AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jay laughs over the music. “Do you think more alcohol will make this dance easier?”
“Come on, babe, you got this,” Cora says to her boyfriend. Well, one of her boyfriends. She’s in the most beautiful polyamorous relationship with two men. I’m not talking beautiful in the sense that all three of them are gorgeous—which they are. I’m talking beautiful in the sense that their relationship and the love and support they have for each other is goals.
“You’re one of us now, Jay,” Rafael says as our feet find their practiced placement in combination with our swaying hips. “You can expect dancing at any Jimenez hang-out. It’s practically the law.”
“Is that how you know how to dance so well?” Jay asks Cora, moving his hands from their place at her lower back to her ass and grabbing tight.
“She learned from the best,” Raf says. And it’s true. Raf and I met Cora our freshman year of college. Within that first week of meeting her, he was teaching her the same way he taught me as kids.
I was over at the Jimenez-Webber house so often as a girl that I not only had a key, but his moms had a permanent spot at the dinner table for me. I required no invitation. For a girl with no mother figure, Ana and Christina fucking showed up to be exactly that.
Rafael pushes me away and pulls me back in as the muscle-memory takes over. “This one is my favorite.”
“This song?” I ask. “You say that about every one of our songs. There’s like four hundred of them at this point, Raf.”
That’s also true. We spent a large part of our childhood immersed in all kinds of music. Really, our entire relationship now that I think about it.
As a girl, I wanted nothing more than to find where I fit in. I bounced from group to group, club to club, tried on all kinds of potential friends and clothing styles to match; but nothing and no one ever stuck in those days—no one except Raf of course. He was always along for the ride. And any interest he had, I gladly wanted to explore too. Maybe this is my thing, I’d always think to myself when trying something new. The thirst young me had was real.
To this day, I still don’t think I ever found my thing. There’s nothing that’s mine.
What I have collected over the decades, however, is a smorgasbord of interests and the most eclectic (aka random-as-fuck) musical arsenal. A huge part of this passion of music should be credited to Raf’s bonus mom, Christina. She works for a music event production company that plans everything from small, intimate venues for independent musicians to huge arena-selling bands. As a perk, she got free tickets often. Free tickets that she used to take us to see live music of all kinds. Rock bands, orchestras, EDM shows, folk singers, pop stars—we saw them all.
And we had the fucking outfits to match the vibes too. Oh my god, the outfits—the pictures.
Pulling me back into his chest and the external conversation I should be participating in, Raf smiles down at me. “Four hundred? Is that it? I thought there were more. But no, that’s not what I meant. I meant this dress you’re wearing. It’s my favorite one.”
“Oh,” I smile as my stomach drops. “Old faithful here?” I tease. It’s a simple sleeveless yellow chiffon dress with a high halter neckline. The hem stops just above my knees, and the skirt flows and swishes so beautifully, it makes me feel like a little girl. It’s a great dress for dancing, but it’s honestly out of style at this point. I don’t make much money as a children’s counselor, so I rewear my clothes until they’re threadbare, not out-of-fashion. Let’s also add to the mix that I teeter between a plus-size eighteen and a twenty on any given day; so finding clothes that are both beautiful, fit, and make me feel good is the trifecta. This is a gold-standard dress in my opinion, even if it is nearly ten years old and Raf has seen me wear it dozens of times 2now.
“I like old faithful. It’s always looked good on you,” he says seriously.
“I think you’re drunk.”
“I’m not as drunk as your brothers…yet,” he says nodding over to my three younger brothers who look like they’re trying to convince Marco, Cora’s other boyfriend, to join their club rugby team.
Oh god…they’re trying to lift Jonah in the air like a line out. But the ceiling isn’t that high in the kitchen, and as Isaiah and Dane lift him from the knees, Jonah makes impact with the ceiling fan and—Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!—the blades smack him in the head and arms.
“Ah shit! Put me down!” he bellows with laughter as my other two idiot brothers drop him.
All three of them, plus Marco, are dying in a fit of giggles.
“How fucking embarrassing for you, bro,” Dane musters through the tears pooling in his eyes, like he wasn’t the one who lifted him.
“This is what I can expect if I join?” Marco asks, falling back against the wall and clutching his chest to catch his breath.
“More or less,” Raf yells over. “You won’t hit the ceiling, but you will make impact often.”
Raf and my brothers have been playing rugby together since high school. Well, since Raf and Isaiah were in high school. Raf and I are two years older than Isaiah, followed by Dane, four years younger, and Jonah, seven years younger. My sister Ivy is nine years younger than me, but she’s living in Guatemala right now training to be a midwife.
The Johanssen and the Jimenez-Webber families have been interwoven forever it seems. Even when Raf was in DC, he still played for their DI club team and played against my brothers all the time. They’re all relatively smart and capable men on their own, but when they’re all together like tonight, I swear they have one collective brain cell they share. Don’t even get me started on the ridiculous tattoos and nicknames they all have.
Right before the song ends and rolls into the next one, Raf ends it with a flourish and dips me, something we’ve practiced and perfected over the years. Except, I think he was lying about his level of drunkenness, because he loses his grip and we tumble to the hardwood floor in a mess of chiffon and limbs.
“You big klutzy animal,” I cry through my belly laughter as he goes limp on top of me, adding his full weight like a lead blanket. I groan, “You’re doing this on purpose. I can’t breathe!”
His head pops up and he stares down at me with a huge grin and glassy eyes. “You can’t? She needs resuscitation,” he jokingly slurs to everyone. But when his eyes land back on mine and then lower to my lips, I stop breathing entirely.
Am I dying? Can I actually breathe? Because why else would my best friend have his mouth so close to mine? Why would he be looking so intensely at it?
