Thirteen #3
Three shots and several pong cups in, Cella had forgotten about good impressions.
All of her curse words sounded European somehow.
And there were many. Every time the other team sank one.
Every time we did too. She was shouting, headband slipping down her forehead.
When she landed the final shot, she tried to chest bump me, and I had to catch her like a damsel before she fell backward.
She recovered quickly, leaning her palms on the table to tell her boyfriend to suck her dick.
I had never seen her like this. I hadn’t realized there were still even more versions of her to love.
Lara demanded to be on my team. We lost the match to Mason and Cella, and she wailed with her arms folded over the table, top hat rolling sadly onto the floor.
“How about a consolation drink,” I offered, and she perked up.
“And then we dance?” she said.
Cella was hit by the baby doll on the way to the kitchen. She beckoned to the space cowgirl next to her, pulled her in by the bandanna, and planted a chaste kiss on her mouth.
***
Cella’s shyness returned as Lara led her by hand to the living room, where the dancing had gotten racier since we arrived.
She looked back at me with round, worried eyes, but I waved her off—Cella liked to dance, even if she wasn’t the smoothest. The crowd of aliens and other otherworldly beings was intimidating, but she’d be fine.
Dismissing Lara’s plea that I join them, I wandered off to a corner.
After three homecoming dances, I knew the drill.
This year was the first I hadn’t gone. Cella had Mason and Lara to keep her company, so I had spent last Saturday night making a three-hundred-piece shark puzzle with Casper and checking my phone in case something terrible happened.
Nothing did; the only texts I got from her were selfies and detailed descriptions of the strangest positions she saw couples get into as they tried to dance and make out at the same time.
Annalisa leaned against the wall beside me, taking it all in with owlish eyes.
Sometimes when the crowd shifted just right, I could see Cella, Mason, and Lara throwing themselves around to the beat.
The whole house really did seem to throb with it: pulsing music, pulsing floors.
Mason shouted when songs he liked came on.
He seemed to lose a button every song, until his vest was hanging open.
There were signs that he could dance well, but he did stupid moves to make the others laugh, sprinklers and boogies and snorkeling.
I caught it in glimpses. The crowd shifted, and he was bent over in front of Lara, shaking ass while she swung his bow tie around like a lasso.
She threw it into the mass of bodies. Another shift, and he had lost his bunny ears.
Another and he rolled his body, shining with sweat, glowing purple and green.
And it seemed so fearless, effortless, easy, easy.
Cella looked like she never wanted to leave.
I took Annalisa’s hand, and she shrieked when I started pulling her into the crowd. This wasn’t the night to let her take cover. I couldn’t hold her back like I’d always done to Cella. Lara shrieked, too, when she saw us coming.
It was hot on the dance floor. So much for staying away from Mason.
Lara tried to coax me into doing more than bobbing my head, putting her hands on my hips and pushing side to side. The green light made her hair look black. She stumbled into me as something hit her shoulder.
Somebody yelled, “A blessing by Cupid, Roman god of love!”
People stomped their feet. “KISS! KISS! KISS!” Someone wolf-whistled when Lara got onto her tiptoes to speak into my ear.
“You and I aren’t going to work out, are we?” she said, loud to beat out the music. “Want to put on a good show anyway?”
So I took off her top hat and planted one on her, long and wet, tasting cherry and rum on her tongue. When it was over, I put her hat on my head and grinned with her lipstick sticky on my mouth. I faltered when I caught Mason staring with unreadable eyes, bright and too gold.
His gaze felt like a reward. I wanted to keep him watching me.
I danced. I’d never said I couldn’t. Something about centuries-old vampire families: we keep pretentious hobbies. Like my mom and her ballroom dance. I wasn’t about to bust out a tango at a Halloween party, but I knew how to move my hips to a beat and whirl a girl around.
So I swayed, and I rolled. Lara and I fell together effortlessly.
She rocked against me like a pro. When I spun her, her wrist extended with muscle-memory grace.
Cella soon took her place. She held my hands and shouted, “EXCUSE ME, YOUR FUCKING MAJESTY? I DIDN’T KNOW YOU HAD IT IN YOU! HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT?”
Every time I peeked under my lashes, Mason’s eyes were darting away.
“I just, I love you so much,” Cella said. Sniffled. She started to cry.
“Okay!” Lara intervened, letting go of Annalisa’s waist to grab the forgotten doll off the floor. She shoved it at Cella with enough force to push her back into Mason. “No drunk tears! You’ve been blessed by Cupid, Roman god of love!”
Dread ballooned in my stomach. My feet moved before my brain; I stumbled backward into the crowd, turned on my heels, and left the room.