Trechial let out an audible exhale, covering her face before looking at him. His lips drew back, and he raised his eyebrows, holding an innocent shrug.

She only had a few days to teach him the basics and right now, it seemed a bit impossible. Anyways, why should she care if he obliterated Candice's feet with his stompers?

"Why don't we do this––don't move your feet, allow the music to flow through your body. Don't focus so much on your feet. Watch me."

She slightly spaced her feet, smiling at his furrowed forehead and pinched lips, his face riddled with determination still eyeing her movements.

She tipped up his chin, his direct stare created heat in her cheeks. "Watch me."

The key was not to turn him into a break-dancer overnight but to give his date the illusion that he had rhythm with little movement and to believe he semi-knew what he was doing.

All I Do by Troop began to play. Devin scuffed with a sardonic grin and immediately put his hands on her hips. She slowly shook her head at him with a tsk. The optimistic glow on his face told of his ulterior motives.

Her love for slow R&B songs would prove to be her downfall. She placed hesitant hands on each of his shoulders.

A nervous chuckle escaped her lips at his stiff shoulders. "Loosen up."

And she thought she was nervous.

"You're the one who's about to bolt out of her own house." With a half-smirk, he stepped back, creating a small distance between them. It didn't matter whether he stepped back or not because his touch was still there, giving her chills.

He was one hundred and ten percent correct that if she didn't think he would chase behind her, she would pull a Flash lightning on him and bolt.

Inhale. Exhale. Relax. Breathe. She repeated the mantra in her brain. He was in a relationship, so there was no need to worry about anything happening between them. She could relax; it was no longer like that between them.

Closing her eyes and allowing the tune to carry her away on a harmonious cloud, she swayed to the music, soon forgetting her frazzled nerves as one of her favorite songs created a whirlwind of impossible scenarios in her head with the boy in front of her.

I begin to take the long way home

Just so I can be alone

To think of how to say

"My heart is here to stay."

The cloud carried Trechial so far away that, momentarily, she forgot about her student.

Her lids slowly drifted open to Devin's peculiar expression; his palm pressed firmly into the middle of her back. Her body pressed into him. They stared at each other in a hypnotic trance. Unblinking. Motionless. Wondering. Hoping. Wishing. It could be.

Tiny bumps prickled her skin, and her eyelashes fluttered like butterfly wings.

She cleared her dry throat. "Sorry, I--––uh."

Gosh, this was more than wearing her feelings on her sleeves––this was handing him her feelings gift-wrapped with a pink bow on top with a mini note saying Merry-Happy-Everyday-of-the-Year!

"It's fine." He withdrew his hand, shoving them in his pockets. His face flushed but remained blank. Did she make him uncomfortable?

The Line! her brain screamed at her.

They stood at a standstill, listening to the tray shift to the next CD.

She broke eye contact and lowered her gaze to the floor. The moment sunk beneath the floorboards, and the elephant in the room came and stood between them again—Candice.

"Why didn't you tell me...about you and Candice?" Trechial found her way back to his face.

His eyes cut over to the CD player, his features falling into a contortion of dread. Perhaps he didn't want to discuss Candice, at least not while he was this close to Trechial. This close to her face. Her body. This close to kissing her.

"I didn't think you cared, Mini. You spend most days hating me."

The next song attempted to play, but a tsk noise came out instead.

"I could never hate you, Devin. I just would have rather heard it from you than from Candice bragging about it to me."

She hid her hands behind her back and twisted her foot into the rug.

"I know the feeling," he concurred, dropping his head.

They hesitated, afraid to speak for simply not knowing what to say. Or knowing exactly what to say but being too afraid to say it.

"Do you like me, Trechial?" He looked into her eyes, drawing hers up to his.

"If you want to learn how to dance, then don't ask me questions like that."

"I'd rather leave with an answer." He swallowed.

Direct jerk, she thought.

"I want to spend time with you, so take my silence however you want to," she replied because that was the truth.

Devin sucked in a deep breath, releasing it with a nod. His lips made an unforgiving line on his face, but he managed to somehow reflect that he understood. Though he didn't want to, he understood.

She left him to go fix the radio.

"The line is no longer there, is it?" Devin asked.

Trechial ignored him, skipping the scratched track. Casanova by Levert came on, giving Trechial a perfect escape route.

She faced him, breaking into a wide smile, "This is my jam!"

He forced a closed-lipped smile, giving into her as he usually did. "Obviously," he said and bobbed his head to the beat. "Mr. Ashton used to play this song in the car a lot."

A nostalgic memory spread in the room, and they shared in it. His nod was on beat and he didn't even realize it.

Trechial grabbed Devin by the hands and started twisting her hips. Shock faded into a smile when he took hold of her hand and twirled her around. She treasured him more than she showed it. Her way of protecting their fragile friendship was by creating an iron-clad fence between them. Devin was selfless where she was selfish, and that was where they were right now.

The pain on his face––the confusion in his eyes about what was happening and the sadness that it would end––when she bluntly ignored his question bothered her but was it fair to make her acknowledge her feelings out loud when he had a girlfriend? What was the point of that? While Candice was for sure an enemy, Trechial held no pride in being the other girl, regardless of who liked who first.

Candice's ugly mug popped into her mind––the way she flipped her hair with a dainty hand and smirked at her, taunting her with a wicked sneer on her porcelain face...Candice won. Yet, Trechial greedily took up three more hours of Devin's time.

If any moment stood out the most about that night while they danced in Trechial's room, it was how proud she was of herself for teaching Devin the mastery of the perfect AJ Mclean— Backstreet Boy body roll. Devin protested like a 1930s railroad union striker but caved into her whining soon enough. She had popped in a recorded VHS of BSB's recent concert, recorded in Orlando, complete with thirty-seven AJ Mclean body rolls that required quite a few rewinds when he failed to execute.

What was the point of being cute and having no marketable skills? His two left feet sure weren't going to bring him anywhere anytime soon. Eventually, he mastered the body roll, and she kicked him out for being inappropriate.