I slept most of the way back to Seattle, Dante agreeing that after the disappointment of the competition, there was no real reason to stick around the city. He drove us through the night, with me taking over at dawn to take us the last four hours. We'd actually done better time than going down, mainly because he cruised at a faster speed than before. He also didn't stop for anything but gas, powering through on coffee, so that when we did switch, he crashed hard, dropping off like a rock until we got back to my studio. I woke him up gently, rocking his shoulder. "Hey, we're back."

He awoke with a start, nearly hitting his head on the roof. "Wha . . .?"

"I said we're back," I repeated. I looked at his still bloodshot eyes and patted his knee. "I know it was disappointing, but maybe . . . well, you still need sleep. Can you drive safely?"

Dante thought, then shrugged. "I guess."

I shook my head. "Then you don't need to. Crash on my couch, I'm fine right now. I got eight and half hours last night. No arguments, okay?"

He shrugged again and walked like a zombie into the studio, where he collapsed in a heap on my sofa, snoring within minutes. I watched him, my emotions swirling. I was disappointed for sure with our placement. At the same time, I was angry, both with myself and with him. It was hard to put too much blame on Dante though . . . I distracted him, and I should’ve kept my damn mouth shut.

"I'll get the stuff out of the car,” I said as if he could hear me. He was already off in a dream world.

I went out and got our bags, setting them down on the practice floor and headed back outside, intent on starting the clean out of the car. While I was balling up the last of the candy wrappers and fishing the last soda bottle into the garbage bag I had, my cellphone rang in my pocket. It was Adriana. "Hey, Ade."

"Well, I can tell by the voice it's not what you wanted," Adriana said in my ear. "What happened?"

"Fourth," I replied, "one spot out of nationals. Totally my fault too. I'll tell you when I bring the car back. Listen, do you mind if wait until tonight?”

"Tonight?" Adriana asked, surprised. "I figured it would be tomorrow. Aren't you two in Vegas still?"

"Nope. After the competition, both of us were so bummed that we bugged out, headed back straight away. Dante drove all night, I just got us back maybe an hour ago. I'm cleaning out the car right now."

"Well, okay then," Adriana said. "If you want, bring the car by tonight. Pizza's on me. Luisa’s going to be here.”

"Actually, can we save that for another night? Just, it's part of what I need to talk to you about. Me and my big mouth got us in trouble, and I want to make sure everyone is aware of it before we try any parties or anything like that.”

"All right. Tomorrow night then. See ya then.”

I went back to cleaning out the trash, and after that was done I went inside. I heard rustling in the back and checked on Dante, to see that he was stirring. "How long was I out?"

"Only about an hour," I said, squatting down and sitting on the floor in front of the couch. "It's about one thirty right now. How do you feel?"

"Like I need some water," Dante said, smacking his lips. "The comedown from a caffeine high leaves me wondering how the hell people do other drugs."

I went and got him a bottle of water from my tap, and brought it to him. "Sorry, it's the only water I've got. By the way, I cleaned out the car, so you don't need to."

"Thanks," Dante said, sitting up and drinking some of the water. A sip turned into him draining half the bottle, and he wiped his lips when he was done with the back of his hand. "Thirstier than I thought."

"Yeah, I guess so," I said, smiling for a moment before sobering. "Dante, I think we need to talk."

"I know," he said, setting the bottle down.

"I'm sorry," we both said nearly simultaneously. Dante looked at me in surprise, then tried again. "Seriously. I screwed things up for you, throwing that little mini-tantrum I did before the second round. If I hadn't, we might have had enough points to cruise into the finals."

"I'm sorry too," I said. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said. I was just excited, and it was like magic when we were out there that first round."

"It was, wasn't it?" He said with a little chuckle. He sighed, and shook his head. “Too bad we couldn’t do that the other two rounds.”

He looked at me intensely. “Do you want to know?" Dante asked quietly. I stopped, nodding my head. "About my father, of course. It's the root of all of my fucked-uppedness. So, do you want to hear about the great rat of the Bertoli family and the son who paid for his so-called sins?”

