Nothing to lose

Chapter 23: Greyson

We were all sitting at a booth in the back. It was one of the few spaces large enough to hold all of us. We had a few drinks, and by "drinks," I meant Sprite mixed with cranberry juice, but it looked kind of fancy with the cherries and pineapple attached to the cocktail umbrellas.

The place was getting packed, and I could overhear everyone talking about our upcoming performance. The DJ, which was Mari's cousin's boyfriend's second cousin or something super long like that. Anyways his name was Kyle, and he came in every once in a while when he wasn't busy with his internship or online classes. I only met him briefly the other day, but he seemed like a cool dude with excellent music taste, I might add.

When Dua Lipa started to play, Mari grabbed Tatum and said that they were going to dance. Tatum, being Tatum, followed her lead. She dragged him to the middle of the dance floor, and at first, it seemed like he was just going to stand there and let her dance circles around him.

Mari whined her waist, then ran a finger down his chest with a smirk, teasing him, trying to get him to dance along.

A slow grin broke out on Tatum's face, and his hands fell to her hips, pulling her into him, and their hips started to sway to the beat.

"My man's got some moves," Dean said, watching tonight's episode of the Mari and Tatum show right along with us.

"No doubt," I replied.

They danced until the end of that song and then into the next. Tatum twirled Mari under his arm, doing one of those double spins that you'd see those ballroom dancers do, before pulling her back into him.

"Awe! I wish I had someone to dance with me." Freya sighed dreamingly.

Tobias gazed at her but turned away when she felt his eyes on her. Mia and I exchanged knowing glances.

Dean straightened up, slamming one of his hands on the table. "Wait, wait! Trouble at 12 o'clock. Some douchebag is trying to cut in." Dean pointed like an angry spectator.

We all whipped our heads around. Sure enough, a fairly tall redheaded guy waved to Mari, trying to get her attention from behind Tatum. When she finally noticed him, she rushed to greet him with a big hug.

Tatum's face crumbled, watching the interaction.

"She knows him?" Mia asked, tugging on my shirt sleeve.

"I wonder if that's the guy she's been going on dates with him?" I asked the guys.

"She never told us what he looked like," Tobias said, taking a sip of his drink.

"For obvious reasons," Dean scoffed.

Freya snorted. "Yeah, and what would those reasons be?" She crossed her arms. "You got something against redheads?"

Dean let out a hearty laugh. "Don't be ridiculous, babe." He took a single strand of her hair and twirled it around his pointer finger. "I love redheads, especially the feisty ones." He winked.

Freya rolled her eyes, slapping his hand away.

Meanwhile, Tobias' face had "unamused" written all over it.

Back on the dancefloor, there was what can only be assumed as a quick introduction followed by a polite dismissal as Mari decided to dance with the other guy instead.

Tatum stalked off to the edge of the dance floor, leaning against one of the support beams. His eyes traveled over to our booth, and we all quickly diverted our attention from the scene, acting as if we weren't watching the whole thing go down.

"Any more drinks, kids?" Santiago said, walking up to the table, collecting our glasses, and putting them on a serving tray.

"No, thank you. Maybe a little later," Mia spoke for us.