Page 9

“No, I didn’t forget. I was just hoping the question would catch you off-guard, and maybe jog your memory. I mean, you have to be professionally trained in order to swim this well. Hours and hours of pool-time in your past.”

“Maybe,” Jamie replied, before turning a little more towards Jesse and offering a smile. “Where did you learn to swim?”

“Uh, here, mostly, or in lakes,” Jesse said. “We didn’t do much swimming when we were kids, though. Austin and me, I mean. We’d just come here a few times a year during the summer months, and when our parents took us out to Lake Tahoe for vacations.”

“But now we swim a lot more often,” Austin added. “Still don’t hold a candle to you, though. You swim like you’re trying to go to the Olympics.”

Jamie looked confused, opening his mouth as if about to ask a question, before closing it again with a slight blush.

“It’s alright,” Jesse told him. “You can ask questions around Austin, he’s a friend. It’s just strangers you should be careful around.”

“Okay,” Jamie said, smiling again before turning his attention back to Austin. “What’s the Olympics?”

Wow, he really didn’t know anything , did he?

“That’s a big sports competition,” he explained. “People from all over the world gather together to compete, and the best ones win medals for outperforming everyone else.”

“So,” Jamie said, a flicker of teasing in his eyes and a hint of gloating in his tone. “You’re saying I outperform you.”

“Ouch, this kid is sharp!” Austin told Jesse with a laugh. “Did you teach him to talk like that?”

“Definitely not,” Jesse said, seeming a little amused, but also uncertain, as he gave Jamie a look. “He must have picked it up from TV.”

“TV is amazing,” Jamie told Jesse at once, lighting up in excitement. “Hundreds of stories all playing at once, so real it looks like you could actually be there! ”

…Okay, now Austin knew exactly why Jesse couldn’t turn this guy out into the streets. He was adorable! All at once, Austin was one-hundred percent on board with the whole ‘roommates’ thing, and there was no way he’d let Jesse’s other friends talk him out of it.

Someone called Nate, for example.

But Austin didn’t want to think about Nate. He refused to let that man ruin his good mood.

They continued to swim and talk for a little while longer, until Austin started to get tired out.

He half expected Jesse and Jamie to stay without him; Jamie didn’t want to leave the water at all, making Austin wonder if Jesse would need to drag him out of it—the thought making him chuckle.

But, Jesse insisted they finish up and leave with Austin, and Jamie reluctantly gave in.

So, after they all got changed back into their dry clothes, they headed off for the bus stop together, slowly enough so that Austin could keep up with them.

If Austin were honest with himself, he’d put off ending the day a little too long. By the time they reached the bus stop, his leg was really starting to hurt, and now he had to stand here for the next fifteen minutes.

There used to be a bench here, but it had been removed about a year ago, the city trying to ‘discourage homelessness’ by focusing all their efforts on making homelessness hurt more , instead of on trying to help people find homes, so now it was painful for him to wait for a bus.

Thanks, society…

However, it was worth it to spend time with Jesse and to meet Jamie, and Austin would do it all over again. Just maybe not for a few more days. He needed long ‘cooldown’ periods between these more strenuous outings.

“Hey,” Jamie whispered nearby, nudging Jesse’s arm with his elbow and pointing a little farther down the street. “What’s going on over there?”

Austin and Jesse both followed his point to a small group of people about twenty feet away, gathered around a woman dancing to hip- hop music that played on a portable CD-player at her feet.

“That’s a street performer,” Jesse explained quietly, looking interested as he watched the dance. “She’s entertaining the public, and if they like it, they give her tips. Money, I mean,” he amended before Jamie could ask. “Not advice.”

She was a pretty good dancer, too, Austin noticed as they approached her.

He hadn’t really been paying attention at first—he tended to tune out the sights of the city, after having lived so long here—but now he found himself feeling a new sense of interest, as he considered what it must be like for Jamie to see it for the first time.

The stylish, heavyset woman moved gracefully but sharply along with the beat of her music; with a stomp here, a clap there, and plenty of turns, so that no matter where her audience stood, they all got a chance to see her smiling face.

