The Art of Moving On | ✔

CHAPTER NINE; part two

     I stay until closing to help Dres clean up the store for the night. Dolores has retired to the office to count the registers and we're in the front.

     Dres is in an uncharacteristically good mood, strikingly different from his normal. He swings across the floor with a broom in his arms like he's cradling a lover. He reminds me of Patrick Swayze, all soft hips and big hands. I think he wishes he were somewhere else, a time where music like this was popular and everything was better, quieter, somehow.

     "You don't like this song, huh?" he asks, smiling at me with none of his lips but all of his eyes.

     "S'not bad," I respond, even though he's right.

     It's not my taste. If I'm going to listen to old music, I prefer eighties pop rock. But I like it because it opens up Dres, makes him pliable. I wouldn't tell him any of this, though.

     "You can't not dance to a song like this," he says with more personality than I'm used to.

     "You can if you can't dance," I respond with a small laugh, even though it's true.

      "Everyone can dance." I can see it, know what he's winding up for. "Come on." He nods his head, arms at ninety-degree angles at his waist, fingers snapping to the beat. "Come on, Cas," he says again, a little more commanding.

     I shake my head. Dres nods. "Calvin," he goes. And okay, he says my name like that and I basically am willing to walk into traffic. Gritting my teeth, I start swinging on my feet, forwards and back. "Don't hold back."

     "I'm really bad," I say but try to loosen up, if not for Dres than for everyone in heaven who is watching this travesty.

     "You can't be. Dancing is subjective," he says.

     "Pretty sure the judges on Dancing with the Stars would disagree."

     I try to listen to the song and fix myself to its pace. I'm hoping at the very least I look decent because this is embarrassing enough. Dres can dance, though. I'd be satisfied watching him.

     Dres starts laughing and I can't help but glare at him. "I warned you," I start to say but Dres cuts me down dry when he reaches forward and grabs my hips.

     His palms burn me to the bone. My whole body seizes up and if we thought my dancing was bad before I'm sure it's not any better now that I'm stiff as a board.

     "Here," he says as soon as he does it. "You're not feeling the beat."

     "I'm feeling something," I blurt my voice heavier than it's ever been. I can't even be embarrassed by my comment. There's no time to be. Warmth trickles through my blood stream. The gods are clearly testing my strength of will.

     He doesn't say anything and maybe this is it. What I've been waiting for since the first day we met.

     It isn't, because Dolores walks in and we break away from each other in the most un-casual of ways.

     "Don't mind me," she says very clearly amused. I'm trying to figure out how to breathe again and don't have the strength to be embarrassed by her. "Just printing out the receipts."

     Dres is staring at me, and there is something in his expression that I can't figure out. Still looking at me, he goes, "I'm going to drop Calvin at home."

     We're in the car, and I have nothing to say. I'm a mess of confusion, of desire, and nerves. Dres is lucky I can give him coherent directions to my house. He doesn't say anything either, other than a question here or there of when to turn and which way.

     I'm trying to decide if I'm supposed to say I had fun, if I should suggest we do it again. If I can get away with saying nothing at all.

     He parks outside my house and gets out when I get out. My stomach drops to my feet. My mom's car is parked behind mine in the driveway, and the lights are on downstairs, which means she's waiting up for me.

     I think about that scene in John Tucker Must Die where Brittany Snow's character is like, "I always like a little risk" and tries to kiss him and bobs when he weaves (or weaves when he bobs).

     I don't know why the thought comes into my head, and now all I can think about is knocking heads with Dres. He stops short of my front steps, and rubs the side of his head. I stop, too, and look up at him, hesitantly.

     "We'll work on the dancing thing," he says softly.

     I tell him, "I think it's a lost cause."

     He looks pained, sort of. Unsure. I don't know. Maybe I'm reading into it but he could be as nervous as I am. He steps towards me and I shift back a bit, a nervous response that I don't mean to do. I'm willing myself to stand still.

     But if Dres wants this, wants me, he'll go for it.

     "I'll see you tomorrow morning," he says abruptly, stepping back, away from me with a look so guarded you'd think he was a maximum security prison.

     "Right," I respond my whole body going cold.

     "Good night," he says as he walks back down my walkway to his truck.

     "Right," I repeat, because clearly what Dres wants and what I want are two completely different things.