“Okay,” Cheryl said. “We’ll join you!” She grabbed for Mitch’s hand, and he actually rolled his eyes with what I hoped was exasperated affection or I might have to nut punch him.
The guys were right, Cheryl was sweet. Mitch had better be nice to her.
“We’ll catch up,” Coop said to the guys as he tugged me toward the dance floor. There were shoes under a lot of the tables. Half the girls had already ditched their heels.
Not that I blamed them, it was why I hadn’t worn them. The music shifted as Coop weaved his way through the room for the dance floor. Beyond Cheryl, I recognized a few other seniors. Most of those already here were likely juniors or sophomores. Seniors tended to arrive later…
Or so it seemed.
The song changed as we got to the floor, and I laughed. I loved this song. I think I bounced the last couple of steps to the dance floor itself. It was crowded, and for once, I didn’t care. Turning to Coop, I grinned at him. He’d ditched his jacket already, and we moved together to the music. Laughing, we mouthed the words at each other as we moved. When he spun around and danced back at me, shaking his ass, I laughed and lifted my arms as we rocked.
When “Shut Up and Dance” segued to “Moves Like Jagger,” I shifted to dance backward and ended up bumping into Jake. While Coop didn’t sit it out, I was dancing between them. As the music cycled through and Archie hit the dance floor with us, I rotated between them until it was just all four of us dancing.
I lost track of the songs they were playing and just moved with the beats. Sweat, cologne, and fragrances perfumed the air around us. When they finally gave us a slow song, it was Jake I ended up dancing with.
“I’m glad you guys kept track,” I told him a little breathlessly.
We were both a little sweaty, but Jake didn’t pull away, just kept his arm around my lower back as he dipped his head to talk against my ear. “Always. Besides…I’m faster.”
Head back, I laughed because he sounded so damn smug about it.
“Having fun?”
“I really am,” I promised. Somehow, while we’d all been dancing, more people had filtered in. Though the crowd had thinned a little with the slower songs. The Homecoming court had also arrived. I didn’t know half the kids who got elected to it, and I didn’t care.
“What?” Jake asked, and gave me a squeeze.
“Hmm?”
“You have the tiny little Frankie-frown. What are you worried about?”
I had aFrankie-frown? I opened my mouth to ask, then snapped it shut again. “Did you vote for the Homecoming court?”
He shot me a bemused look. “Of course you were thinking of something utterly random.”
Well…duh.
Chuckling, he navigated us slowly toward the edge, and I was okay with that because I really was getting hot now that we’d slowed down. Even my hair was sticking to the back of my neck. So not sexy. “Probably,” he said with a shrug. “I wasn’t paying that much attention. Didn’t they have ballots out at lunch the second week?”
Had they?
“No clue,” I admitted, and then laughed when Jake hugged me a little closer. We were supposed to moderate the PDAs, but it was nice to just dance with him. “So much for mynormalhigh school stuff, huh?”
“Pfft,” he scoffed. “Do you care that you didn’t vote or don’t remember it if you did?”
“No.” Not at all. Not really.
“Then, I say again…pfft.” The song was winding down. “C’mon, water break.”
He tugged me off the dance floor, and I was fanning my face as I followed his weave through the crowd.
“Frankie!” Rachel’s voice had me twisting, and Jake stopped as I pulled back. Wearing a dark green dress that hugged her like it had been painted on, Rachel leaned in and gave me almost an air hug before she motioned her hand up and down. “Damn. You look good enough to eat.”
“Too bad. She’s not on the menu,” Jake interrupted, and I rolled my eyes. When I gave him a light nudge with my elbow, he slung an arm over my shoulders. God, we were both so sweaty.
“Yeah, dickhead. You clean up nice, too. Definitely not edible though.” Rachel flicked her fingers at him as if dismissing him before she focused on me again. “Can I steal you for a minute?”
When she cut her eyes to the right, I saw the slender Asian girl hovering a few feet back.