"Is this your girlfriend, Malykhin?” Dennis asked. At least that’s what I think he asked but all I could do was wonder if I’d heard him correctly or if I was imagining it.

Before I could process the question that had come out of the small man’s mouth, Sacha’s fingers curled over my hip. "Not yet! I'm going to take her out to dance. I’ll see you later, okay?" Sacha yelled at him, leaning forward.

Now, I could have freaked out. I could have. But I didn’t. Mostly because I’d done this dance a hundred other times with Mason and Gordo. Whether it was to get them out of some other girl’s—or in Gordo’s case, guy’s—clutches or to get them away from someone they didn’t want to talk to, I’d been a wing-man, a scapegoat and a girlfriend without batting an eyelash. So, yeah. I knew my place in that moment. I was helping Sacha escape and I told myself it wasn’t a big deal.

Friends. Friends. Right. I moved on mentally.

The little man nodded before winking at me.

My friend's hand pressed into my back, leading me toward the dance floor. As soon as we were about ten feet away, he lowered his mouth next to my ear. "I don't know how to dance." His breath washed hot against my skin. "That was our record label owner. He’d been talking to me for the last hour and I couldn’t handle it anymore."

"I feel used, Sassy," I teased him, fighting back the disappointment stirring my gut. Scapegoat for the win. All right.

Sacha shook his head, the multi-colored strobe lights illuminating the sides of his short, short hair. "Never. If I pawn you off on him, then it’ll be a different story." He tipped his chin down with a sweet grin that went straight to me knees, confirming the fact that I was a weak and pathetic person with no backbone when it came to this singer. “But I wouldn’t do that.”

“I hope!” I grabbed his wrist, pulling him toward the middle of the crowd where we could be away from anyone in our large group. “You really don’t know how to dance?” I had to go up on my tippy toes and he had to lean down for me to speak into his ear.

He confirmed it. “No!”

I shrugged at him. “Who cares! I’m not that good either. Just have fun.”

He smiled when the song suddenly switched to “Thriller.”

I made a face at him before starting my well-practiced dance moves. My mom had been a huge, huge, huge fan and when we were little, she'd play this record a hundred times, teaching Eli and I the dance moves. I'm pretty sure we could both do the entire song if we wanted, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was off on some random corner of the floor busting a move solo. Sacha stuck his tongue out of the corner of his mouth and mimicked my moves pretty perfectly. I couldn't tell at all that he couldn't dance, but it also helped that we were both laughing uncontrollably throughout the entire song, and then continued through “I'm So Excited” when it came up next.

Sure I looked like a fool, but I didn't care. I wasn't the best dancer in the world, and I probably wouldn't want someone like Julian watching me, but this was Sacha. My friend who happened to be pretty much perfect in his own goofy way, who had admitted to crapping in a trash bag at one point.

When we started running in place really quickly, he leaned forward, pressing his sweaty forehead against mine. I tried to bat away the funny, warm feeling in my stomach at the contact, I swear, but it was unbelievably difficult. He was too cute and so happy it overwhelmed me. His eyes met mine, all wide and starry like he'd discovered a new constellation. "I don't remember the last time I had so much fun!"

There really wasn't a point in even trying to fight my feelings for this guy, was there?