SHANE

 

May 10th

KBC Studios

Los Angeles, CA

 

 

Everything has been leading up to this. I’ve been working with Sutton non-stop for a week solid and it still feels like I’m not prepared for what’s about to happen. We’ve been in the studio since seven this morning going through full hair, makeup, and dress rehearsals for every single element of tonight’s show. It will air for an hour but it takes at least three times that to run through it in dress. We were constantly stopped for wardrobe and lighting changes. There were so many interruptions and changes, I don’t actually feel like the rehearsal did me a damn bit of good, but Sutton said it’s not about us. It’s about making McKay, the director, and Clara, happy. It’s nearly five o’clock, ten hours after I first got here, and whether anyone is happy or not, the show goes live in ten minutes.

I’ve got half a boner, I’m so excited.

“I want nothing in your mouths.” Taj walks down the strict line of football players and dancers with a black trash can in his hand. “No gum. No chew. Not Tic Tacs. If you have any false teeth, make sure they’re glued in securely. I don’t want another Cloris Leachman incident. Our lawyers can’t take it.”

I lean down to whisper to Sutton, “What happened with Leachman?”

“Her teeth flew out during a dance,” she answers quietly. “They hit an audience member in the face. Three stitches.”

I stifle a laugh. “Holy shit, that’s awesome.”

“It wasn’t for them.”

“Bull. That’s the best story they’re ever going to have in their life.”

Sutton smiles, stifling a laugh. She looks tired but focused. It’s comforting to see because I’m completely fried. This week has been exhausting. Half my days are spent on the field with the Kodiaks running my ass off, and the other half is spent in the rehearsal room with Sutton dancing my ass off. I go home at night completely wasted. I’ve fallen asleep on the couch twice because I can’t keep my eyes open. When they close, I see Sutton. I hear her voice like the ringing of a beautiful bell telling me to get my shit together and at least try to remember some of the choreography from the day before. She’s a hard-ass for sure, but so is Coach Allen. Taking orders from one feels pretty similar to taking orders from the other. They’re yelling at me to be better than I am, and I rise to the challenge every time.

They filmed us rehearsing a few times for the ‘package’. Sutton didn’t like it but she pretended to. She’s a good actress. Even I started to believe it after a while. But the thing is, I’ve noticed that I don’t especially like Happy Sutton. That’s the girl she is for the cameras and the fans that have started camping outside the studio the closer we get to the first episode. Seeing her be sunny for them feels weird. She smiles just a little too big. A little too tightly. It’s like seeing someone put on the mask of another person’s face. It’s not right. It’s not real. The real her – the rough, angry, irritable her – isn’t a picnic but at least I feel like I’m starting to understand her. A week in and I’m starting to predict her moods. I can see it when she’s about to lose her shit and I can either do my best to diffuse it or, more commonly, make it happen in a heartbeat. All I have to do is bring a Big Mac into the studio and she hits the roof.

“This is live television, people! There are no reshoots!” Taj continues. His face contorts unhappily when Brett Conners spits a long, dirty brown line of chew into his trash can. “No cursing. Please. Remember your marks and keep to the schedule. Your only chance for a bathroom break will be during another couple’s performance or commercials, so make sure you go now to get it out of the way. If a camera is on you, you’re smiling. With teeth.”

When Taj gets to me, I open my mouth wide for inspection. He nods his thanks that it’s empty before moving on. He skips over Sutton because he knows her. She wrote the rule book on this bitch. No way she’s doing anything she shouldn’t be.

Taj tells us to break a leg before disappearing into the dark wings of the studio. He’ll be in the booth upstairs watching with Eric and the rest of the production crew. On the other side of the set, I can hear people chatting quietly as they take their seats.

There’s a lottery system for picking who can be in the audience. Family members are allowed first, but then it’s open to fans of the show. Some people fly in from other states to take a shot at getting seated, but it’s not a guarantee. Even if you’ve been out there at the head of the line waiting all day to get in, if they don’t like the look of you, you’re out. I heard there was a woman out there crying earlier today trying to get in. She was so upset she started to hyperventilate. They had to call out the show doctor to calm her down.

“Do you remember your steps?” Sutton asks me, her voice as tight as her shoulders.

I shake my head. “No. My mind’s gone blank.”

A look of pure horror crosses over her pretty face, darkening it until it’s almost unrecognizable.

