She taps through my phone. I shift impatiently. “What are we doing, Peyton?”
Suddenly, music blasts through the speaker. Loudly. Very,veryloudly. I lurch forward, grabbing it from her hands and slamming the pause button. She frowns.
“There’s a noise curfew,” I say pointedly. “What are you doing? Throwing a rave?”
She grins, that mischievous glint back in her eyes. “Okay, firstly, ‘Oh, Pretty Woman’ isnotrave music—” She reaches for the phone again, but I pull it away. “Secondly, these walls are sturdy. I bet they can’t even hear it outside.”
I shake my head, unimpressed. “No.I don’t want to get a knock at the door for blasting music past curfew.”
She rolls her eyes and strolls over to her bag, rifling through it until she pulls out a pair of wired earbuds. She holds them out to me, muttering under her breath. “Such a stickler.” I take them, plugging them into my phone. Then I stare at it, confused.
“Wait, why are we playing music?”
She grins widely. “Because we’re gonna have a dance party.”
I stare at her, waiting for her to laugh. She doesn’t.
”You’re kidding, right?” I ask.
“Nope.” She pops the “p”.
“Why?”
“Because,” she replies, pressing one earbud into her own ear. “Apparently, I need to prove that I’m not scared to break you. And besides, you need to dance it out.”
I blink at her skeptically. “Dance it out?”
She shrugs like this all makes perfect sense. “Yeah. You know—” She does a little shimmy. “Shake out all ofthat.”She gestures to me broadly.
”Yeah, I’m good,” I reply, holding my phone out to her. She doesn’t take it. “I’m not a dancer.”
“Well,duh.” She rolls her eyes. “That’s the point.”
“That makes no sense.”
She smiles, and without warning, she leans in and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. My breath hitches as her fingers graze the skin of my neck, and I freeze. She presses the second earbud into my ear, glances at my screen, and presses play. The music floods in, and the percussion picks up with a steady beat.
Peyton starts to bounce around, her movements restrained by the length of the cord. I stare at her with an annoyed expression.
“I can’t believe you’re playing oldies,” I say, unmoving.
She frowns, mid-bounce, her messy brown hair flying around. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Nothing at all. Just—” I pause, watching her dance with reckless abandon. “It’s a lot different than your bedroom posters or practice playlist.”
Her gaze narrows. “Oh my god,Iknewit was you,” she accuses, but she doesn’t stop moving. She looks completely ridiculous, bouncing around, but the grin on her face is infectious. “Youchanged my playlist.”
I shrug sheepishly. “Sorry. It was kinda intense. I think it made Indie nervous.”
Peyton chuckles and grabs my hand, swinging it back and forth. Her palm is warm against my glove, small but sturdy. She grips me tight, like she’s not scared to hurt me.
“Come on,” she urges, those crescents sinking around her grin. My stomach does flips again. Why is my stomach doing flips? “Bailey and I do it all the time. It’ll make you feel better.”
I stare at her, but she doesn’t give me much of a choice when she grabs my other hand, cocooning my phone between our palms. She jumps up and down, pulling me with her, and despite myself, my knees start bouncing in rhythm to the beat, as Ray Orbison belts out the lyrics. Peyton’s head bobs, her body moving close to avoid tripping on the wire.
At first, I try to resist. I don’t want to do this, don’t want to embarrass myself more than I already have. But the more I watch Peyton jump around, the more my feet start to tap, the muscles in my legs loosening just a bit.
Next comes my shoulders, the tension in them slipping, and then my hips. The rhythm is simple but catchy, drawing me in against my will. I start to sway with it. Peyton grins like she’s won, her hair bouncing with every movement.
