Nick and Charlie

Chapter 12

One thing I never understand: How do weekends go so quickly?

It's Monday afternoon, and I swear I didn't do anything all weekend yet it still went really fast.

I'm standing in the Gym, talking to Des about who he wants to take to the formal.

"Does she have blonde hair?"

"Nope,"

"Does she have black hair?"

"No, Charlie, it's not you," he says, and I find myself letting out a breath of relief.

"Does she have brown hair?"

"Yes,"

"Well, that rules out a substantial amount of the female population at this school," I say, and he laughs.

"Ok, class, today we are learning salsa," Ms. Cap says, and I hear Des mutter a 'yes'.

I look at him and raise an eyebrow, and he goes a bit pink.

"My parents are from Cuba, so I know everything there is to know about this stuff. I've been learning salsa since I was 6," he whispers, and my mouth drops open. I did not picture that.

"Now, everyone, pair up and we will learn how to salsa," Ms. Cap says, and I turn to Des and hold out my hand.

"Have you ever been to Cuba?"

"Thousands of times,"

"Do you speak Spanish?"

"Fluently," Des says, and I stare at him in shock. I would not have thought that he was fluent Spanish.

"When I leave the house, I'll switch back to English, but once I set foot in the house it's immediate Spanish," he says, and I nod.

"That's really cool," I say, and Ms. Cap starts shouting out orders for Salsa.

"I'm going to just rely on you to teach me," I say, and he laughs, then nods.

We go through simple steps with Ms. Cap, and then she gets us to try by ourselves.

Des is really good at dancing. When I say really good, I mean really good.

"You're getting the hang of it," he says, and I smile.

"It's a lot easier when your partner knows what they're doing," I say, and Des chuckles.

"Ok, so the girl you want to take to formal, is she in this room?"

"Yeah,"

"Hmmm, is it...Daisy Jackson?"

"No, not Daisy,"

"What about Jenna Grey?"

"No," This is hard. I look around the room and see Nicolas dancing with Ruby Wilde.

"Is it Ruby?" I ask, and he looks over at Nicolas.

"Yeah,"

"REALLY?" I shout, and he shushes me.

"Yes, now please keep your voice down. We're going to do a spin, because I'm getting bored," he says, and I nod, determined, and he spins me around, then pulls me back so we are doing the normal moves along with the class.

"Wow, Desmond, that was incredible!" Ms. Cap says, and Des nods at her.

"Are you going to ask her?" I ask Des, and he shakes his head.