“I do,” I said. “But realize one thing. It’s not going to change what I think about you. I know the man that you are—I’ve seen it, and nothing you or anyone else says is going to change that."

Dante swallowed, then nodded. "Okay. But I still want to tell you. I think someone deserves to know, even if nobody will ever believe me about it."

I shifted around, getting ready to sit fully on the floor, when he shifted over himself, patting the sofa next to him. "This'll take a while. You should be comfortable for it."

I got up and sat down next to him, setting my hand on his knee, but he was already in another world, the world of his memory, where he'd been kept prisoner for far too long. I hoped that maybe, by telling me, he'd be able to leave that prison behind.

"Growing up," Dante began, "I practically worshiped my father. He was cool, he was capable . . . he was the guy that Johnny Bertoli would turn to when the shit hit the fan. The main reason was that Dad was willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. Some of the other guys, they were worried about how they looked, if they came off as tough guys or as badasses. Not my Dad. He was badass because he got shit done."

"Sounds like someone I know."

Dante shook his head. "Not like him. I saw him once go forty-eight hours without sleep so he could impersonate a drug addict in order to infiltrate a crack house. He educated himself enough to insinuate himself into almost any position that Johnny Bertoli needed him to go into. He was the expert outside-inside man."

"So what happened?" I asked.

"Johnny got word that there was a cop in town, an FBI agent, to be exact, who maybe was working for some of the Bertoli enemies on the side. The cops and the Bertolis have never had a friendly relationship, but there was one rule that Johnny Bertoli had that was ironclad. The Bertolis don't target the cops unless the cops are working for the competition. The cops in Seattle, they can either be clean, or they can be dirty with the Bertolis, but they’re not allowed to be dirty with other groups. The problem was, it was rumor more than anything else. There was nothing concrete that Johnny could go on."

"So he approached your father," I said.

Dante nodded again. "I was lucky. It was the first time that Johnny Bertoli had actually come to our house instead of the other way around. Of course, at the time, we didn’t know why he was coming to our house, but Dad was so proud anyway. I remember being dressed in my Sunday best when Johnny drove up in the classic Ferrari that he had. He'd come alone, which I guess tipped Dad off to the nature of the visit. 'After you introduce yourself to Don Bertoli, you need to go to your room. Watch some Yu-Gi-Oh, and afterward, you and I can play a game.' I remember his words like it was yesterday.”

"But, in any case, after I got to shake hands with Mr. Bertoli, Dad shooed me out. I was too curious though, and instead of going all the way back to my room, I hung out, just in the shadows past the door to the hallway, listening. 'Bobby, I've got a big mission that I can only trust you with,' Johnny told him, the two of them sitting on the couch. 'It's dangerous.'

“His next words I didn’t completely understand at the time, but I swear it’s the truth. ‘I need you to become a rat,' Johnny said, laying out his plan. Basically, Dad was to approach this suspected FBI agent as a potential informant. It was dangerous, but it was effective too. If the guy was truly dirty, then he wouldn't report Dad to the FBI. After all, he was trying to play two sides at the same time. But if he was clean, then Dad was revealing himself to a clean FBI agent, and of course, something would come of it.”

I shivered, knowing the implications. "Your father took the mission."

"He did," Dante said, his voice catching. "Johnny promised him that if it came to light that the FBI agent was dirty, Johnny would protect Dad's rep and reveal the plan, but we also knew that if the agent was clean, it may never happen. After Johnny left, Dad sat on the couch for a while before calling me back in. He knew I was listening.”

"Was he mad?"

Dante shook his head. "The first thing he did was pull me into a hug, which was rare because he was never really the affectionate type, at least not with me. That time he pulled me close, burying his chin in the top of my head before kissing me on the forehead. He made me promise to never repeat what I heard.”

"Of course I agreed, and even though I didn’t say anything, I knew he was in danger.”

