturday,” Jacks said.
Adrian turned to me. Up close, the tattoo on his rib cage was visible where his shirt had ridden up slightly, a line of script in a font that I could nowread.
Lo bailado nadie me lo quita.
