Dancing with Danger

Chp. 18 Rainbows and Painful Dances

We had six big bowls of cake batter in front of us. I was covered in cake mix and Clapton had egg yolk in his hair and smeared on his shirt.

"Now what?" I asked looking down at the cake.

"This is a little thing my mom used to do," he said emptying the food dye into his hand. "Each bowl gets a color of the rainbow. Then we pour them into cupacke paper things and we layer them so that when they bake they're all colorful."

"That sounds really girly," I noted as he began to make the bowl in front of him red. "But I like it." I took the bowl in front of me and began making it blue.

"You like everything I do," Clapton said glancing at me. I rolled my eyes.

"Your dancing could be better," I said jokingly and bumped his hip with mine.

"Mr. Frail seems to think that," Clapton said not so jokingly. I bit my lip in concentration and looked up at him. He just stared at the red batter set before him, his fists clenched on top of the counter. I touched his bare arm and he turned to look at me.

"You are the best dance partner I've ever had," I said. "Even if you weren't professionally trained, you're better than most guys I've seen dance. Does that give you any consolation?"

"Uh, you've only danced with, what...two other guys?" he asked.

"Four," I corrected him and he grinned. "And I've only been to like seventy ballets and musicals and stuff. So, saying you're a pretty good dancer is saying something."

"Hilly, you are a total confidence booster," Clapton said and gave me a dazzling smile. I returned it.

"We should, uh, get back to the cupcakes," I said and his eyes danced from the bowls of batter and back to my eyes.

"Or we could..." he said quietly and leaned down and touched his lips to mine. I smiled against them and pulled away.

"Maybe later," I said. "I want cupcakes." He smiled and we went back to coloring the batter. Once we finished coloring the batter we began filling cupcake papers with the batter in order of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and finally purple. Once the three cupcake tins were filled with colorful rainbow batter we put them in the oven and set the timer.

"So, it's halfway through July, and all we've done is dance, kiss a little, we went to the beach once, and made cupcakes," Clapton said as we cleaned up.

"We went to a few parties," I said from the sink where I was washing the bowls. "You also got me drunk."

"Yeah, and you've got me rubbing my feet with lotion every night," he said putting a few spoons in the dishwasher.

"Hey, that is totally necessary, you have seen my blisters," I said. I whirled around quickly when I felt his presence behind me. I tapped his chest with a wooden spoon.

"What now?" he asked leaning back against the island.

"It's not that I don't want to," I said setting the spoon down. "I do. But, I don't want the house to burn down because we'd be making out and the oven would go off and we'd totally ignore it and-" Whatever I was about to say left my brain when Clapton took my face and pressed his lips against mine. I always wondered if someone would shut me up this way sooner or later.

Our lips moved in sync, my body pressed against his, my hands gripping his shirt. His hands slid down my cheeks and over my shoulders then stopped at my elbows.

"Do you ever stop talking?" he asked when he pulled away.

"Yes," I said looking at him through my eyelashes which is harder than it sounds. "Like when I'm dancing or sucking face with you." He smiled and kissed me again. I stopped him to my surprise. "What are we?"

"We are farmers," he said then he did the little jingle then went along with it. He stopped smiling when he saw my frown. "I'm sorry, that was supposed to be a joke..."

"I got that." Clapton took a step back from me and rubbed his face. His fingers went through his hair and he looked at me.

"I don't have girlfriends," he said. "I take a girl that is pretty to look at with a rocking body and I use her and then I discard her when I'm done with her." He hesitated. "I don't want to do that to you, Hilly. You're different, you're special. You've changed me. I used to just cause trouble and reek havoc on everything and everyone. Ever since I've moved into this house, I haven't.... I haven't done anything...destructive. When I kiss you, when I'm with you... I feel like I belong."

"Clapton-"

"Do you want- I mean- would you be my girlfriend?" I looked at him and shrugged.

"I guess," I said. "I mean, you kind of make me feel special too."

"Oh, shut up Hills," he said pulling me forward and kissing me. My mouth opened slightly and I wrapped my arms around his neck and got on my top toes. After a minute I pulled away.

"Don't tell anyone," I said. "Not the parents at the studio, not the kids, not my sister, and especially not my parents."

"Are you embarrassed?"

"No!" I said quickly. "It's just, if anyone found out they'd be all 'Teen Celibacy!' and they'd move you into a different house. Do you want that?"

"Not really," Clapton said.

"Then keep that pretty mouth of yours shut," I said and patted his cheek. He grinned  and the dinged.

The next day we set the tray of rainbow cupcakes on the front counter. The kids filed in and they all whispered about the colorful cakes sitting up for everyone to see. Once everyone was accounted for I stood on a chair. I looked at the representatives from the colleges eying me warily.

"These cupcakes are for lunch," I said. "You can have one at lunch break. Clapton and I made them yesterday." The kids cheered and we went on with the classes. We separated again. I taught another class and we dismissed the little kids and we got back to our older kids lesson. We went over what we learned yesterday, and then added the second part. It involved a lot of lifting today. The kids groaned when I told them. The boys did anyway.  The girls seemed pretty pleased. 

"Ok, so, first things first," Clapton said rubbing his hands together. "You've got try out some basic lifts. We're going to show you a couple, we want you to try them with your partner, and then we'll show the lifts for the dance. Got it?"

"Got it!" the kids said. The first lift we showed them was the 'spread eagle' as Clapton liked to call it. He just lifted me into the air while I pointed my toes and held out my arms. 

"Try that one a couple of times," I instructed. It took them a half hour of learning to lift, then another twenty minutes before they had the lifts for the dance under their belts. That's when we dismissed them. The Ms. Hemp and Mr. Frail asked us a couple of questions about the inspiration for the dance. 

"Uh, from the song itself," I said. "I thought it would be fun to do some stuff with dragging and dance with some symbolism of pain. That's kind of what this song is about. It's about pain, the pain of hurting the one you love, and the pain of hurting yourself." Clapton glanced at me as I stood there holding my breath. Frail clicked his pen and left. Ms. Hemp shook our hands and followed him out. 

A/N 

Whoa, look at the filler chapter! Sorry, it's not that exciting. If you don't know the songs I'm talking about I suggest you listen to them because they're amazing and I love them. So, yeah, this is really late. So are all my other stuff. Look, I'm sorry, I've been working, and busy with school, and then there's the whole I have other books not on here thing. So, I apologize for being lazy.

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