51 Early morning energy

Mark

9:30 am, my watch said as the elevator doors slid open. I rushed out and ran to the small practice room, my heart beating like crazy in my chest. When I reached the door, I tried to calm myself down. I don't want to appear overly eager. I'm Mark from Boy Next Door. So what if you're Kate from Goddess Athena and the love of my life? Yeah, I'm cool.

I took a deep breath and opened the door. A long-haired girl was on the floor in a split. She unwound herself from the contortion she was in to look at me. "Hi Mark!"

"Hey, Tiff," I said, looking around the room. Except for her, it was empty. "Are you girls using this room?"

"Not this one, we're scheduled to use the big one at 10," she said, going back into her stretch.

"Mmm," I mumbled, trying to figure out what to do. I watched her grab her foot from the back of the split, then bend her body backwards so that her foot could touch her forehead. I recognized it as a stretch Juliette could do. Wow, I never realized Tiffany was this flexible.

I had to focus, though. I can't stay here because I had no reason to be here, and I can't go to the big room because I'll get in trouble for ditching dance practice. I lifted my bag and looked around inside it for my phone to check if Kate left me any messages.

"Can I help you with something?" Tiffany asked me, already weirded out by my suspicious appearance.

I swiped the screen of my phone only to realize it was Jamie's phone because LJ's derp face was on it as wallpaper; I dropped it back in my bag and continued to search for mine. "Sorry, what?" I said to Tiffany, only because she was staring at me intensely.

"Do you need anything from this room?" She asked. "Is the party in the big room disrupting your rehearsal? I can scold them, if you want. Though that would be weird, won't it? Given that I'm Goddess Athena's resident party girl?"

I looked at her curiously. "What?"

She got up from the floor and zipped up her hoodie as she walked towards me. The light pouring in from the windows surrounded her and she seemed to radiate an ethereal, otherworldly magic. Or maybe it's just too early in the morning. She took my arm and led me out of the room. "Missy and Kate are crashing your dance practice, just in case you missed it," she smiled, brightly. "I know it's too early in the morning, but I guess all the rumors about you Boys Next Door are all true."

I was still unsure of what she was saying, but zoomed into the trigger. "What rumors?"

"That you have so much energy!" She exclaimed. "What did you think I meant?"

"Is that even a rumor?" I chuckled. I averted my eyes because I don't know what it was about Tiffany today but she seemed more beautiful than usual.

"Well, there's that rumor about Steve staying hard even after coming and just going straight into round 2," she whispered mischievously.

"WHAT?" Oh wow. I checked to see if Tiffany was just pulling my leg.

The look on her face wasn't teasing or making fun of me, she just looked back at me with her big, curious eyes, her soft lips in a pleasant half smile. "So you don't know if it's true, huh?" She stopped walking and, though I was still only looking at her face, I noticed that we were in front of the big practice room door.

Her eyes suddenly turned sly. "Can you keep going even after you come, Mark?" she said, softly.

My stomach lurched and I had the sudden feeling that I didn't want to disappoint her. "I don't know," I whispered back. "I'm very good at not coming right away, so maybe you wouldn't need round 2?"

She blinked and I think inhaled sharply, while trying not to show any change in her expression. "But what if I'm a round 2 kind of girl?" she teased.

"I'm always willing to try," I said. And my heart thundered in my chest.

She blinked, but did not look away. Her smile widened as she took her arm away from mine and opened the door. As she did, the music playing inside was coincidentally Goddess Athena's Your Wish, at the end of Vivi's dance break, which is Tiffany's part. Her eyes lit up with the recognition and turned away, shouting to the extremely loud room, "DJ! Put it back on!"

I looked through the door. Your Wish was a mid-tempo love song, not loud by any means. The loudness came from the people dancing maniacally inside, laughing and screaming at each other. It was actually only just Missy, Steve, Kate and Burt, who had no idea what the dance was and was copying from Kate. Jamie, who knew all of Goddess Athena's choreography from watching it once, uncharacteristically sat by the sound system, while LJ sat in front of the mirrors, taking a video. They were all laughing. All of them.

