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Shelby
“This is going to be perfect.”
I turned around to face my longtime best friend with narrowed eyes. He stood with his arms crossed, his smile broad, and his green eyes wide as he excitedly surveyed the crowd in front of him. Stomping over to him, I whacked him on the arm with my plastic clipboard with a laugh. “Are you kidding? Of course it is. You hired me to create the perfect flash mob, so I’m delivering.”
Paul kept watching the dancers, then bit his lip. “There is one thing.”
“What? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” I tried to keep my tone even, but it was a struggle.
“Huh? No. It’s not the proposal. It’s just … should I have … you know, done the dancing thing?”
I rolled my eyes. “You opted for the package where the groom-to-be doesn’t participate in the choreography. Honestly, bud, I’d stick to that.”
His eyes slid over to meet mine and he readjusted his arms, letting out the tiniest little harumph. “What are you saying? Are you saying I can’t dance?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Paul laughed heartily. “Thanks a lot.”
Turning back to the dancers in front of me, I saw Chrissy, one of our newest volunteers skip a step and wind up off her mark. “Wait, go back to the ball change, guys. Chrissy, don’t forget to pivot right after the spin.”
Everyone stopped, the dancer closest to the stereo rewound the track, and they went again. This time, Chrissy nailed it, and I grinned at Paul. “They look amazing. This is going to be one of my best, I can feel it.”
Paul looked down at me, a smile playing on his full lips. Before he could say anything, his phone rang in his pocket. He pulled it out, eyes widening as he showed me that it was his girlfriend (the unsuspecting target of our flash mob proposal) calling. I skipped over to the stereo and cut the music, motioning to Paul with my hand at my ear to mimic the phone. I told them to take five and pumped down the air with my palm to tell them to keep their voices down as he answered the call.
“Hey, Rox,” he said easily.
I tiptoed back over to him, motioning for him to put the call on speaker.
He smirked as Roxy’s melodic voice filled the air mid-sentence. “… getting my nails done when Mrs. Rochester walked in with her cat. Who brings a cat to a freaking nail salon, anyway? And of course, she sits down next to me with that furball, and my eyes immediately get all itchy and I want to rub them but,hello, I’m getting my nails done. And then I swear, it was like the cat blew its dander on me, and I started choking and had to get out of there. So now I’m on my way to a different nail salon in the next town over. With half-done nails. I look like a freak.”
I pursed my lips to keep from laughing, looking up at Paul to see him doing the same. His eyes sparkled as he blinked at the phone, clearly trying to figure out what to say. “I’m sorry, baby. That sounds rough.”
“It totally is,” she lamented. “I’ll never be able to go back to Nails Express for as long as I live. I just wanted my nails to look pretty for our big date tomorrow, so this new nail place better be good.”
We shared a conspiratorial grin and I glanced over my shoulder at the dozen dancers who would be helping us make their big date a huge success. In addition to teaching at our local dance studio with Paul’s girlfriend, Roxy, and a few other dancers, I ran a side gig coordinating flash mob proposals. They were becoming super trendy on YouTube, and since I was a dancer who had a soft spot for public declarations of love (not that I’d ever received one), it seemed like the perfect thing for me to do to bring in some extra money.
That was what it was like being a dancer trying to make a living on your art. You figure out multiple income streams that would allow you to do what you do and still pay the bills. I coached the dance team at our local high school. I taught ballet to children at the studio. I did dance lessons for couples to prep for their weddings. I uploaded tutorials on YouTube with affiliate links to bring in passive income. And last but not least, I charged a few thousand bucks a pop for flash mob proposals. Well, Paul got the best friend discount, but still. After life-changing news of a genetic heart condition put a halt to my dreams of being a professional dancer in New York, all of this hustle meant I could do what I loved and not have to get a regular job. At the end of the day, that was the most important thing. While it lasted, anyway.
“I’m sure you’re going to look beautiful for our date,” Paul said.
“Thanks, Pauly,” she crooned, and I bit back a chuckle when he winced.
Paul hated that she called him that. He’d asked her to stop when they first started dating over a year ago, but he hadn’t pushed it. At the time, they were long-distance dating, and it wasn’t as annoying over a text. But now that he was back home, it grated on him, I could tell.
When Paul and Roxy met, he’d been stationed in Hawaii. I’d introduced him to Roxy when he’d come home to Bluffton, South Carolina for Christmas to visit family, and they’d immediately hit it off. Most of their communication over the last year was via text or email. That was very Paul. He wasn’t much of a talker with anyone other than me, but he could string a sentence together, and he and Roxy would chat all day. I thought it was adorable, like a classic pen pal love story. Especially when you added in the fact that he was a paratrooper with the Marines.
All of that being said, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned about Paul proposing to her after only being back in Bluffton for a couple of months now. I’d voiced those concerns repeatedly when he’d first brought it up, telling him I thought he should give it another year of them dating in person first, just in case it changed things. But he was insistent that I (“of all people”) should understand that life is short, love is rare, and sometimes you just have to take a leap and see what happened. Coming from a guy who jumped out of perfectly good airplanes for a living, that view made sense, I supposed.
So here we were, planning an epic flash mob proposal, to be presented in the town square tomorrow night. It was Paul’s idea. He said since Roxy was a dancer, it was the perfect way for him to propose to her while also supporting his best friend’s business. Despite my reservations about him proposing already, I was touched that he wanted to include me and I loved that he wanted to go the extra mile. So, I proceeded to choreograph an amazing routine to “Sucker” by the Jonas Brothers. And yes, there would be dancing on top of cars since that’s a line in the song and I couldn’t help myself.
I tuned back in as Paul wrapped up with his fiancée-to-be. “Yep, love you, too. Bye.”
Turning back to my dancers now that he was done with his call, I clapped my hands. “Okay, guys. Let’s get back to it! Take it from the top.”
Paul and I watched as they ran through the routine again. We had tables set up to represent the cars we’d stage in the square ahead of time. I was pretty sure dancing on top of a stranger’s car wasn’t cool, but since we worked together so often, my dancers were kind enough to park their own cars in the right spots so we knew we’d be able to use them for the routine. Bunch of good sports, for sure.