Dante fell silent, his breathing catching for a while, and he wiped at his face. "For the next six months, by all outer appearances, Dad went about his normal work. I mean, I was too young to know all the details, but he still left the house to go to work at the same time, and still got home long after I went to sleep. But he was always there in the mornings, and we'd have breakfast together before Mom would take me to school. Still, I could feel that things were changing. For one, his hair started to go gray in spots, and he seemed to drink a little more than he would before. He started keeping a journal, which was strange for him because I knew that in that line work, one doesn't keep written records. One time I snuck a peak, and at the time I couldn't understand most of what was written in there. I figured out, far too late, that it was in a code."

I shivered, trying to imagine the stress that both Dante and his father must have been going through. "What did it say?"

"Most of it was a list of times that he met with the agent, locations, stuff like that. I still don't have it all figured out, but I got enough of it to know what the hell he was into."

"Which was?"

"The agent was working with the Bertoli enemies, specifically the Russians. The same family that supposedly killed Daniel Neiman's parents, in an accident where they thought that his parents were working for the Bertolis. In fact, they just happened to operate a business that Carlo Bertoli happened to frequent a lot, a flower shop that stocked his wife's favorite bouquet."

I swallowed, wondering just how intertwined Dante had been in the whole Bertoli history that I'd learned, and what holes he could fill in on the gaps I didn't know. "So your father learned the truth."

"He did," Dante said thickly. "He was going to reveal it all to Johnny, call in the cavalry, when the agent came to our house. Mom was out, she had a part time job that she kept I think mainly because she hated being just a housewife, and it was just me and Dad. We were watching a late season Sonics game. This was back when they were still in town. We were relaxing, and a knock came at the door. Dad got up to answer it, totally not expecting what was going to happen. I was sitting on the couch when he opened the door, and suddenly, five shots filled the room. Dad was blown back, dead before he even hit the floor, I think. I jumped behind the couch, and I could hear the guy. 'Check for the kid,' a man said to someone. 'They've got a boy.'"

"Jesus, what did you do?" I asked, terrified. "How'd you survive?"

Dante chuckled mirthlessly. "I ran like hell is what I did. It was a summer night, and Dad liked to leave the back door open when it was just the two of us. He'd grilled some burgers for us that night, and the breeze carried in the smell of the mesquite charcoal that he liked to use. So I ran, vaulting the railing of the deck and hauling ass over the fence before they could get to me. Someone yelled after me, but I was a pretty good climber at that age, and I got over the neighbor's fence before anything else happened. That, and we lived in a good neighborhood, one that never expected a mobster to be living among them. The Seattle cops responded in what was probably record time for them. Purely by luck, they had a patrol car in the area when the 911 call came in. It was enough time for the dirty agent to plant a gun on Dad and put a round through it, and the cops bought the story. Me, I knew better than to say anything, and I never even told Mom."

"Why?" I asked, perplexed. "Why not clear your father's name?"

"Because the day before he got shot, my Dad and I went up to the Bertoli mansion. It was the last time I was there before the night you and I met. He and Johnny talked, and it was loud enough that someone could have overheard. They were pretty open by the pool, discussing things. Johnny thought he was safe in his own house. But the very next day, Dad was shot, and a few months after that . . . Johnny was killed too. The dirty agent was transferred out of Seattle to the Los Angeles field office after Dad's shooting, and soon after that, he was found dead too. Everything told me one thing, that the Bertolis had a rat inside their ranks. I never knew who, and I never even knew if the rat ever got cleared out. Even now, who knows? It could be anyone. All it would take would be one overheard word, or one friend talking to another friend."

"Then why go back in a situation like that?” I asked.

"Because my father died without his honor, and come hell or high water, I was going to get my family's honor back," Dante said, his voice trembling with intensity. "But I could barely get a foot in the door. Things just kept going wrong. I think I was just trying too hard. So I was stuck in limbo, not respected but unable to do much about it. When Mom died I reached out to the Bertolis, but every step forward seemed to be met by a step back. That was, until I met you. It's why I made a decision."

"What's that?" I asked.

Dante took a deep breath and took my hand. “Meeting you has been the best thing to happen to me in years, and because of you, because you've taught me to let go a little bit, to go with the flow and to be myself more, I've been more successful than ever. Because of that, I'm not going to hide who I am anymore. And I hope we continue the whole dance thing. I promise, next competition, no matter what, we're going to recreate that magic we had, and we're going to so kick so much ass they won't know what hit them."

