Chapter 17 The Sleepover #2
“You didn’t!” he practically shrieked, piercing my eardrum in the process, probably.
The playlist was full of videos from a VHS copy of a Spice Girls tour Kent used to make me watch with him. Well, maybe “make” was a bit of a stretch. I think I enjoyed them and their colorful costumes just as much as he did.
He had a particular order he used to make us watch them in, so I set the playlist the way I knew he'd want it.
What used to take minutes of rewinding and fast-forwarding would only take the click of a button.
Kent stared at the videos on the sidebar, his grin bright and beautiful, making me feel tingly inside.
“What kind of best friend would I be if I didn’t indulge you in a little trip down memory lane?
” Instinctively, my hand found his knobby knee, and I gave it a squeeze.
When our eyes met, it felt like firecrackers popping all around.
He waggled his eyebrows at me before standing up and grabbing the edge of the coffee table.
I watched as he pulled it away from the couch, freeing up a little space in front of us. “Are we redecorating?”
We.
Jeeze Louise. Did it have to feel so right?
He scoffed at me before taking the computer from my lap—his hand brushing against my bulge, making me whimper—and setting it on the edge of my dresser.
He tapped the touchpad a few times, skipping ahead in the playlist, and then a familiar ballad started playing.
My hairbrush was on the dresser, and he picked it up, bringing it to his mouth like a microphone.
"Grayson." He crooked his finger, motioning me over to him, but I just sat on the couch, my arms folded against my chest.
He wanted me to dance.
When we were little, Kent knew all the moves, and he taught them to me, song by song, line by line.
We did them so many times, I'd find myself absentmindedly doing them at school.
I'd be at my desk in the middle of a math test, and the next thing I knew, I'd by making inconspicuous stop signs with my hand, singing, “Stop right now, thank you very much,” at a volume only the boy sitting next to me could hear.
Of course, it would start a chain reaction, and then Kent would join in.
We never let the moves get too big. In our small evangelical school with only twenty other students, each as much a jerk as the last, we learned to hide our sparkle.
Kent let that lesson go when he skipped town at eighteen, but I had it down to an artform.
“I’m not dancing. I just wanted to watch the concert with you again.”
Kent's hips swayed slowly the left, then to the right, and he never broke eye contact.
He twinkled his fingers, his hand still dangling a few inches from my face.
“Grayson, please?” His dark brown curls fell across his even darker brown eyes, and he lifted his hand long enough to brush them back before offering it to me again.
It felt like my heart was going to spring out of my chest. I hadn't planned on dancing with him, I just figured watching the same concert he made me watch over and over when we were kids might kick our nostalgic night into overdrive.
He rolled his eyes before lifting his hairbrush-slash-microphone to his mouth. As Emma sang out, “Come a little bit closer, baby,” so did Kent.
Through the mystical magic of the Spice Girls, I ignored every warning sign firing in my head, and I stood up and made my way to him.
Since it was a tiny apartment, it didn’t take me long, but every footstep felt like a mile.
He was holding his hand out, like he was wanting to slow dance.
The look he was giving me felt like an awakening.
Like we’d been destined to be in that space, at that exact time.
Preordained by God Himself. I drank in the sight of him.
His freshly-styled curls. Those big brown eyes boring into my soul.
The way his shirt clung to him like a second skin.
Gosh.
Gray Jr. was already rearing his relentless head, and if I had to be pressed up against Kent Fox for an entire song, there’s no way he wouldn’t feel it.
So, I stood and made my way to the laptop, clicking forward in the playlist to an upbeat track.
As Spice Up Your Life started, I flashed a grin in Kent’s direction.
“Tell me you remember,” he said, his eyes brimming with hope.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s been twenty dang years.
How the heck am I supposed to remember an entire dance routine?
” A little bit of sadness slipped into his smile, but he pushed it away and held his hand out for me.
I stared at it, debating if I should take it.
I reached for him, my hand sliding into his, and I’d be lying if I said we didn’t still fit each other like a glove.
