Tap Dance (Dance Series)

chapter Twenty Three



Girl's Night at Leila's!

I had been looking forward to this all week.

We'd so much fun together shopping and I was hoping it would be even more fun without the restrictions of public behavior. Although, on second thought, Crys seemed to act the same way no matter where she happened to be.

I had arranged to pickup Caitlin so we could ride together and sent her a text that I was waiting for her in the car outside the house.

The front door opened with Caitlin half-turned back, saying something to Jake. But, whatever she said must've been good, because I saw two manly arms go around her waist and then the door swung almost shut.

When she made it out onto the porch, Jake followed her out and they shared a brief kiss and hug before I saw them put their foreheads together.

It occurred to me that Ram and I did something similar except we talked with our lips just touching.

I got a full body rush just remembering the feel of his lips on mine.

Jake gave a wave my way as he watched his girl get into my car. And I remembered what Sara had told me. I couldn't put the 'Jake' she spoke of together with the man standing on the porch.

Except she had been right, very right, about one thing.

Jake was gorgeous.

"Hey, you," I said with a smile. "Glad you were able to get out of the house. Thought I was going to have to go alone after seeing the front door action."

Caitlin shot me a look as she fastened her seatbelt.

"Guess we'll have to make a point telling you the time we're supposed to meet fifteen minutes earlier than the actual time."

"Let me know when you're done," she said her face towards her passenger window.

I couldn't help my laughter, especially when she joined in.

We talked of our week, since we never got a chance to really speak even though she worked afternoons in my office.

Caitlin talked about the small changes she was making around Jake's house to make it into their home.

I told her about the Insurance Agent's visit, which made her laugh again. And of Ram's suggestion that I order my furniture from his brother Ajit who owned AMP Furnishings. He said that Ajit would swing a discount for me.

"Does Paul know you're dating Ram?"

"Uh, no, not specifically. But I did tell him that I couldn't date him anymore. I just didn't give him the name. Luckily, he didn't ask."

Caitlin gave a sharp bark of laughter at the 'didn't ask' portion of my explanation.

We were just getting out of the car when we saw Crys and a good-looking man making their way up Leila's porch. Leila had said that we didn't need to bring anything, but I had made individual cheesecakes using Auntie's cupcake pan.

The last time I'd been at Leila's I had been too wound up to notice anything. It was an old Arts & Crafts style home with the long porch and two big picture windows flanking the front door.

There was already a lot of laughter coming from the door when Caitlin and I followed Crys and her friend in.

I glanced at Cait who, like me, already had a smile going.

"This should be fun," she whispered.

I couldn't agree more.

Leila had pulled out all the stops, her breakfast bar ladened with beautiful trays of different finger foods and a selection of white or red wine. She had lit the fire and had music playing softly in the background.

Cait and I were introduced to Frank who, for some odd reason, was called Frank-kay by Leila and Crys. He was very good-looking with his sun-kissed hair and bronzed skin.

Cait asked him if he had been on a beach recently and he laughed really hard.

"Frank-kay loves his tanning bed," Crys said bumping up against him.

"My partner, Stan, bought me a tanning bed last year," he explained with a grin. "Giving away all my secrets, baby-girl?"

Okay, that explains what a man was doing at a girl's party.

Cait caught my eye and smiled.

We all moved into the living room, where the main focus was the fireplace. We were just settling in when Cait decided to mix things up.

"We're dying to know, Marianne. Who's gonna win your heart. Ram or Paul?"

I gave her my version of the look she'd given me back in the car when I was teasing her about keeping me waiting.

"Girl, that Ram is fine!" I heard Frank say and all of us, including Crys, nodded our heads. It was true. My boyfriend is very, very fine.

"You haven't seen Paul's smile, though." Cait challenged. "His smile turns a regular hot guy into a smoking hot guy."

"You're really dating two guys?" Crys asked blinking her heavily mascaraed eyes at me.

Shit.

I didn't say anything, hoping that the subject would change and change fast.

But Leila got in on the action with her, "C'mon, Marianne, spill it."

Shit.

I sent Cait a mini-glare for setting me up, while I tried to think of how best to answer.

"I'll say this once and only once. Paul's a nice guy, a gorgeous guy. But he's a player."

I looked at the circle of faces all listening to me intently.

Shit.

"Every girl should date a player at least once in their lives," I finished.

"Ooooh…" they all chorused before the laughter started.

Whew! Got out of that one.

But as we moved en masse back to the kitchen to grab some more nibbles, which Frank called 'grazing', I turned to Cait and whispered, "…and the horse you rode in on."

"You're too pretty to be a bitch, Marianne," she whispered back.

"Oh! Turn this up!" Crys yelled and grabbed Frank's arm.

Leila moved to her iPod and hit the volume button.

"Line Dance!" Crys and Frank shouted in unison, grabbing the rest of us and pulling us into the space behind Leila's couch.

And, with very little instruction from Crys and Frank, the five of us did the Electric Slide to Paula Cole's, 'Where Have All The Cowboy's Gone'. It only took three different songs for us all to get it right and we were all laughing our butts off when we collapsed in the chairs around the dining room table.

Cait and Leila moved the remaining food all onto one tray and sat it in the middle along with the remaining wine.

I was just coming back from Leila's cute half bath that was tucked in the space underneath the stairs, when I caught the tail end of Frank mock arguing with Caitlin about the difference in tips given by age groups. He was arguing that the over-thirties tipped better than the under-thirties and Cait was trying to point out it was probably due to a lack of funds. The conversation slid into belly laughs when Frank told Cait to, "talk to the hand, 'cause the face ain't listening!"

"What do you do, Frank, that you know about tipping?" I asked. I saw three outta four jaws drop at my question.

