Page 45 of Playing the Backbeat

“Who cares? You have plenty of other friends. You have other friends at school, right?” She nods.Thank fuck.“You have Dee. And you have me.”

“We’re friends?” she asks.

“I’d like to be. But that’s the thing about friends. You have to be honest with them. Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“I’m embarrassed because they saw me dancing. They aren’t dancing like me, and I know they’re going to tease me at school on Monday.”

“And if they teased you, you’d feel embarrassed.”

She nods, turning away from the girls and swiping a tear away quickly with the back of her hand.

“Well, someone really smart taught me something about embarrassment today.” I place a hand on her shoulder, and her eyes meet mine. “Apparently, it’s something someone made up to make other people feel bad for being human.”

Her smile makes me feel like I could do anything.

Including this.

Chapter nineteen

Dee

It took longer than I thought it would to fight my way through the crowd. But the horde of preteens finally relents, allowing me to find my way back to Emi and Dylan.

Except this is no longer Dylan, and I’ve clearly fallen into the Matrix or the Upside Down, or aliens have abducted Dylan and replaced him with one of their own, becauseDylan Brooks is dancing…like humans haveneverdanced before.

It dawns on me that I’ve never seen him dance until now…because I would fucking remember this.

The crowd has parted for him, giving him a good ten feet in every direction to do whatever the fuck he pleases. And Emi is right there alongside him, dancing her ever-loving heart out.

Emi spots me and yells, “Dee Dee, get over here before the song ends!”

Dylan smiles and shouts, “Yeah, Dee Dee. Are you going to make my night and dance with me?”

“With moves like that, Brooks, who could resist?” I shout back, jumping in, unable to resist my auntly duties, and unable toresist experiencing Dylan like this. The guy is uncoordinated, to say the least, and…fuck me,is it cute?No, it’s not cute.

Okay, it’s cute.

Dylan reaches for me, and I place my hand in his, finding my steps alongside him. Then he smiles at me—downright beaming with joy—and I realize it might not be the dancing that’s cute. Maybe it’s him.

***

“This was the most incredible, stupendous, magnificent night of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” Emi yells again as she twirls her spoon in the air before dunking it back into her bowl of ice cream, digging for another massive scoop.

Dylan, Emi, and I stopped by the twenty-four-hour convenience store down the street and picked up a tub of ice cream to celebrate a great show before huddling around the coffee table in my apartment, divvying up the dessert into a few bowls.

“I second that. Thank you, Dylan. For the tickets. For succumbing to the music as God intended. For worshipping the disco divas. For losing consciousness, falling into a vortex of space and time, and flailing as no one has ever flailed before.”

“Pretty sure I pulled my shoulder,” Dylan says, rolling his arm forward with a grimace. Emi looks concerned for a moment, but he winks. “It was worth a little pain cutting loose like that. You’ll have to keep an eye on the Bridge website, Emi. Let me know the next time we have another band you like on the schedule so we can do it again.” He rolls his shoulder backward this time. “And so I can start training in advance.”

Emi smiles, all worries forgotten, and she nods around another spoonful of dessert. “You got it.”

“And if you have any trouble on Monday at school, you say something, okay? And remember what you taught me about embarrassment.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask. “Why would you have a problem at school, Ems?”

She shrugs. “You know, because of those girls. The ones who don’t like me. They were there tonight, but it’s okay. After Dylan started dancing, they stopped pointing at me. I think you scared them.” She giggles before finishing off her ice cream. “Woof, I’m full and tired.”

“Oh, okay. You ready for bed?” I’m so confused, but if she’s not upset, I don’t want to dampen her good mood by harping on the issue. “Go ahead and brush your teeth. I’ll be right behind you.”