I shrugged. “Dance.”
His smile started to form, the light in his eyes firing. He remembered. Not that a person could ever forget those times. The ones where two people just got up and danced or put on a show for a crowd to prove that they didn’t give a flying fruit what anyone thought of them. Whether they were walking through a school cafeteria, or eating eggs and bacon at a downtown café, or mingling in a crowded room at my parents’ New Year’s Eve party . . . or being shunned by a roomful of family and friends-of-the-family years later. We gave them a show to prove they could stare all they wanted, but we weren’t going to hide.
Boone fired a wink at me, bobbing his head to the beat of the song before throwing himself back onto the dance floor. His hands shoved off of it in quick succession, clapping every time he pressed off the floor. He still had the body of a teenager, and he could still move like one too.
Had I even been capable of performing the mad moves Boone was playing out for everyone, The Thing would have burst open at every seam if I tried now, so I kept my moves a bit more contained, though what I lacked in mobility I more than made up for in theatrics. As Boone popped out of his floor routine, moving onto a series of hip thrusts that would have disgraced a male stripper, I did something that was reminiscent of the sprinkler meets the mermaid, and every eye that hadn’t been turned our way did.
Boone wrapped his arms around his head, popping his elbows forward in sync with his hips. A few whoops came from the circle of Charlotte’s friends who’d been circling the bar most of the night.
“To us doing us,” he said, his smile stretching as he watched me pinch my nose, shimmy my body lower, and do another mermaid.
Letting go of my nose, I smiled back. “To us.”
Morning Two.
Two down, four more to go. That I was counting down the wake-ups until I could leave was an indication of just how unwelcome and uncomfortable I felt in the place I’d called home for nearly two decades.
When I went to stretch, I moaned when I found my arms restricted from their usual range of motion, along with the rest of my body.
“Yeah, me too,” a sleepy-sounding voice answered from the floor.
“You also had the best sleep in your life?” I grimaced when I rolled onto my side toward where Boone had camped out on the floor again. My waist, along with my hips, felt either bruised or in danger of losing circulation. I wasn’t sure how, but somehow The Thing seemed to have shrunk another size overnight.
“Positively the best,” Boone said, moaning a bit louder than I had. “By the way, Clara, your floor? It’s hard. I know there’s carpet and everything and your parents probably made sure it was the expensive plush shit, and there’s probably just as expensive and plush of a pad below it, but I’ve slept on hardwood floors and woken up with fewer knots in my back.”
I tucked my lips between my teeth to keep from smiling. “You’re saying this isn’t the first time you’ve had to sleep on someone’s floor? Big baby?”
“Not even close to my first time,” he answered through a yawn. “Miss Pillow-Top Mattress.”
I was just rolling over a bit farther to look at him when I caught myself. My eyes sealed shut before I glanced his way. “Hey, Boone?”
“Hey what?”
“Do you, you know . . .” I made a few motions with my hand that filled in the rest, starting and ending at the place south of his navel.
“No, we’re good. It seems that along with my back, other parts of my body didn’t like the sleeping arrangements.” When my eyes stayed closed for another few moments, he exhaled. “That means you can open your eyes already. No morning wood to blind you with.”
“Are you naked again?” I asked.
“Why? Would you like me to be?” His voice went down a few notes.
I grabbed the pillow behind me and launched it in his general direction. “Not unless you’re planning on coating yourself in honey and rolling in a pile of feathers.”
“I don’t believe that’s on my schedule. This morning.”
I peeked one eye open. He still had the sheet tucked over him, but he had an undershirt on, so I took that to mean he was also wearing something that resembled boxers or briefs or whatever below that. I opened my other eye too, taking my chances. “What is on your schedule for today? I was supposed to be rehearsal-dinner dress shopping with my mom and sisters this morning, but since I’m still dealing with the repercussions of the dress I got forced into yesterday, I’m going to pass. Besides, I’ll be camped outside of that bridal shop this morning, and God help me if a seamstress is not on staff today, I will declare myself one and pry This Thing off of me through whatever means are necessary.”
Boone grinned at me, his eyes still looking sleepy. “You could always declare me a seamstress and I could do the honors.”