“Remember,” he said. “It’s all in the hips. You gotta roll them, and then you—”
The chorus was coming up, and I wasn’t going to let it pass me by. I tossed a wink at him and smirked. He arched an eyebrow at me, probably wondering what the heck had gotten into me. He was going to find out soon enough.
“Gotta have my hand free if you expect me to …” I waited for the familiar cry of “Aaaah” before the chorus kicked in, and then I launched into motion, slamming my hand to the left.
Shaking it to the right. Rolling my hips like one of those dirty dancers in that movie Kent made me watch once.
Finally, humping the air in front of me like a maniac.
Kent’s mouth hung open as I swished my hips seductively, making my way to him.
I didn’t stop moving when I reached him.
I just kept rolling my hips doing the moves like I’d been practicing them off and on for the last twenty years.
It took a minute for Kent to get over the shock, but when he did, he came alive right in front of me.
It’s like we were back in his old childhood bedroom, and we were those same carefree kids.
He stared at me like he was awestruck. Like he knew he was the only soul in the world I’d ever shared this side of myself with.
There were a lot of emotions painted on his face, but the biggest one—the best one—was a look of pure, undeniable pride.
When the song was over, I clicked the next track on Kent and Gray’s Saturday Night Sleepover playlist. It was a beautiful song. Soft, slow, and full of so much hurt I could rarely get through it without welling up.
Kent was facing the single window in my apartment when the song started, so he didn’t see me approach.
He startled when I wrapped my arms around his waist, hugging his back to my chest. I knew what I was doing was wrong.
He probably thought I was leading him on, but I couldn’t help it.
I dreamt of dancing with him to the song for years.
I’d lie in bed at night with my earbuds in, and I’d imagine a world where we’d ended up together.
One where I could hold him freely. Where I could brush my lips against his nape, and whisper, “Dance with me, Half-pint.”
Kent shuddered against me like someone had slipped a cube of ice under his shirt. “Are you sure? I don’t want to … Gray, I know you can’t—”
Cutting him off, I kissed his neck, because it was right there, and it was calling out to me.
Begging me to claim it. I closed my eyes, singing along with the song as we swayed side to side.
When Baby Spice asked her lover if he still remembered the way they once were, Kent melted like candy in my hand.
As Scary lamented about an unheard love song, his breath hitched in his chest. And when we got to the chorus—when I reminded him that he would always be mine—Kent shoved my hands off of him and walked across the room, taking my heart right along with him.
“I’m going to take a shower before bed,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, but I knew it was no use.
The pain I was putting him through; well, I didn’t think there was enough forgiveness in the world to make up for it.
I needed to stop. I needed to set him free, but I couldn't. Setting him free meant letting him go, and how the hell could I ever let go of my Half-pint?
He squared his shoulders before walking over to his overnight bag and pulling a shirt and a pair of shorts out. Once he made it to the bathroom door, he paused, gripping the doorframe. I prepared myself for a well-deserved verbal annihilation, but Kent surprised me.
“I’m sorry, Gray.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“No, I just mean …” He wiped his face, and I thanked God that he spared me the sight of his heartbroken face by not turning around. “I’m sorry you never got to be the man you should have been.” He wiped his cheek with his palm. “Because he was going to be a really great guy.”
“He was?” I croaked, feeling like my chest was caving in.
He nodded. “One in a million.” Before I could respond—not that I even knew how to respond to that—he stepped into the bathroom and closed the door.
If history was any indication, I’d have about ten minutes before he was done with his shower.
I had two choices. I could allow the moment to break me, or I could soldier on.
Every nerve in my body was begging to sit down on the floor and lose myself to the moment, but I pushed down the pain, and I soldiered on.
I didn’t deserve to hurt. Kent was hurting enough for the both of us.
I quickly changed into my sleep clothes—a pair of blue pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt—and then went about fixing up the futon with sheets and a blanket.
Once I made up the futon, I grabbed my pillow off the bed and plopped it on the end.
As expected, Kent turned off the shower about ten minutes after going in, but he made no rush to join me.
The walls were paper thin, so I tried to be as quiet as I could, since I didn’t want him to realize I could hear him crying in there.