When Lance and Justin returned to the villa, they could hear the sounds of adults chattering with the occasional comment from a girl, possibly teenage. "Hey, your girlfriend's here," Justin joked, smirking at his cousin.
Lance rolled his eyes. "Here we go again…"
"Boys?" Diane called. "Is that you? Come in the den, would you?"
The boys shuffled into the den, where a brunette woman and a girl joined Diane and Jim, Lance's father. The girl was about Justin's age, with sleek dirty blonde hair. "Boys, this is Lynne, and this is her daughter, Britney," Diane said. "Britney, the tall one's Justin, my nephew, and the other young man with him is Lance."
Lance did a quick head to toe scan of Britney. Okay, he'd been wrong about her. She wasn't particularly heinous-looking. She was kind of cute—cheerleading squad cute, but that was good enough. She wore a little pink Izod polo shirt, a white pleated tennis skirt, and low-top white Converses, and as she smiled at him, he could see her bright, completely straight teeth. "Nice to meet you," he said, stepping towards her to shake her hand.
"Nice to meet you too," Britney responded. "So, you're going to college next year? Excited?"
"Are you kidding?" Justin responded. "He's thrilled." Remembering his manners, he flashed a small smile and waved at Lynne. "Hi, I'm Justin."
"We were just getting ready to go to the dining hall," Lynne explained. "They're having a big dinner and some kind of presentation. They have all sorts of great entertainment at this resort, you know," she said, turning to Diane. "And the dancers are always amazing."
"Dancers," Lance repeated. "How… charming." His mother glared at him, the way she always did when he was particularly sarcastic.
Britney had missed this snarky remark. "Yeah, the dancers make me wish I'd stayed with dance, versus tennis," she commented. "Maybe we could take lessons together, Lance."
Are you kidding me? Lance thought. He opened his mouth to say something condescending to Britney, but he quickly shut it. "Justin's thinking of taking dance lessons," he replied, heading for the door. The adults were already standing by it.
"You should too," Britney said.
"Um, I don't dance." The door opened, and the balmy summer air flooded into the hallway. Lance looked out and squinted in the bright sunlight. Was it always this bright in Florida? It was seven thirty, and it was still bright as it had been when he and Justin had first gone out at one that afternoon. He checked out his parents, who were chatting with Lynne, and Justin, who was talking to Britney. She didn't seemed to be falling for his effortless charm the way most girls he'd known had. Huh, he thought. Definitely weird.
The main lodge was the center of the resort. After dinner in the adjacent dining room, Lance followed his family, Lynne, and Britney over to watch the dancers. The three teenagers sat in the third row closest to the stage, directly behind the adults. Lance sat next to Justin, only to have Justin move a seat over, so that Britney could sit between the two of them.
"When will this be over?" Lance wondered aloud.
"I don't know," Britney answered. "Why?"
Justin rolled his eyes. "He's only asking because he's a sociopath who prefers the company of computers to actual people."
"Justin," Lance groaned. "Please shut up."
"It's true. He's probably got some program on his laptop that could create a bomb or something. He's totally antisocial when he's programming or whatever the hell he's doing."
Laughing, Britney crossed her legs and put her left arm on the back of the folding chair Lance was sitting in. "Do you have problems talking to people or something?" she asked.
"No…" Lance began, staring at Britney's skirt. When she'd crossed her legs, she'd unknowingly revealed her thighs. She had nice thighs.
"He's just socially retarded around girls," Justin supplied.
Lance was suddenly filled with an overwhelming urge to kill his cousin, and he probably would have if Britney hadn't nudged him in the ribs, whispering, "Hey, they're starting!" Onstage, the lights dimmed and the curtains pulled back to reveal two people. The spotlight flickered on them: one tall male dancer, with dark hair dressed in black, and one petite woman, with auburn hair done in fifties-style ringlets, wearing a lilac sleeveless dress with a full skirt and silver heels. Suddenly, the music started, and the two dancers began to move, the smooth Latin beat guiding them in a salsa meets swing style dance.
Lance found himself unable to ignore them, as he'd originally planned. There was something enticing about the way they seemed to glide across the stage; about how carefully each move had been choreographed; about how even the smallest movements, like when the woman's skirt billowed around her as she twirled, became sensual.
"Isn't that amazing?" Britney asked, genuinely awestruck.
In the darkness, Lance nodded. "It's pretty cool." Typical male understatement.
"And, oh my God, when he did that lift thing, that was definitely awesome," Britney gushed. She, Justin, and Lance were hanging out in the arcade, where a swarm of other teenagers were watching TV, playing games, and generally fraternizing with other people. Justin was playing air hockey with a girl with bright blonde highlights, leaving Lance to sit at the small snack bar with Britney. She stopped talking for a moment to take a sip of the Coke she'd bought from a vending machine. "That's it. I'm taking that dance class."
"You do that," Lance said, taking a long sip of his iced tea. It was just the way he liked it: cold, just a touch of lemon, and with the right amount of sugar to make it taste just right.
Justin walked over to the bar. "Hey, anyone feel up for partying?" he asked.
"What?" Lance asked.
"That girl I was playing air hockey with? Kim? She said she can get us in this club a few blocks down from here," Justin said. "She says it's really cool, and they don't even really ask for ID, and since you and I don't really have a curfew, cuz, we can stay out 'til whenever we want."
"That sounds great!" Britney remarked. "I don't have to be in 'til whenever, either. My mom's probably either still talking to Lance's, or she's already back at our place, asleep. No worries for me, either."
Justin leaned on the bar. "So, majority rules, Lance."
"I never said I was coming."
"Well, I'm making you come. Your mom would want it. 'You are the older one, you have to watch out for your cousin,'" Justin said, imitating his aunt. "C'mon, man. Live a little."
Lance drank the last of his tea. "I don't know why I'm being such a pushover lately…" he began. "But, I guess that just going down there tonight won't be so bad. At least, I think."
Britney slid off of her barstool. "Well, let's go then!" she said.
