Gin and Juice

5 months later

“Good! Turn- and- 2- and- 3- and- hit- jab- jab- twirl- sache- lift! Excellent! You’re done for today! Good job, everyone!” I said to the group of professional dancers behind me. A week after I had joined Kale’s dance company, we were offered a job to do all the choreography for a new rock-opera. I was stoked, knowing that if I stayed with my old company, I would have never gotten this opportunity.

Grinning ear to ear, I walked out of the studio with a towel draped across the back of my neck. By-passing the showers, I continued on to the front desk.

“Oh, Danni!” Tina, the receptionist squealed from behind her desk. She grabbed something and ran up to me. “This just came. It’s addressed to you and Kale.” She giggled, handing it over. “It’s from MTV.”

I took the envelope from her. “Thank you, Tina. Now if you’d please man the desk and let me do my job.” I said politely. Gasping, she ran back over to the desk and answered the phone that had been ringing for a good while. Shaking my head and chuckling, I walked over to where Kale’s and my shared office was.

“Kale! We have potentially important mail!” I yelled when I got into the office. I threw the envelope on his desk and went over to mine to check my e-mail.

He walked out of the joined dressing room. Why there was a dressing room attached to an office confuses the hell out of me, too. He narrowed his eyes at me. “Potentially important? What the hell?”

I shrugged, not taking my eyes off the computer screen. “It got Tina all hyper, so it must be something. It’s on your desk.”

“You do realize that it doesn’t take much to get Tina hyper?” he asked, picking up the envelope and tore it open.

“Ok, so maybe hyper isn’t the right word. Let’s just say that she was about to kneel down before me and praise me to high heaven. What’s it say?”

He bit his lip. “Um, we’re invited to the 2009 MTV VMAs.”

“What?” I shot out of my seat and ripped it from his hands.

“Yea, we’re nominated for best choreography,” he said with a smirk. “I think it’s time to pay up, little girl.”

“You have got to be shitting me,” I stated, scanning the letter.

“Uh, no, you took the bet. Remember?”

I shoved him. “I’m not talking about that,” I said, pushing him aside and scanning MTV’s website for other nominees. “Shit! Look at all those artists! We’re the only one with a rock artist!” I quickly looked at the list of activities. My eyes shot open at one performance in particular. “I’m not going.”

“Hon, this award is for the both of us. It would be kinda weird if you weren’t there.”

“It would be kinda weird if I saw them again. Come here.”

He narrowed his eyes and stood behind my chair so that he could see what I was talking about. “Oh!...oh. Well, think of it this way, we’re probably sitting way away from them and we won’t see them.”

I snorted. “Highly doubt that. Anyways, I’m still not going. Why waste a perfectly good evening when there’s not even a chance that we’ll win?”

He hit the side of my chair, forcing it to spin around. “Danni, do you not see the possibilities?!”

“Possibilities?”

He knelt down next to me. “Picture this. You’re in a crowded room. Paparazzi are everywhere, snapping photos of you in a slinky black dress and covered in diamonds. And, way off in the distance, a certain someone sees you. His jaw hits the floor, knowing that he blew every chance of ever getting with you. It’s the perfect revenge. And, even better, the only thing that’s hurt is his pride. What do you say to that?” He asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

“I think that you’re more of a girl than I am.”

He grabbed my hands. “Think of the damage that you could do, though! C’mon, this must entice you somehow!”

“Don’t you need dates for this kind of shit?”

He shrugged. “We’ll go together. Make him even more jealous.”

“I’m strangely reminded of my senior prom. You’re not going to leave me for your man-pretty ex are you?”

He let out a loud chuckle. “You crack me up, Danni Paterson. C’mon, let’s go shopping! Icky corporate work can wait!” He squealed, dragging me out of my comfy office chair and out of the building.

“You know, you could actually pass for a normal straight guy if no one mentions shopping or designer clothes around you.” I told him flatly when he dragged me through a dress shop in the nearby mall.

“Pft. Like I would ever want to be normal,” he replied poshly, putting his nose into the air as if he were refined and sophisticated. “Here, try these on.” He appeared from nowhere, piling dressed high in my arms.

Sighing, I took them into the dressing stall and changed. I examined the first dress that I changed into. It was sleek. It was nice. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t until I tried on the last dress that I was satisfied. I looked at myself in the full length mirror, loving how the dress hung on my body. I stepped out of the stall, waiting for my final inspection from Kale. “So, this is going to be an interesting award show.”

He gulped and twirled me around. “Yea, it will be. You’re in desperate need of stilettos.”

“Do we really need to?”

He gulped again and nodded his head. “Oh, yes. Let’s just say that I’m completely questioning my sexuality right now.”

I laughed and shoved him. “Perv!” I yelled jokingly before going back into the change room. Some things will never change.