"Ohmigod, you don't know you're in the presence of greatness?" Crys asked in mock horror.

"Can it, cutie," Frank advised Crys with a weak swipe to her arm. "I own Tangles."

"He's the one that did my hair," Leila explained with a smile and a shake of her gorgeous layers.

"And mine," Crys said placing a hand on the back of her head, posing like a 50's model.

"I worked at Alberta's for years and then, this year, I opened my own salon," Frank explained with a smile.

Good on him, I thought.

"So who does your taxes?" I asked and everyone about fell out of their chairs laughing again. What? Every business needs a good accountant and, since I was one, it never hurt to ask.

"Crys? Dex said you did his piercing," Leila said and there wasn't an eyebrow that didn't raise by us other three. "What kind of piercings do you actually do?"

"Are you gonna ask?" Frankie mock whispered to Cait.

"Not me. That might venture into the 'too much info' category," she mocked whispered back.

Leila leveled the two of them with a look. "His nipple, okay? Just his nipple. Geesh, get a life, would you?"

It took a couple of seconds for Crys to get it.

"Ewww," she drawled, her nose crinkling. "He's like my dad, okay? You people are sick!"

Again, the room rocked with laughter.

"To answer your wonderful question, Leila," she said leveling Cait and Frank with just a look. "Right now I'm trained to do all the piercings currently available. Facial, nipple plus female and male genitalia, both vertical and horizontal. I have a seminar scheduled over the summer so I can learn how to do silicone beads and other under skin implants."

You could've heard a pin drop as we processed this interesting bit of info.

"Okay, I'll bite," I said. "What's a Prince Albert?"

I had read the term in one of my contemporary women's fiction novels, which is just a fancy-schamancy term for bodice-rippers set in the here and now. In the book, the heroine was somewhat put off by the piercing until she felt what it did when it was…uhm…working in her…ah.

You get the idea.

So, Crys described it and did a verbal comparison to a PA (saying that Prince Albert and Personal Assistant were interchangeable words in the Piercing Community. They have a community?) to the Apadravya using her fingers to illustrate.

We were all glued to her explanation.

There were more than a few blinks as we all tried to process this new bit of information.

Cait broke the silence by telling of her and Jake running into Leila and Dex in, of all places, Smithville.

For those not in the know, Smithville was a tiny, tiny town that wasn't even shown on certain maps of Colorado. It was probably about an hour and a half north of Grantham and consisted of a huge log cabin that housed a gas station, the post office and a restaurant all in one very large room.

Seems the four of them had a great time. At one point, Cait had deliberately teased Jake about her and twenty friends that wanted to use his gym for girl classes just so Leila could hear him get all grumbley and rumbley when he said no.

Then Caitlin relayed she had overheard Jake teasing Dex that it sure sounded like he was in love and he better, and I quote, 'put his f*cking ring on her f*cking finger so he wouldn't f*ck this up.'

The room rang again with our combined laughter.

Well, at least, until we all heard Crys utter, "Uh-oh."

The laughs died out as we looked at her.

She, however, was looking at Leila.

Who wasn't looking at anyone except her hands which were palm down, fingers spread, on the dining room table.

"Dex and Leila broke up after Smithville," Crys said softly reaching for one of Leila's hands.

Oh, dear God.

I saw it.

There, from my place directly across from Leila, I saw the exact moment when my beautiful friend had her heart broken.

Cait got up from her chair and moved quickly, encircling Leila's head in her arms. Cait's look was stricken.

"I'm so sorry. So, so sorry," Cait kept repeating.

I think Frank got it, too, because he was up and out of his chair fast. He didn't say anything but he put his hand on Leila's shoulder.

I watched as Leila rearranged her face quickly, not responding to the efforts of condolence, of sympathy. And, in that moment, that very rare and special moment, I got her.

I understood how this was going to play out to the rest of us. The 'no big deal', it was an 'interlude', etc.

I tried to nip that crap in the bud and let her know that we had her back. That we, the four of us, had gone through heartbreak before and would help her through it.

So I tried to cut that crap off at the pass and said, "Wait a second."

And there was silence all around.

"Leila, honey? Did you know that you were no longer a couple?" I asked quietly.

She dragged her eyes from her fingers on the tabletop to me. Her beautiful brown eyes opened very wide.

I saw her swallow and pull herself together before answering. And I knew this is where the lying started.

"I didn't even know we were a couple to begin with," she said softly. Lie number one.

It remained quiet.

"We only hung out a couple of days," she continued. Lie number two.

I saw her glance at Cait and Frank that stood beside her before her gaze made it to me and Crys.

"He really said that?" she asked Crys and I watched Crys nod.

But Crys' chin was quivering and I knew we had a situation on our hands.

We had one friend that was trying to lie her ass off so other people didn't know she was hurting and another that was beating herself up for voicing the words that had caused the hurt.

Aw, shit.

I glanced at Frank and nodded at Leila. He nodded back.

Crys was on her feet and moving fast into the living room and I saw her whip into the bathroom underneath the stairs. I was close on her heels, not giving her a chance to close the bathroom door fully.

As I pushed my way in, my sweet girl reached for me, sobbing. I closed the door behind us and held her there.

In that tiny bathroom, I held our Crys.

Crys with the big personality, our tuff-guy that didn't care what anyone thought.

But who was cut, was hurting, when she realized that she might have caused a friend pain.

I admit it.

I cried right along with her.

When we were done and wiping the black streaks off our faces, I just had to ask.

"You are so pretty, honey. Why the heck do you wear so much make up?"

She smiled her lop-side smile as she tried to wash away the black tracks on her face.

"Just lucky, I guess," she said softly.

And, I smiled at her reflection in the mirror.