Chapter 42

Not that he did that, particularly well.

The relaxing part, that was. He’d been running flat out for as long as he could remember and if he sat in one place for too long, he started to get jittery. (Or he fell asleep, but he wasn’t sleepy at the moment.)

He’d gotten his laundry in the wash, did a load of his own dishes, made the bed. And he was sitting in his chair, fingers drumming on the arm. Restless. A spark of lowering sunlight caught the glitter on the floor—Jesus, Andy’s birthday had been weeksago and he was still finding glitter everywhere—and he got up again. He turned on some music and started sweeping the floor.

As often happened, he found himself singing into the handle of the broom, dancing as he moved around the floor. He bumped the music up again until he could feel the bass line vibrating into his spine.

The music turned over to Luke Bryan. The beat was easy, loud. Scooter turned on his heel, pulling out moves from the country line dancing he used to do when he was younger. He sang, loud enough that his throat was feeling it, diaphram holding steady as he boot-scooted across the wooden floor, hands moving near his hips.

He matched motions to the words, totally lost in the music, peeled off his tee and spun it around his finger before throwing it aside. Sweat gathered at the back of his neck and ran down his back.

He let the broom slide down, putting the snake hips to work and singing along at full volume, “—lay you down and love you right!” He spun around and came to an abrupt stop, mouth still half-open. Andy was standing in his doorway, eyes wide.

They stared at each other for a long moment, like deer caught in the headlights. Andy licked his lips, looked Scooter down and back up, then said, “Wow. You are…you are such a dork.”

Scooter scraped back his hair self-consciously. He was sweating like crazy; the AC didn’t work too well on the second floor. He snapped off the music and the sudden silence was deafening. Grabbing at the nearest smart-ass comment, he tossed his battered copy of Merriam-Webster at Andy. “Might want to borrow that for a while. I think the word you were searching for is ‘phenomenal.’”

Andy caught the dictionary with only a little fumbling and made a show of thumbing through it. “Hmmm. Nope, nope, it’s definitely ‘dork’.” He tossed it back, grinning. “Singing’s not bad, though.”

“Blame that on a teenage addiction to karaoke,” Scooter said. “Used to hit the bars up the strip with a fake ID, just to be able to sing in front of people.”

“Karaoke, really? Aaaand we’re back to dork again.” Andy smirked.

Scooter took a few steps closer; that smirk was going to drive him crazy. “Do you not know how to have fun, Andy? I mean, forget being cool, just have fun?”

Something hurt flashed behind Andy’s eyes, too fast for Scooter to read. “Who says I can’t have fun andbe cool?”

Ow. Scooter’s heart clenched, and his bones ached all the way down to his fingers. “Guess that’s why I never fit in with the cool kids,” he said. He couldn’t help it, he reached out one hand and ran his thumb over Andy’s jaw. “Sorry. I didn’t mean…just tryin’ to get you to relax a little. I’ll just…was the music too loud? I’m sorry.”

Andy grimaced, but he covered Scooter’s hand with his own. “No, I’m—I mean, yeah, the, uh, they were bitching about the music so Kat sent me up, but I was just…” His eyes slid sideways, uneasy. “Not sure I actually doknow,” he said softly. “Maybe when I was a lot younger. I’m a little jealous, really.”

Well, that, he could fix. Scooter turned the music back on, turned the volume down from its previous wake-the-dead level. “So, come dance with me.”

Andy blinked at him. “What?”

“Come on. Every savage can dance,” Scooter said. The country song ended and a dubstep piece started up.

“I can’t,” Andy protested, but his lips were curving upward again. “I mean, I took a semester of ballroom-dancing at—at school, but it’s not…I can’t dance to this.” Despite his protestations, he was letting Scooter pull him into the room.

Scooter stood right behind Andy, one hand on his hip, curling the fingers of his right hand and bringing Andy’s arm around. “Loosen your hips,” he said into Andy’s ear, hyper-aware of his heat, the way he smelled, the feel of his tee against Scooter’s bare chest. “Unlock your knees. Listen to the music. Feel the rhythm of it, right in the center of your chest.” He used his ankle to push Andy’s feet a little further apart. Got his thigh in between Andy’s legs. “Lean to your left and look at me.”

Grinding was easy, the body took over the rhythm without too much coordination. The only easier dance Scooter could show him was slow dancing, stupid spinning around in tiny circles. Everyone who’d been to middle school could slow dance. But grinding had the advantage of also being sexy, let him put his hands on Andy. And it was fun to do, in clubs, feeling another warm and willing body pressed up against his. God, he hadn’t been out dancing in a long, long time, not since—notthinking about that, no.