Nearing the end of Tate and Andrea's story on Reddit. I hope you've enjoyed so far and continue to keep up!

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Dinner was delicious. Rebecca had always bragged in our talks that Kent was a wizard at the grill, and she wasn’t wrong. Talks and laughs were had around the table from the family and their guests, but I was happy to observe and throw in a laugh or comment now and again. I would look over at Tate every so often to find him pleasantly eating his meal, but not saying anything to anyone. Everyone didn’t seem to mind that he kept to himself and barely paid him any attention.

Exhaustion was creeping up on me, both physically and mentally as I continued to sit at the meal area. A French exit seemed most appropriate as I didn’t have much energy to do anything else. Rebecca gave me a small wave as I stood up and went back towards the house. My room didn’t seem appealing enough right now, so I went for a walk around the grounds to put my mind at ease.

Somehow my mind had drifted back to Tate and our earlier conversation. “Why do you care so much?” That’s one I didn’t have the answer for. I did want to help and see if I could ease the family frustration, but was that being a good friend for Rebecca, or sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. A strained grunt came out of my mouth as no remedy came to me.

Looking at where I was, I realized I had wandered into the house and was just down the hall from the dance studio. I had never gone in there by myself and being curious myself, I wanted a closer look. The door opened for me, and I was surrounded by mirrors on both sides of the wall. Upper-level windows covered one side of the wall to let in natural light, but it was too late in the day for that. A sound system was nestled into the opposite corner of the room. Music was one of the biggest loves of my life, I could never resist a good bass or a beat that I could move my body to.

The lights stayed off so I didn’t have to disturb anybody and there was enough light from the moon above the windows that I could see as I needed to. A cord was dangling from the black box that a phone could be plugged into. Sound started to play as I moved my body through a warmup and got my groove going. My playlist kept going as I kept switching from dancing to the beat to just enjoy the music that surrounded me.

“Uff..” a solid mass hit my body as I made a turn on the floor and lost my balance. A strong hand grabbed my arm and swung me in a circle to bring me close to their body. Vertigo hit me a bit as I tried to right myself from the spin, hit, and almost fell. Once I regained my composure, Tate stood in front of me.

I breathed out a laugh and smiled as I said, “I would thank you for helping me, but you’re kind of the cause of me falling in the first place.”

Tate let me go and went to turn down the music level. “I was going to come find my charger when I heard music and wanted to see what was going on. I couldn’t see anything; I didn’t mean to interrupt or try to mow you over.”

So, he was capable of manners and speaking in a well-behaved tone. Good to know. “It’s fine Tate, don’t worry about it, no harm done. Just a bad combination of spinning too fast and hitting a solid wall.”

Laughter came out of the darkness as he said, “Well I don’t know about ‘wall’. I know I’m not scrawny, but that seems a little much to describe me.”

Surprise number 2 and 3. Getting a laugh out of him was possible and humility was also a trait deep down inside. I suppressed the urge to flirt with him. It wasn’t appropriate for someone my age to come on to someone so young. He had barely lived, and even though mine was taken away at such a young age, I still had lived some of it.

“I think it’s time for bed anyway. It was a long day today and I enjoy being up early for my usual workout routine.” Approaching my phone in the dark, Tate followed behind.

“Wait”, he started, “I’m curious how you dance. My mom and sister dance, but it’s more of a cheerleader type of thing and not one that mixes with my style well.”

“You don’t want to see me dance Tate.”

“Why not? The lights are off, I can barely see anything, it can’t be that bad, right?”

I could tell he was smiling when he teased me, but I wanted to see his reaction to my response and see if it scared him. “I was taught at a very young age to dance from my Mexican friends. I either dance like I’m in the street with the guys, or on the pole like the girls.”

No response was made as I started to leave.

“What about other kinds of dancing?” Tate said. “Do you know how to ballroom dance?”

I sighed and rubbed sleep in my eyes, finally ready to go back to my guest room and get some rest. “Yes Tate, I know how to ballroom dance. I learned from various sources the two-step, tango, salsa, waltz, and quick step.”

Music started up again as I heard an orchestra come over the surrounding speakers. A familiar tune of “Sway” by Michael Buble came to my ears and I couldn’t help but smile since this was one of my favorite songs to dance to.

Tate approached me with his hand outstretched and said, “May I have this dance?”

I really wanted to say no to the kid, but I couldn’t help myself, I love to dance! He pulled me in close to where I could barely see his green eyes in the dark, then started to shuffle his feet in various movements around the floor. It had been so long since I had formally danced with anyone, and it felt so good. Walls and hesitation were slowly coming down the more we tore up the floor in the darkness. A few times my feet took the wrong step, and I couldn’t help myself from laughing and apologizing for my rusty behavior. Tate seemed patient with me and never made a comment about any of it.

As a new song came on, I moved to escape his grip of me, but he only moved with me instead and lead us into a new string of flowing dance. This song was sassier, and I swayed my hips a little more as I stepped around his lead carefully. There was never a break in his operation of the skills he possessed in his favorite element. He spun me into a few new steps and grabbed me by my leg that came up to his hip reflexively as I came back to his body. Memory of who I was dancing with was totally replaced by a sexy male stranger in the dark that knew his way around a dance floor and a woman’s body by the way behaved.

Another song came on and I was lost to the music and dance. My breathing came quicker as I expended more energy and became more turned on with what was transpiring in front of me. Hands from both sides touched me in more soft intimate places on my hip, lower back, and inner thigh as I started to become a much closer dance partner. The song ended with my back to my partner, his chest pressed against me, arms wrapped around me in a firm but soft embrace, his mouth hovering over my neck turned to the side.

A loud trumpet noise was made by the next song and stirred me out of my rivière. This was wrong, so wrong. I had been dancing with a boy the way that you dance with a grown man, and I had to have been out of my mind to do so. Bursting out of the room, I ran straight to my guest room and locked the door behind me, leaning into it as if someone was going to come storming after me. Listening for the next few minutes, no footsteps followed me, leaving me completely alone.