I laugh, feeling a little like a dick for scaring her. “Sutton, chill. I remember everything you taught me. It’s going to be fine.”

“That’s not funny,” she growls.

“It was a little funny.”

“Am I laughing?”

“No. But you never do.”

She closes her eyes for a second. “It would be nice, Shane, if you took even a little of this seriously.”

“I’ll try,” I promise.

She looks at me, reading me. I don’t know what she finds but whatever it is, it suits her. Her face lightens a little, her brows parting in an easier expression. She glances around at the other contestants waiting with us in the wings.

“No one goes home this week,” she tells me for the tenth time. I think saying it to me reassures her, so I don’t stop her. “They tally the judges’ votes for this week and combine them with the viewer votes and donations made in our name. All of that together can either save us or sink us next week. Someone will have to go and I’d rather it wasn’t us.”

“Me too. My mom would be bummed. She’s coming out for one of the shows in June.”

“Don’t book her plane ticket yet.”

I tsk sadly. “So little faith.”

She looks up at me hard. The shimmering makeup around her eyes makes her face dance in the low-light. “I’ve never seen you on live TV. I don’t know how you’re going to hold up.”

“Like a champion,” I vow fervently. “Watch the Super Bowl game and then ask me how I hold up under pressure.”

“You got kicked out of that game for punching a man in the face.”

“He had it coming.”

“Sweet Jesus,” she pleads, her eyes going closed. “Please just do your best, okay? Promise me you’ll take this as seriously as you take the Super Bowl.”

I step closer to her. She feels me. Her eyes pop open with surprise but she doesn’t retreat because Sutton doesn’t back down from anyone or anything. I lower my voice, admitting honestly, “I can’t promise that, but I promise I will not let you down. I’ll make you proud out there, Sutton. I’ll make those other men look like assholes and the women will wish they were you. That’s the best I can do, but it’s a lot. Believe me.”

She licks her lips slowly, and I wonder for one fleeting, fiery second what they taste like. “I do believe you,” she breathes.

She sounds as shocked to be saying it as I feel hearing it.

I grin down at her. “We cool?”

“We’re cool. For now.”

The lights around us flicker, then dim. The show is starting.

My heart beats hard in my chest; excited and erratic. I can’t believe it, but it feels like the rhythm it drums when I’m about to head out onto the field. The energy in the studio is more subdued than the stadium during a game, but it’s still electric. It’s alive. I feel it in my veins when I hear the stage manager announce the start of the show.

All hands on deck. This is it.

Sutton leads the charge to our marks like a General going to war. Everyone follows her without question. We line up in front of our doors, waiting for them to open when the first number has finished and we’re meant to rush out onto the stage. This first opening is a recording. We made it on the KBC lot the day before yesterday dressed in the same clothes we’re in now. All black uniforms covered in silver sequins that spell our names on the back and our numbers on our chests. The girls are wearing silver cheerleading uniforms with a lot more flare than any you’d find on the field. Their sequins are black; their outfits opposites ours. Sutton shimmers in the low lights like a million stars in the night sky, and I can’t escape how beautiful she looks. She’s wearing too much makeup, but then again, so am I. Her hair is an unmovable force of gel and spray that I can’t imagine will ever wash off, but she’s still gorgeous with the determined set of her jaw and cold fire in her deep, gray eyes.

I take her hand without thinking. She jolts, but she doesn’t shake me off. Her eyes rise to mine, asking questions I can’t answer, so I only smile at her. She stares at me blankly for a second longer before looking away. Her hand squeezes mine once firmly.

It’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me.

The opening beat to Eye of the Tiger blasts through the studio. The video is starting. The audience cheers immediately, excited by anything that tells them the show is about to kick off. My head is down as I listen, watching the steady rise and fall of Sutton’s chest that makes the light dance off her dress in time to the beat. It’s soothing to watch her be so calm.

Cheers erupt at random through the building as each of our names are announced on the screen. I know when mine is coming. I’m the last, falling in during the final climax to the song, and I don’t think I’m imagining things when I gauge my applause as the loudest. Sutton hears it too. I watch her, waiting to see if she’ll smile, but she keeps her face perfectly flat. Resting Bitch Face is what Colt calls it. Sutton has it down to an art.

