see him.
I sat there in my car in front of the store for a long time, watching Zac dance around in his own little party inside his dad’s shop. It was hard enough forcing myself to do the Hot Diggity Shuffle a couple times a week, and yet here Zac was dancing as if he never wanted to stop. How could he dance so freely without worrying about being interrupted by someone walking in the front door? What would it be like to feel that carefree?
When I stepped inside Greeley Lock & Key, I had expected to be greeted with a blast of loud, fast-paced music from the way Zac still danced around the room. But instead, a tinkling of soft muzak met my ears.
The bell over the door chimed when I walked in and Zac turned toward me, still dancing away. He grinned wide and gestured toward the pegboard behind him.
“Hey,” he said. “Just doing a little work. Hanging new key blanks.”
I raised an eyebrow at him as he launched into the Running Man. “Do you always dance while you work?”
“Sure,” Zac panted. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Only when someone insists on seeing the Hot Diggity Shuffle.”
Zac looked at me as if I were the crazy one. “You need to dance more often,” he said, pointing a key blank at me. “Come on, let’s see your moves.”
I shook my head. “No way.”
“Come on.” Zac moved from behind the counter and danced his way toward me. “A little disco, maybe?” He rocked his hips back and forth, pointing one hand toward the sky. “Or the Robot?” His arms and torso twisted around with stiff movements for a moment before he grinned at me again.
“How about homework?” I asked, tapping my bag. “Economics class, remember?”
“Oh, I see.” Zac nodded, a smug smile on his lips.
“What?”
He shrugged and returned the handful of key blanks to a box on the counter. “Nothing. Just that you can’t dance.”
“Just because I don’t want to dance doesn’t mean I can’t,” I snapped.
Zac hopped up onto the counter, kicking his legs back and forth. “Sure. All talk and no action.”
I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring at him. “I am not dancing here in your dad’s store to prove I can.”
“Then I stand by my statement that you can’t dance.”
The way he smiled at me made me furious. I took jazz classes for six years when I was a kid. I could dance. But I didn’t want to, even if doing so would wipe that stupid grin off his face.
I unzipped my bag and pulled out the business notebook. “We have a matchmaking business to run, remember?”
“Tell you what,” Zac said suddenly. “If we ace the economics project, you’ll dance for me. Deal?”
I snorted. “Yeah, right. And what are you going to do for me if we ace the project?”
“What do you want me to do? Teach you all my signature dance moves?” He launched into the Cabbage Patch, rolling his arms in wide circles.
“I’ll pass, thanks.” I leaned against the old, battered counter, next to dusty boxes of key chains and those magnetic key boxes you stick under your car to hide a spare key.
“Come on,” Zac said. “It’s not a fair trade if you don’t get something in return. What do you want me to do? Name your price.”
I should have said I wanted him to dump Hannah. A quick and easy end to this whole mess I’d gotten myself into. But I couldn’t. The words got lost somewhere between my head and my lips.
What came out instead was, “Teach me how to not be miserable.”
Where had that come from? I clamped my mouth shut, wishing I could pull the words back in and hoping maybe Zac hadn’t heard.
But he had. “No one can be miserable when they’re doing the Electric Slide.” He launched into a fast-paced rendition of the dance, sliding across the dingy floor and beckoning to me to join in.
I shook my head. “You have to ace the project before you’re getting me to dance.”
Zac’s shoulders drooped as he sighed. “The untalented always have plenty of excuses to keep from dancing in front of anyone.”
“Untalented?” I asked. “You’ve never seen me dance, so you can’t make an assumption of my skills.”
“Then let’s see your moves.”
My hands planted firmly on my hips, I scowled at him and said, “I’m not dancing for you. Especially not here in your dad’s store, where anyone could walk in and see me.”
“Okay, okay,” Zac relented. “Project first. Dancing later.”
We