How incredible it felt to be wrapped in Taylen’s arms and pressed against him, his body wrapped around mine, hard and broad, where I’m soft and slender. I don’t let my thoughts go past that, though—past his warmth, his hand, and his leg.
“Holy shit!” Taylen suddenly leaps up from the table, and my hand jerks, sending a wild scratch right through the center of the ticket I’ve been staring at and not working on.
“What?” My breath catches when I see how elated he is. His eyes are huge, his grin is bigger, and he starts flapping the ticket around like a startled chicken. “How much did you win?”
Out of all the times we’ve bought tickets, we’ve never won anything more than five or ten dollars. I think this whole table worth of tickets is probably not even going to be close to breaking even.
He waves the ticket harder, then does a ridiculous dance. It starts with his hips, which he pumps back and forth, then he lifts his arms in the air and starts wiggling his bottom. My eyes are drawn right there, right to a butt so perfectly formed that if I were to throw my quarter at it, it would bounce straight off. I’m not even kidding. I tear my eyes away as a storm of butterflies flutters through my stomach. Lower, I can feel my lady cave joining in the happy dance. I cross my legs quickly under the table, trying to cut her off, but I guess that’s not how it works. She must be eye-activated, and my eyes are still watching Taylen.
“Oh yeah,” he sings, terribly off-key. “Oh yeah, baby! The winning ticket. Right here. Oh yeah…”
“How much is it?” Laughter bubbles up my throat, and there isn’t any stopping it.
Taylen dances harder. The table where I’m sitting is across the way from the couch since the house is largely open on the main floor here. The second floor is quite open, too, since the stairwell and landing overlook this part. Jeffers lifts his head and watches the happy dance, both confused and ready to spring into action just in case Tay is actually practicing some cursed dance. Ha. Not that it would make any difference. I’m pretty sure I’m cursed already.
“How much?” I ask again. Jeffers waits, his ears back. I’m ready to hear it’s a ten grand winner or maybe more, maybe a hundred grand.
“Fifty bucks! It’s the biggest one we’ve had in a longgggg time.”
My nostrils flare as I snort. “Oh my lord. You are a dorkus. Sit down. That’s hardly worth celebrating.”
“Yeah right!” Tay does this thing where he mimics me every now and then. Other people too, but he’s known me for so long that he has my voice almost perfect. He imitates me now, all sugar and high tones. “Sit down. That’s hardly worth celebrating.” He rolls his eyes at me. “Sit down? How can I sit down? You need to stand up!”
He drops the ticket on the table, grasps my chair, and spins me around so hard that the felt pieces on the chair legs just about fly off. The chair makes a big creaking noise to announce that it’s vintage and isn’t going to put up with this nonsense, but then Taylen plucks me out of it. He takes my hands and dances me across the open space, past the table, our feet sliding over the hardwood floors.
“Dance with me,” he demands, all good cheer and carefree happiness.
This is more like the Taylen I know. The grumpy, moody, and cursed Taylen isn’t his usual MO. If Tay isn’t cracking jokes, acting wild, laughing, and the life of every freaking party, there’s something wrong. However, I really don’t feel like dancing, especially since I haven’t solved any of my problems. In fact, I think I’ve added a whole heap to the ones I was already dealing with, but my body won’t listen to my sad, sad brain. My hips are moving, my feet are flying, and my body is responding in time to Taylen spinning me around.
We took dance lessons as kids. I always hated it when my parents put me in them, and I used to complain so much that Taylen wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so he got his mom to enroll him too. We did all the lessons together after that, everything from ballroom, salsa, and tango, to the waltz. They were a lot more fun with Taylen there, and I guess he hasn’t forgotten them entirely. He puts them to good use now, and I find myself following his wild moves with ease. He’s a good leader. He was always so effortless at it while I was the clumsy ungraceful one. It became so bad that my teachers would only pair me with Taylen because he was the only one whose feet I didn’t mangle and maul the entire class.