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The moves were easy to pick up on. I found a spot on the floor and joined in. Nothing was freer to me than dancing. Except sex. But it didn’t matter the genre of music, I just loved to move. I gave the woman next to me a smile and she smiled back. There were about twenty people on the floor.
Brandon cut through the crowd and squeezed into a spot next to me.
“Yay!” I said. “I’m so glad you’re out here.” I leaned over and impulsively gave him a kiss on the cheek.
Brandon pretended to wipe it off. I laughed and smacked his arm. He grinned at me.
He wasn’t lying. He had zero rhythm. After watching him continually land about a beat behind the music, I took his hand and tried to lead him. He was technically doing the steps, but with the grace of a rhino.
“Are you doing this on purpose?” I yelled to him over the music. “You can’t be serious right now. It’s a two-step! Two. Steps.”
“I’m trying.”
“You are not.” I stepped in front of him and put my hands on his shoulders. “It’s a miracle you’re so amazing in bed. It’s like you don’t even understand how your body moves.”
“That’s just mean,” he said, putting his hands on my waist. “Can’t we just do this?” He swayed back and forth with me.
“We’re not in middle school.”
He leaned down. “Hey.”
“What?” I let him continue our swaying because he amused me. Because when I looked at Brandon, I felt filled with happiness.
“I really, really like you. Did you know that?”
He kissed me, right there on the dance floor, and it felt fantastic to be free with our feelings.
“I really like you too.”
I did.
Chapter Fourteen
A few weeks later, Dakota came into my bedroom from the bathroom and slid underneath the sheet. She was wearing shorts and a tank top. When she had first moved into the apartment she had come into my room in a towel or naked on the nights we arranged to meet up, but lately she’d been wearing pajamas. She also didn’t necessarily wait for an invitation. She just came to my room almost every night and stayed until the alarm went off in the morning, and I liked it that way. I liked falling asleep next to her after having sex, and I liked waking up beside her.
The TV in my room went on every night to mask the sounds of us having sex, even though we tried to be restrained, and in the morning, Dakota got up and left early enough that she could claim she had made her own bed.
We weren’t talking about the change, we were just living it.
She gave me a kiss. I was already reaching under her tank top when she pulled back. “I think we need to find a soccer team for Willow. She really misses it and she needs to be accomplished, part of a team right now.”
I thought about it, slightly taken aback. My thoughts had already shifted to sex, but Dakota had a good point. “I’m not sure how we’ll fit that into our schedule, but you’re probably right. I’ll look into it.”
“She doesn’t want a birthday party either. I know you mentioned that to her. But she is afraid that if she invites her classmates, no one will come. I’m scared she might be right. I think it’s better to just do something small at home.”
I sighed. “That really sucks. But I don’t want
to traumatize her. Any more than she already has been.” I brushed Dakota’s hair back off of her forehead. “Thank you for caring. You’re a very compassionate person.”
“I care about the girls. A lot. We need to do some investigating into what Poppy is cooking up, by the way. She keeps asking me to smell weird liquids.”
That thought made me groan. “Do I have to?”
Dakota laughed softly. “Yes, you do. Sorry, buddy, that’s what being a parent means.”
“Do you want to have kids?” I asked, impulsively. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted her answer to be, but I needed a hint. When I had seen her holding the neighbor’s baby at my sister’s, something had twisted inside my gut.
“I don’t know,” she said, simply. “I used to think no way, but then I got older and I thought maybe I’d be open to it. I can’t commit to a yes or a no at this point.” She adjusted her pillow. “Why do you want to know that?”
