Page 52 of The Dance

“Please.” She sat at the kitchen table.

“Please, help yourself to any of the food,” Mom said.

“Thank you,” Stacey replied, and grabbed a plate to fill.

There was no mention of the girl I took to the Cowboy’s game or questions wondering when Stacey had arrived at our place. Instead, they included her in the conversation as though nothing was weird about her showing up, and then she spent the entire day poolside with my mom and Spencer while the guys went to the store for the fixings for dinner.

16

Stacey

Sixteen Years Old– Seven Years Prior

He was so hot.

Star quarterback and just drop-dead gorgeous Jordan Ford.

I could stare at him all day, and I did most of the time during lunch and on the sidelines as I cheered him on with the cheerleading squad. All throughout lunch, my friends and I would sit in the courtyard while he and his friends threw a football back and forth on the other side. It was always the highlight of my day.

“I’m going to hook up with Brad on Friday,” Lauren stated.

“Brad is so lame. Logan is the better choice,” Sammy argued.

“Scott is so much cuter than both of them,” April declared.

“Isn’t that your brother?” Elise asked, but I wasn’t paying attention to her.

“Jordan is hotter than all of them,” I sighed, watching him throw the perfect spiral to Logan.

“Hey!” Fingers snapped in front of me. “Did you hear me?”

I blinked and focused on Elise’s face. “What?”

“Isn’t that your brother?” She pointed at Eddie, my mom’s boyfriend’s son, as he walked up the stairs on the other side of the courtyard.

“He’s not my brother.” I rolled my eyes.

She knew he wasn’t my brother, even though he would be if our parents married. They had been dating for about three years, and for the last two years, we’d lived together when I wasn’t at my dad’s and Eddie wasn’t at his mom’s. He was super smart and never partied. He wore glasses, and until two months ago, he had braces. When he wasn’t doing homework, he was playing some game on the computer with elves and dwarfs. Total geek. I got him a pocket protector last Christmas, and I’d expected him to wear it every day. Of course, he didn’t, but he was still a nerd, and I made it a point to call him a dweeb ever since he told me he got into MIT.

“You really need to give him a makeover or something. He’s such a dork.” Elise laughed.

I shoved her playfully and then giggled as I said, “You’re such a bitch. Stop making fun of mybrother.”

* * *

48÷2(9+3)=

I staredat the math problem in my textbook, needing to figure it out for my homework and trying to remember what Mr. Freeman had taught us in class. I had no clue because the entire time, I was passing notes back and forth with Elise. It wasn’t like I would need to know the answer when I was an adult or anything.

Equations like that were pointless.

But dancing wasn’t.

I was going to be a backup dancer for ... Well, I didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was taking my passion and performing in front of thousands. I’d been dancing my entire life, from ballet to hip hop to cheerleading, so math wasn’t anything I wanted to be doing at nine at night. Except, I needed to because I had to get into college, or my parents would kill me.

“Ahh!” I groaned and threw my pencil down. I grabbed my cell phone to look up the answer.

“What’s your problem?”