Boogie ignored us and kept going. “I’m still scarred from Chato’s wedding. None of that tonight.”
Zac hadn’t stopped looking at me with his curious face, like he didn’t believe what my cousin was saying, so I shrugged at him.
“Why do I feel like you’re not listening to me?” Boog asked.
“I am.” I patted my swan towel. “Was it the hammer dance? Was that what scarred you? Because I told Connie that it was too much.”
Connie burst out laughing just as Boogie rolled his eyes and Zac asked, “I missed out on you doing the hammer dance?”
My niece sighed out of nowhere. “Uncle Zac, at Uncle Rico’s and Tía Maria’s party, they did this song about backing that—”
“What have I told you about telling everybody all of our business?” Connie asked her daughter, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe her own kid would rat out her secrets.
“And Mom tried to show Aunt B how to do the sprinkler,” Guillermo put in as he picked up a little mint that had been set by the plate in front of him.
Boogie groaned.
I was too busy laughing just remembering that evening and Boogie trying to drag us both off the floor, especially after we’d tried backing our asses up into each other, then into him even as he tried pushing us away.
“You joined in, so don’t even start.” I snorted, pointing at my cousin.
“It’s less embarrassing if I’m involved,” he tried to defend himself but started cracking up too because he was full of shit. He’d stayed on the dance floor just as long as we had after that. We’d made a little circle that had family members coming and going all night.
“Mom, what was it that Uncle Boogie did? You remember? He hurt his back?” my nephew asked. “The dolphin?”
Zac sat up straight, those baby blue eyes swinging toward me. “Was it…?”
“Yes.” I cackled, knowing exactly what he was referring to. “He tried doing the worm.”
“I did the worm!”
Zac threw both hands up to his head. “Didn’t you learn your lesson the first time, you ass?”
“I have a bad back!”
I mouthed “holy shit” to Zac.
His mouth was open, and those white teeth were out as he nodded in agreement.
“You know what? I hate all of you. Not you Yermo and Luisa, but you three….”
Connie sniffed as she plucked her own swan napkin. “Haters gonna hate.”
I was too busy snorting as servers started coming out of nowhere with trolleys full of food, and I was pretty sure my niece clapped in excitement.
“Aunt B, they should have asked you to make the food and the cake,” my nephew announced.
Dropping my palm over my chest, I told him I loved him. Then I asked him when he was going to come over to do another video with me.
It didn’t take long at all for the food to be served, with baskets of bread being left in the middle of each table, and we were all too busy eating to do more than make faces at each other. I met Zac’s eyes at one point, and we grinned at each other. Right around the time we were finishing, the lights in the ballroom dropped, and pink and white lights around the outskirts of the room illuminated the walls as our cousin strolled in to some pretty majestic music that seemed totally over the top. We clapped, and Connie hooted. Lola danced with her dad, then her brothers as the servers came around and picked up all the plates.
Then the music started.
I only fought Connie for about three seconds when she got up, grabbed her son with one hand, gestured to her daughter with her chin, then went for my hand.
“I just ate. Give me a second,” I moaned even as she tugged at my arm.
“You need to work off those calories,” she replied, really putting some weight into it. “Quit being a heifer. You know you want to.”
I did want to.
Ah, fuck it.
I gestured to Boogie as I stood up. “Come save me if I’m not back in thirty.”
He had a breadstick in his mouth that looked like a cigar. “Okay. Uh-huh.”
He was useless. I knew it. “Save me, Zac,” I called out to my friend as I followed my sister and her kids.
“I got you, darlin’,” he called out after me even as he reached for a breadstick too.
I was pretty sure I saw him tap it against Boogie’s like they were swords before I turned back.
But… he didn’t have me. He didn’t have me at all.
I lost count of how many songs played while we danced in a circle, my sister, me, and her two kids, with a couple more cousins coming to join along the way. A few times, I grabbed my niece or nephew for some one-on-one, and at least twice Connie backed her ass up against me, and I was pretty sure I heard Boogie’s voice over the music… probably telling us to stop.
Finally, at some point, I ran off and went back to our table, finding Zac there… surrounded by four different women. I knew one of them. I could only see his profile, and it looked like he was smiling at them.
And that was fine. Good. At least he wasn’t bored and miserable.
Where the hell was Boogie?
Somehow, Zac must have sensed my approach because his eyes instantly swung toward me the second I got close enough, and I saw the truth. He was smiling, but it was his polite smile, not the real one that was so bright it lit him up from the inside out.
I smirked.
One corner of his mouth hooked up higher than the other.
His new companions must have seen him stop paying attention to them because when they spotted me making my way over, two of them pushed their chairs back and got up, which was weird, but okay.
“There she is,” Zac called out as I stopped behind the chair that I’d been sitting in and sucked back my leftover watered-down lemonade.
He held his own glass up toward me, and I took it and drank it all too. I was thirsty.
“Sorry, ladies,” my friend said as he got to his feet as I set his glass on the table. “I owe someone a dance.”
He did?
“She’s so busy I had to schedule it in,” he lied as he shoved his chair under the table.
He was using me as an excuse to get away. All right. My feet hurt, and I wanted to sit down, but I wouldn’t leave him hanging.
I made eye contact with my second cousin, who had been one of the people surrounding him and the only one I recognized, and waved.
I didn’t like the curious face she made back at me, but whatever, she still waved in return. I looked back at Zac as he got to my side, grabbed my hand, and led me out to the floor as—like it had been freaking planned—a country song came over the speakers.
Zac grinned as he reached for my free hand once we were on the edge of the dance floor and set it on his shoulder. “Still remember how to two-step?”
A blurry memory of him teaching Boogie—and me—how to dance a lifetime ago filled my head and made me smile. “Shit.”
He beamed down at me, his hands warm and mine probably even hotter, as he led me straight into it, moving around the floor, spinning me around from time to time, and thankfully not stepping on my toes a single time. “Kiddo, you’re better at this than I am,” he called out loudly, his pink mouth wide with laughter.
“I’m better at a lot of things than you are,” I joked. “You’re rusty.”