I felt a warmth inside me, and a smile spread across my face. “You know, I'm just as mentally fucked up as you are, maybe more. So if I ever screw up, you tell me. Because the one thing I've learned during this preparation is that you are a lot like your father, and I mean that as a compliment. I put you through hell, physically and a bit mentally as well, but you kept coming back for more. You're the type of man who does his job, and the world needs more men like you. I need a man like you."

The meaning of my words hung in the air, and as if drawn by magnets, we came closer, until we were just a finger's breadth apart. We paused, trembling on the edge of something powerful and life changing, both of us smiling, when suddenly my phone rang. "Damn phone," I said, not moving. "What should I do?"

"I'm not going anywhere," Dante said with chuckle. "Go ahead and grab it. Who knows, maybe it's Jennifer Lopez."

I rolled my eyes and answered my phone. "Hello."

The voice on the other end was unfamiliar, but instantly friendly. "Hi, Miss Esperanza? This is Bonnie Fredericks, of the AADP? I'm the event coordinator for the Las Vegas Regionals you competed in."

"Oh, hello Miss Fredericks. What can I do for you?"

“Actually I was calling about something else. You placed fourth in the ballroom competition.”

“We did. My partner and I were just discussing that when you called."

"Oh, that's great, your partner is right there so you don't have to wait to share the news with him. Would you mind putting me on speaker phone then?"

Surprised and confused, I took the phone away from my ear and tapped the button to put it on speaker. "She wants it on speaker," I explained to Dante, who nodded in understanding. "Go ahead, Miss Fredericks."

"Okay," her voice came over the speaker, slightly distorted because of the cheap quality of my phone. "Well, as you know from the rules of the competition, no couple is eligible to compete if they have worked professionally before."

"Yes, we cleared that with your competition committee," I said, thinking about my past. "They said that solo exotic dancing wasn’t a disqualification."

"That's correct, but being a paid part of a dance troupe in a Meghan Trainor music video is cause for disqualification."

"Huh?" Dante interrupted. “I can assure you, neither of us have been in any music video, let alone one by Meghan Trainor."

"You weren't, but the third place team, the Pedersen twins, were," Fredericks said. "The information was brought to our attention by some AADP fans soon after the results were posted. In any case, the Pedersens have been disqualified, and the standings adjusted accordingly. We wanted to get in contact with you before too much time passed and you may have gotten out of the competition mindset."

"Wait, what are you saying?" Dante asked. “Use simple words, I'm somewhat sleep-deprived."

"Mr. Degrassi, congratulations. You and Miss Esperanza are now the third place team from the Las Vegas Regionals, and in eight weeks, will be competing at the Nationals at Madison Square Garden. That is, if you accept the invitation."

"Oh, we accept, we accept!" I yelled, trying not to jump up and down. I looked at Dante, who shot to his feet and pulled me with him, lifting me up and spinning me around in his excitement. Fredericks could hear our celebration, and she hummed happily before interrupting.

"Okay. Well, the national office will get in contact with you one week from today with the information about the Nationals. That'll give you seven weeks to prepare for the compulsory and the wildcard rounds. May I say, as one of your judges for the showcase round, you did a tremendous job, but it could use some improvement. Keep working on it, and make the Las Vegas Region proud."

After she hung up, Dante hugged me again, having not set me down the entire time. "Come on," he said, setting me down. "Let's finished getting our stuff unpacked, the costumes hung up and ready for pressing, and then, I'm going to take you out on a date. Not dessert, but a real date."

I hugged him back, and kissed him on the cheek. "That, Mr. Degrassi, sounds like a wonderful plan. But, let me call Adriana first. She thinks we ended up in fourth still."

"That's fine," Dante said. "I should report in to Tomasso this afternoon anyway, just to fill him in on some stuff that happened in Vegas. Now, last time I screwed up picking the restaurant, so how about this time you do it? I've got no qualms going anywhere with you, even if it's the Chinese place two doors down."

"Then let’s do that," I said with a laugh. "They've got great moo goo gai pan."