Demonspawn by Glenn Bullion Read Free Book Online

Very distracting,
for obvious reasons.
    Throughout the night we ended up splitting up
a few times. We'd see people we knew and would break away to talk.
After talking to a girl named Lisa who pulled me aside to say
hello, I ended up alone on the side of the dance floor. I looked
around, trying to find the group. I spotted Tom and Alicia on the
floor sharing a slow dance. I smiled, it was their first of the
night. I wondered if Tom finally got up the nerve to ask her to
dance or if she did. Alicia did seem to like him.
    I couldn't see Cindy and Daryl anywhere. So I
sat down on one of the chairs lined up along the wall. It actually
felt good. My legs were killing me. I was starting to want to get
to the next phase of the night. Cindy and Alicia mentioned
something earlier about getting dinner after the dance.
    I was having fun, but I don't dance. I also
didn't have a date, so slow dancing was out of the question. I
leaned back and watched the couples. I loved watching some of the
pairings out there that I never would have dreamed of. Lou, a
brainy guy from my psychics class, apparently came with Crystal,
one of the senior cheerleaders. I'd love to know how he pulled that
off. Such an odd pair, but she was actually laughing and dancing
close to him. It made me smile and gave hope that a semi-quiet
weightlifting baseball fan might find his match.
    I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see
Cindy standing there with her hands on her hips.
    “What are you doing?” she asked. “The dance
is out there. Come on, Alex, there's gotta be one girl here who
drank too much spiked punch and is looking for a guy to dance
with.”
    I laughed. “My legs are hurting. Give me a
break.”
    She sat next to me. “You work out twenty-five
hours a day and can't handle a school dance?”
    “Man, you're on a roll tonight.”
    She smiled. “Thank you. I try. Seriously
though, you having fun?”
    “Yeah. What's not to like?”
    She pointed at Alicia. “Looks like someone
else is having fun too.”
    “Yeah. She spent all week talking about this
thing, but never really talked about Tom. But it looks like she
might like him.”
    No sooner did the words leave my mouth when
Alicia hugged Tom's neck and kissed him.
    “Aww,” Cindy said. “We're gonna have serious
girl talk later.”
    “Hey, where the hell is your man? You giving
me a hard time about slow dancing. I haven't seen you two dance at
all yet.”
    She shrugged. “Don't know where he is. He
said he had to take care of something. Then ran off on that stupid
cell phone of his.”
    It wasn't so much what she said, but how she
said it. I knew something was up.
    “Everything okay with you two?”
    She hesitated and wouldn't look at me. “I
don't think so.”
    “You want to talk about it?”
    “No.”
    That was all I needed to hear. We sat in
silence for a minute or so.
    “Alex, I'm being serious here. Are you gonna
dance with someone tonight or not?”
    That came out of nowhere. I gave her a
confused look.
    “I don't think I'll lose much sleep if I
don't, Cindy.”
    “Well, remember when your Mom called
yesterday and I answered the phone?”
    I nodded. No big deal there. Mom usually
called a few times a week when she was away. And Cindy was over the
house a lot. She talked to Mom just as much as I did.
    “She told me that if you weren't coming with
a date, that I had to make sure you danced with someone and get
some pictures.”
    “What? Will she lose sleep or
something?”
    She shrugged defensively. “Hey, don't look at
me. I'm just repeating what she said.”
    I shook my head. I'd have to give Mom a hard
time when she got back.
    “So, look. I talked it over with Daryl. He's
cool with us dancing one song.”
    I wrinkled my face. “What? Are you kidding
me?”
    “Don't look so disgusted. I was the first
person you danced with anyway. Remember?”
    I did remember. We were seven years old, in
her backyard. Cindy wanted to practice so she could ask Danny
Thompson to the