In the video, we were in a park playing a friendly game of touch football while the women cheered from the sidelines surrounded by children and families who have benefited from the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Toward the end of the song they joined us on the field in a massive dance that showcased a lot of the dances we’ll be doing throughout the season. Sutton and I did a little Samba. It’s fast and sexy. Her body molded to mine as much as it could when we rehearsed it, but we’re still struggling with the size difference between us.

“In three…” Clara counts from behind us. “Two…”

One.

The doors to the stage open for us. Lights blind me immediately. Sutton’s hand disappears from inside mine but she leaves the cool feel of her skin behind. I follow blindly after her as she sprints onto the stage. I remember to smile. It’s chaos out here. Fans are cheering, the music is so loud it almost hurts, and the lights are brighter and closer than the ones I’m used to on the field. I wasn’t ready for the heat. It’s crazy hot in here under these lights with all of the bodies inside. I’m instantly sweating under my jersey and I haven’t even done anything yet.

“Ladies and gentleman!” the announcer shouts over the din. “Please welcome your newest stars!”

I catch sight of the camera out of the corner of my eye, filming us perform the Samba moves she taught me. We’re the climax of the opening sequence because Sutton is the returning champion and I’m the local favorite being an L.A. Kodiak. When the last beat of the song hits, I dip Sutton deeply over my arm in perfect time to the music. Half the lights go out when it happens, but there’s still a spot on us and all the other couples competing.

The crowd goes absolutely apeshit.

I lift Sutton gently to present her to the crowd. They shower us in applause that we’re allowed to drink in for just a second before we’re rushing off the stage. The crew has to come in during the commercial break to reset everything and get it ready for the first number. It’ll be Brett and his partner, Ana. Sutton and I don’t hit the stage again for another thirty minutes. The wait, she has promised me, will be grueling.

As we leave the stage, I pat Brett on the back. “Break a leg, man.”

“Hey, thanks, Lowry. You too!”

He looks nervous. His face is pale. He’s actually panting, his chest almost heaving with each breath. We didn’t do much just now. Nothing worth breathing heavily about. It’s all nerves, I think. I wonder if that’s what I’ll look like before I go on – like I’m about to be sick.

The rest of the teams start to slowly make their way down the hall toward our rehearsal rooms. No one will be practicing but we’ll be hiding out, waiting for our turn at the stage. Most people are reluctant to go, milling around and chatting, but Sutton rushes through the crowd quickly. I follow on her heels, offering good luck to who I can along the way without losing her.

When I rush ahead to open the door for her, she mutters a quick, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Once we’re alone inside, she kicks off her shoes, discarding them in a shining heap on the floor. I’m jealous as shit that it’s that easy for her to get out of them. The nerves in my feet have finally given up and gone dead thanks to these dress shoes, but if I free them from their prisons, they’ll hurt twice as hard once they’re forced to go back in.

I hate dress shoes. They’re shiny bullshit.

“You don’t have to stay,” Sutton tells me. She paces the room slowly like she’s counting out the perimeter, as if she doesn’t already know it by heart. “You can go change. Or watch from the lounge. Some people like to do that. They like to be where the action is.”

“But not you?”

She shakes her head. “No. Not me.”

“Why not?”

“Watching someone else’s performance doesn’t do good things to me. I either enjoy their failure more than I should or I feel insecure because I think they’re better than me.”

I purse my lips together, nodding. “I get that.”

“But you should go watch. It’s fine. You don’t really care about any of this so you’re immune.”

“Hey,” I protest, feeling offended. “I care.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Must have missed it. Sorry.”

“You keep your sarcasm game tight, you know that?”

“Thanks so much. I practice twice a week.”

I watch her walking the varnish off the floor around the room. It’s dizzying. I think about leaving, since I’ve been given permission and all, but something holds me back. Something is keeping me here with her, and it’s definitely not her inviting attitude.

“It doesn’t feel right to split up,” I reason.

“We’ve been together non-stop all week. Space might not be a bad thing.”

“Are you asking me to leave?”

“No.”

I smile knowingly. “Are you telling me to leave?”

She halts her merry-go-round act long enough to look at me frankly. “If I was telling you, you’d know.”

“Okay. Then I’ll stay.”

Sutton picks up her pacing again. “Suit yourself.”

It takes five minutes. Just five minutes of silence before I’m bored out of my mind.

“You want to rehearse?” I ask her, feeling desperate.

“No. Too much practice starts to look stale. I want the number to feel fresh.”

“You mind if I practice without you?”

