Dance with Me [h.s] (Completed)

Chapter 61

Harry and I go back inside the venue and he helps me get my preteens ready for their hip hop performance. They have a lot of energy but they follow directions much better than the preschoolers so they are easier to keep in one place. I see Harry giving a pep talk to one of my students before they're about to go out and they exchange a complicated handshake at the end. He's my strongest student in the class and he has a solo in this performance.

When it's his time for the solo, he kills it and the crowd goes wild for his acrobatics. Harry and I stand backstage watching and as the kids come running offstage to big applause, I turn to Harry.

"What did you say to him?"

"That I saw Anya watching him and he better show her what he can do," he says with a smirk, still clapping for the kids.

"Always showing off for a girl," I say shaking my head at him as I clap too.

"Always," he says, and winks at me before approaching the kids to congratulate them.

There's a break before two of Harry's couples perform and then my contemporary group after. He convinces me that we should sneak away to grab lunch and we soon find ourselves at small deli nearby eating sandwiches.

"What was it like growing up here?" he asks me between bites.

"Busy. Hectic. Constantly being surrounded by people who know you," I tell him. "Never being anonymous."

"Did you want to be anonymous?"

"Sometimes," I say thinking about my answer. "My family was huge which meant that everyone in the neighborhood knew someone in my family, which meant they knew me. I couldn't go anywhere without eyes reporting back to my parents, or my brothers, or my grandparents and aunts and uncles."

"But you went to NYU?" he states it like a question.

"I had to get out somehow, even if I was only straying a little bit. I don't think my parents would have let me leave the state."

"Did you live at the dorms or at home?"

"Are you kidding?! At home. My brothers would have been banging down my door every weekend to make sure I wasn't at a party. It would have been embarrassing."

"When did you move out?"

"My senior year. Every decision I made felt like it was looked at by a panel of judges. Everyone always had an opinion on what I was doing with my life. I saved up all my money and moved out. I didn't tell anyone until the day of. They didn't take it well which made me even more glad that I did it."

"They must have had a heart attack when you moved out of Brooklyn," he guesses.

"No," I reflect back to that conversation, "I think they finally accepted that I needed some independence. That unlike the rest of my family I wasn't going to live in Brooklyn my whole life."

"Because you're a star, Ciro," he says smiling big at me, repeating the same words he once wrote on a card to me. "There's a whole world of people that need you to shine your light on them."

I smile at his sentiment. It amazes me how much he believes in me and my effect on people. Enough that I'm starting to believe it myself.

"You've lived in a few different places. What's been your favorite?"

"New York," he answers quickly.

"Why New York?" I say smiling because he is smiling so big.

"It's where you are," he answers, and then uncharacteristically gets shy and looks away from me.