Read Online Dance With Me by Heidi Cullinan - Free Book Online Page B

outside of a bedroom.
    It was like some sort of flip side to football: using his body again, not just building it. Laurie had been pushing him so hard to get that motion right, and it had been a real rush, pushing right back. And it hadn't hurt his neck at all.
    If only Laurie weren't such a sourpuss about everything. And what the fuck was that about, Laurie getting so upset when he found out Ed was gay?
    Of course, Ed was still trying to figure out why he'd told Laurie he was gay in the first place.
    Ed rolled onto his back again, wrestling the sheets into place and arranging his pillow carefully under his neck, trying to ward off further pain incidents. Well, whatever it was that drew him to dancing, he was going to get to do it again in a week. Maybe he could practice a little every night to make sure he didn't forget anything. He'd spend the next week gearing up, and on Thursday he'd even stop by Laurie's class after just to say hi, to show him he was done teasing him and being a shit. And then on Tuesday he'd get lessons again.
    He'd get to hold Laurie again.
    Ed rolled his eyes at himself. But that didn't stop the warm feeling he got when he thought about holding the other man, of moving with him, of spinning him out and catching him when he came back. And it didn't go away, not even when he closed his eyes.
    Thoughts of dancing with Laurie lingered too on Wednesday, even that night when he was out with the guys. In fact, at one point he'd been about to throw a dart when he saw somebody slow dancing with a girl across the bar, and the next thing he knew, the guys were waving hands in front of his face and laughing, asking him if somebody hit his head again. Ed had laughed too, but he'd been faking it.
    He'd been thinking about dancing with Laurie.
    When Thursday came around, Ed found he was excited for his weight class at the center, but he was also eager to see Laurie. Which was just weird. They weren't going to dance. It was just that shit music and Laurie screaming. What the fuck was there to look forward to in that? But Ed was. And this time, when he heard the disco pounding its way into the hall, he didn't grumble at all. He just smiled.
    Until he got into the weight room and heard the disco in there too, louder than it had ever been.
    When Laurie saw Ed come through the door at the back of the gym, he braced for another assault. But no sooner did he gird himself than he remembered dancing with him, of the way he'd charmed the dance class, and his inner fortifications crumbled under a sense of betrayal.
    And then he watched fifteen ragtag young men follow in after Ed, and Laurie faltered midstep, because he had no idea what was happening now, especially when he saw that Ed and his tribe were not approaching the stage but were instead assembling peacefully in an open area back by the bleachers. Laurie let his body move through the aerobic routine on autopilot while his mind tried, and failed, to figure out what Ed was up to. Laurie was still shouting out the beats and instructions, but he wasn't watching to make sure his students were keeping up. All Laurie was doing right now was watching Ed and keeping up a facade of instruction. But after five minutes of this, he still had no idea what in the hell what was going on.
    In his little corner of the gym, Ed had arranged the boys he'd brought with him into a semicircle, and he was speaking to them and gesturing. Sometimes he would raise his hands up above his head and make pumping motions with his arms. Sometimes he would go over to one of them and lead them through some sort of movement, nodding or shaking his head while they did it. Some of them had hand weights, and some had pilates bands or tension cords with handles.
    And if this weren't odd enough, after a few minutes of this, Ed stood in the middle of them and started giving out orders; the others then mimicked his movements, which Laurie realized were keeping a sort of time to the beat of the music.
    It was too