"Why don't you know this?" Kate shook Burt's shoulders in frustration. "We're going to lose to them, and I can't lose, I'm in the dance line!" Kate, who was supposed to meet me at 9:30 because she agreed to talk, was having a showdown with my band in our practice room.

I caught Burt's eye. Burt, who knew I was supposed to meet up with Kate this morning and agreed to cover for my ditching dance practice. He gave me a not-sorry shrug.

After the dance break was the chorus where Missy does her ad libs, but Steve was mouthing out the ad libs as well. Missy pushed him, "This is my part!" she shook her head at him as he continued to sing to her, closing his eyes as he pretended to belt her high notes. Missy found him ridiculous and kept pushing and pulling him while giggling her head off.

Jamie suddenly changed the music and it was the second chorus of Girl. Tiffany screamed and started dancing in the middle of the floor and Jamie shook his head at her. "You can't join a dance-off if you don't have a team," he said. She grabbed him, dragged him to the center and forced him to dance with her. "Team Jay-fanny, for the win," she slapped his arm.

Jamie was laughing the moment she had grabbed him and gamely said, "Okay, Team Jay-fanny, for the win!" and started dancing with her. My heart twitched slightly at the sight of Tiffany laughing with Jamie. What? No way, I'm not jealous. Jay-fanny has been a thing forever, why would I be jealous.

Sure, I wanted to kill Jamie right now, but no, I'm not jealous.

Tiffany, Jamie, Burt and Kate were all doing the right choreo, while Steve started doing the choreo for the first chorus, and Missy was copying him. "That's obviously not the steps, you guys!" Missy yelled, used to being the leader of a group and thinking she was right. Steve realized they were wrong and doubled over beside her, cackling.

"These are SO the steps!" Kate yelled back. "Heads up, girl, it's Steve who messes up the most in Boy Next Door!" Since my rap started, Burt started walking around the room, clapping his hands like we do at concerts, instead of the original choreo. Kate started following him and realized Tiffany and Jamie were doing something else. "Where are we going?" she laughed at Burt, who just giggled back.

~

How, how, how beautiful you are

What a shame that you don't even know

Don't you know what true love is?

Can't it be what you feel when you look at me?

~

Jamie, who was holding the remote control of the sound system, suddenly handed it to Tiffany without messing up the routine. Tiffany understood what Jamie did; at the end of my rap, if we're not using headsets, LJ usually gives the handheld to Jamie, so that he can do his dance break. Tiff put the remote to her mouth, pretending to sing to it like it was a microphone, singing over "Can't it be what you feel when you look at me?" the way the guys do. I was fascinated. Everyone says Tiffany was the biggest Geend among the Goddesses Athena, but I never realized how true this was till now.

~

You don't even know how beautiful you are

You don't know the power you have on me

What a shame you won't believe I can love you completely...

~

At "completely," both Jamie and Tiffany stretched their arms open to their sides, passing the mic so pro, and Tiff smoothly jumped into LJ's dance break. She knew it exactly as LJ had done it over the years and did it so perfectly that we all had to applaud.

"Unfair!" Missy yelled at the top of her voice, dragging Jamie off the floor. Tiffany grabbed him back and they started a tug of war. Soon after, Burt and Steve were also tugging at the girls and they all fell on top of each other, every one of them laughing their heads off. Tiffany's face sparkled as she good-naturedly pushed Steve off her, then falling into Jamie again as the hill beneath her moved.

I felt someone staring at me and turned to check who it was. Kate was standing to the side of the pile, her hands on her hips. As I looked at her, she smiled.

I nervously fished my phone out of my bag just to give me something else to do. I swiped at the screen to see LJ's derp face jump out at me