Although it was still a bit cold for Carson City, the woman didn’t have on a jacket, warmed enough by the exercise—leaving her dark ochre arms exposed and showing off a tattoo on her right shoulder and a thick rubber bracelet on her left wrist. The tattoo was a blazing cloud of musical notes in every color of the rainbow, while the bracelet bore the words ‘HAZEL DANCE ACADEMY’ in large black block-letters.

She must be out here to promote the school.

There were several dance studios in the city, so it made sense they’d have to find ways to stand out above the competition.

Soon enough, the song ended, and she finished her dance.

The small crowd clapped as she gave a slight bow, and then started dropping a few coins and an occasional bill into a collections hat on the sidewalk by the CD-Player.

The dancer began to hand out what seemed to be flyers as Austin reached into his pockets, finding a couple bucks and offering them to Jamie.

“Go and drop that into the hat for me, would’ya? ”

Jamie took the bills, looking as intent and wide-eyed as ever as he approached the woman and dropped the bills into her hat before hurrying back over to Jesse. “It’s very… cool,” he told Jesse seriously. “Th at’s what you called it, right?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. “Cool is a good way to describe it.”

“I think…” Jamie tilted his head. “I think I’d like to try that, maybe.”

“Try what?” Jesse asked. “Dancing?”

Jamie nodded intently.

“You wanna learn how to dance?” the woman called over, apparently having heard the whole thing. “You got time to give it a try?”

Jamie stiffened a little, looking suddenly nervous as he glanced questioningly to Jesse.

“Yeah, we should have ten minutes or so before our bus comes,” Jesse told him. “But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Nonsense, he should try it!” Austin encouraged with a grin, before turning to Jamie and clapping a hand on his shoulder. “If you’re as good at dancing as you are at swimming, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“I’ll show you the moves before we start, if you want,” the woman told Jamie, waving at the crowd to make more space as the next song began to play. “I’m a good teacher, I promise.”

Jamie still looked nervous, his face flushing pink as he looked at Jesse one more time, but he moved forward anyway, and joined the woman in the clearing at the center of the small crowd. “What are… the moves?”

Jesse stifled a slight laugh, looking all too fond as he hid his mouth behind his hand.

Yeah, he had it bad.

The dancer went through a couple of easy stances with Jamie, showing him how to move his feet and what to do with his arms, and then started the song over from the beginning. “Now put it all together,” she instructed. “Ready? Three, two, one, go! ”

She started to dance. At first, Jamie didn’t join her, seeming kind of frozen into place as he glanced around at the watching crowd. But then he looked over to Jesse, who offered an encouraging smile. “ You can do it, Jamie,” he said.

Jamie straightened, a determined look coming over his face as he turned back to the dancer.

And started to mirror her actions perfectly.

Austin felt his jaw drop open. How was Jamie doing so well after just seeing one dance? It must be muscle-memory, obviously, but from what? Austin had just been joking about the whole ‘if you’re as good at dancing as you are at swimming’ thing. He hadn’t actually expected it to be true!

Yet here they were, he and Jesse both staring in open shock as Jamie continued to dance; his movements fluid and yet sharp as he stepped to the beat and intently copied the dancer, one move behind.

She seemed just as surprised as they were, her dark brown eyes widening before a bright grin lit her face, and she started throwing in new moves they hadn’t practiced—as if testing him.

Jamie did falter a little at the new steps, his movements becoming a touch more stiff.

But he was still mostly keeping up with the dancer, and after she threw in an impromptu turn on her heel and he mirrored it, he suddenly drew in a sharp breath and grinned, as if he was only just now realizing he was having fun.

The woman laughed as she kept dancing. Jamie followed her lead through the rest of the song, smiling all the way, and Austin had to smile too just from watching him.

Where on earth had this guy come from!?

The song ended and the two stopped dancing, both panting a bit for breath from the exercise.

“I’m impressed,” the woman said, as she pulled a sweat-rag from her pocket and wiped at her forehead. “You’re practically an expert already!”

“Really?” Jamie perked, looking pleased with himself.

“Really,” she confirmed. “But let me introduce myself. I’m Hazel Davis, I own a dance studio here in Carson City. The Hazel Dance Academy. ”

That made total sense now. She looked very young to own her own studio—maybe in her late thirties, if at all—so her place was most likely pretty new. She needed every kind of advertisement, and could definitely use the extra money she’d been collecting earlier.