Hello my friendly aliens! Sorry about the weird greetings if you don’t like them, but I’m not going to stop. And yes, while writing this chapter, I was in a kind of oldies mood so don’t judge! Just so you know, it would be really helpful if you listened to the song while you were reading the part with them dancing… or at least just the beginning when it’s kind of descriptive. And if you don’t understand the dancing part at first then don’t worry about it, just imagine them doing some really cool dance moves! If anybody finds a cast that’s better than the one I have now then please tell me! Remember, constructive criticism, VOTE, COMMENT, AND FAN!!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 5
“Sweet home Alabama, where the skies are so blue. Sweet home Alabama, Lord, I’m coming home to you.” Liam sang running in his front door while I followed, jamming out on my air guitar. We had been listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s song Sweet Home Alabama on repeat for the whole ride from my house to the Miller’s house.
Soon, the entire Miller family had gathered with me and Liam in the family room and joined in. I let Grayson take over the air guitar role, Mr. and Mrs. Miller were dancing off to the side while singing parts of the song, and I went over and started dancing with Liam.
By the time the song was over, we were all hyped up and didn’t know what to do with our energy until Mr. Miller said, “Let’s perform for each other!”
“What would we do in said performances?” inquired Liam.
“Well, sing and dance of course!”
Everybody enthusiastically agreed and Liam and I started to sift through his family’s collection of CD’s until I found the perfect song. I showed Liam the Nirvana CD and pointed to the song I had in mind. He looked at me with a smile and told me, “It’s perfect! We can both dance to it because I don’t know the lyrics. Man, you find really do find the find the perfect thing all the time.”
We fist bumped and went to sit on the couch, sizing up our competition. It looked like Mr. Miller and Gray had teamed up and found a Journey CD and were planning out their performance, while Mrs. Miller was opening up a Gloria Gaynor case.
“Is it okay if I go first?” Mrs. Miller asked. When everybody gave the okay, she put the CD in the stereo and found the song she was looking for. After turning the volume up, she quickly turned around and started to sing I Will Survive.
I listened dumbstruck, as she played out the melodies to perfection and sang so loud that you couldn’t even hear the original singer. I had no idea that she was that talented, I mean, wow. That absolutely blew me away.
When she was finished, there was a thundering applause and I saw Mrs. Miller blush slightly and say, “Oh it was nothing, I mean I wasn’t even that good.”
“Honey, you were amazing! I don’t even want to have to go up there now because I would sound so horrible after listening to you!” her husband praised. “But, I guess I have to. Come on Gray.”
Father and son got up from the couch and made their way to the stereo to set things up for their song. Mrs. Miller sat down beside me and I grabbed her hand to get her attention, and when she looked at me, I gave her the biggest smile I could manage.
Suddenly, Journey’s song Any Way You Want It was blasting so loud that I had to cover my ears.
“Sorry.” Mr. Miller said sheepishly. “Well, I am going to be singing and Gray is going to be playing air guitar and be my backup singer.”
He grabbed a candlestick from a nearby table and got in the zone. I chuckled, a candlestick? Really? That’s what he’s going to use for a microphone? Oh well, it’s his choice!
The music started again and this time it was still loud, but not loud enough to blow your eardrums out. Mr. Miller was in no way as good of a singer as his wife, but he was decent. And watching little Gray get into his air guitar that it almost seemed like he was actually the one playing was hilarious.
After they were done, everyone once again applauded and then it was mine and Liam’s turn. We both walked over to the stereo and he asked me, “Wing it?” while I was changing the CDs. I nodded and I heard him telling his family that we were going to be dancing to Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana. When I found our song, I adjusted the volume so it was loud but not too loud.
As the guitar was starting, I walked over to where Liam was standing, in the middle of the room, nodding my head in beat with the music. Right before the drums came in he asked, “You ready?” I nodded with a grin and we put our hands around each other, ballroom dance style. During the time it took for the guitar to change what it was doing, we were just kind of slowing doing a salsa move with our feet. When the guitar changed, I spun away from Liam and spun back quickly. We did a couple more seconds of our salsa move and when the guitar changed again, Liam spun out this time. For a few more seconds, until the singing started, we did our salsa move.
When I heard the first words, Liam spun me out again, and holding one of my hands above my head, let me slowly turn. After 3 turns, I spun back into his arms. He held my waist against his and I dipped my upper body back in a circle. After that, we crossed on foot behind the other and switched, doing this until the next part came up.
As the singer said, “Hello, hello, hello...” we broke away from each other and started to move our heads in all directions on each hello. We both made a point to look at and point our fingers at each of the people sitting on the couch though.
As the song went on Liam and I did all kinds of moves that we made up on the spot, and others that we had learned from here and there. During at least one point in the song, I showed off my flexibility by doing a split.
The song ended with me shaking, shimmying, leaping, and anything else that flowed from my body at the time. Liam, ended with making up his own moves and pulling me up from my last spilt and the music halted.
We were both panting and sweating a little bit, but a little water and rest would fix that. I heard very loud clapping and Mrs. Miller gushing, “I had no idea that either of you were that good at dancing! It looked like you had choreographed it before and had practiced a lot!”
I smiled at her while Liam told her, “I’m not that good, it’s really just Brae.”
I hit him on the arm and glared at him. He was an amazing dancer! How could he say that it was just me?! And, I guess he didn’t realize this, but he had to anticipate my moves and go with them as well as his dancing!
Oh goodness, if I could talk right now I would tell him all those things that I just thought and make him see that he was actually very talented.
“Wow, is it already that late? We need to get you to bed Gray!”
I looked over at the clock on the stove and saw that it was already 8:00! Well, I guess what they say is true, time flies when you’re having fun. I tried to yawn discreetly, but Liam saw it and informed his family, “I think we’re going to go to bed now too, I’m pretty tired.”I smiled gratefully at him and hugged the Millers goodnight, giving each of them a kiss on the cheek.
I trudged up the stairs, with Liam trailing behind me. After sleepily walking into his room, grabbing my clothes, changing, and brushing my teeth, I fell face down on his bed. I heard him give a deep chuckle and go through the motions of getting ready to go to sleep.
I lifted one side of my face up to see Liam about to lay down on the floor, where he had made his bed up last night. I lightly kicked him in the back of the leg and he turned to me. I pointed one finger at him and curled it up in the ‘Come here’ gesture.
He followed my instruction with an adorable expression on that made him look like a lost puppy. When he got close enough, I grabbed his hand and pulled him down on the bed beside me. I heard his “Oomph!” as his face hit the comforter. Giggling silently, I watched him flip over and scowl playfully at me. “Now that wasn’t very nice.” He told me. I shrugged and scooted closer to him.
As I was cuddling into his side, he placed his arm around me again, not hesitating at all this time. “So, are we making this into a regular thing now?” he mumbled. I sighed contentedly and nodded. “Good.” Was his only reply.
Once again, as I was drifting off into dreamland, I heard him whisper something in my ear and the only thing I could make out was that it wasn’t English.