She shrugs. Shrugs and paces. And then paces some more. “You can do whatever you want, Shane.”

I chuckle at the lie, but I put my arms into form and start to run through the dance without her or the music. It’s easy. I see these steps in my sleep. I can hear her voice in my head even when she’s not around.

“‘Straighten your arms, Shane! Shit!’” I mimic her in a high-pitched voice.

She shoots daggers at me. “Is that supposed to be me?”

“Did it sound like you?”

“Not at all.”

“Bullshit,” I laugh. “That’s exactly what you sound like.”

She watches me closely as I work through the dance without her. She doesn’t say a word but her lips are pinched tightly. I know that look. I’ve either already disappointed her or I’m about to.

“Stop.”

There it is.

“What?” I ask patiently, though my patience is starting to run a little thin. I’m tired. I’m stressed. I don’t have it in me to put up with the full force of her shit right now. Not after I’ve eaten it every day this week and asked for seconds with a smile on my face.

“We’re not doing the shoulder lift.”

“Why not?” I laugh in amazement. “We spent forever getting it right.”

“It’s week one. We don’t need it. Not yet.”

“It’s exciting. How do we not need exciting?”

She shakes her stubbornly. “It’s a risk we don’t need to take.”

“What? Now you’re worried I’ll drop you? Now that I’m finally convinced I won’t?”

“Just trust me.”

I do and I don’t. I have to because she’s the expert, but it’s still really irritating when she makes decisions like this without even talking to me. I was nervous about the move from the start and she drilled it into me until I was good with it, now she’s yanking it. It feels like a power move and it pisses me off. I don’t like being jerked around just for the hell of it.

“Whatever,” I mutter, turning away from her.

“We’ll do another spin in it’s place. The same move you do at the start of the dance when—”

“I remember,” I interrupt. “You got it.”

Sutton hesitates. I can feel her watching me. I have no idea what she’s thinking, but I’d bet the farm it isn’t good.

“You should go watch the show,” she suggests evenly. “You’ve never seen anyone compete before. It’ll be good for you.”

I let my chin fall down against my chest. “Oh good. We’re going to talk about the pen drive again.”

“You should have watched at least one of the episodes I sent you.”

I turn to face off with her. “So I could see how amazing you are at this? I don’t need to see it. You make sure to remind me that you’re the expert every day.”

“I am the expert! You’re just some jock that’s doing this for laughs, but this is my career! You could treat it and me with a little more respect.”

“And you could respect the fact that I am trying. I’m coming into this with no experience and I’ve been working my ass off all week, and all you ever do is tell me how terrible I am and how fucking amazing Jace Ryker was. I get it. He could dance. Someone get him a goddamn medal.”

“It’s not that he was such a good dancer. What I liked about him was that he was professional. He showed up prepared.”

“He was also on the Disney Channel for most of his life,” I argue, gesturing to the stage outside the door as though he’s there now. “He grew up on TV. He knew how all this worked before he learned how to play with his own dick. You can’t compare me to someone like that. You can’t compare me to you.”

“I just want you to take this seriously.”

“I’m here, aren’t I? Do I or do I not show up to every rehearsal?”

“You do.”

“Then give me some credit, Sutton. Damn!”

“Showing up isn’t the same as being invested.”

“Fuck you,” I growl, fed up.

She fearlessly steps up to me, pushing against me with her tiny body like she’s ten miles tall. “No, Shane. Fuck you!”

Her eyes are burning. They’re cold fire but they hurt just the same. Her beauty is an agony that I just can’t take anymore.

I kiss her. I lean down to close that distance to her mouth and I take control of the moment as I lose control of myself. The second my lips touch hers, I brace myself for a hit. I’m going to get slapped or kicked or clawed to ribbons, but it’s worth it for that one brief breath of relief. Kissing her is like breathing after being underwater. She’s like air in my lungs, and when her arms come around my neck to pull me closer instead of push me away, I’m as alive as I’ve ever been before.

She’s angry. I can taste it on her tongue. She feeds it to me until I’m angry too. I’m fighting for more of her. All of her. I want to lay her out on this hard floor and strip her down to nothing but the fierceness of her spirit that pushes me to the brink where I don’t know who I am anymore. I’m an animal as I kiss her. As I fight with her. There’s no difference in my mind. Everything she does is a battle, and I’ll gladly let her win this one. I’ll give her anything she wants, just so long as she shuts the fuck up for two seconds.