Free Plain Jayne by Laura Drewry

tucked her thumbs through her belt loops. Step, cross, step, together, tap. She couldn’t remember Nick’s girlfriend’s name, but she could remember every step to the most obnoxious line dance ever choreographed. Every step, every clap, and every single jump.
    Go figure.
    Lines of people crossed the floor, everyone laughing at themselves or their neighbors who kept bumping into them. It was impossible to pretend she wasn’t having fun, especially with Doc singing at the top of his lungs beside her.
    By the time the song ended, his face was flushed and his normally tidy hair was mussed, but the way he smiled at Jayne made all that jumping around worth the extra pounding now vibrating inside her skull.
    “Thanks, Jaynie,” he laughed, leading her back to the table. “I think I’m good until next year’s Stomp now.”
    “God, I hope so.” She pressed her hand to her forehead in a futile attempt to stop the swaying.
    A quick kiss on the cheek, a one-armed hug, and he started toward the door, calling back over his shoulder.
    “Oh, and I told those two knuckleheads to keep their comments to themselves or I’d kick their asses into next Tuesday.”
    And that, right there, was one of the many reasons Jayne loved Dr. Warren Scott.
    She slumped onto her chair, what was left of her beer in one hand, forehead in the other.
    Nick frowned at her from where he sat with Lisa and another couple. He started to get up, but Jayne waved him off. She’d expected that last Tylenol to pack a punch, but all it had done so far was wave its fist at the pounding in her head. Granted, she wasn’t doing herself any favors by sitting in a rink with blaring music and hundreds of people, but she’d rather put up with the pain than have to look into Nick’s angry eyes as he gave her shit for not telling him she’d hurt herself.
    The DJ shifted his musical choices from country to classic stuff from the seventies and eighties, which seemed to revitalize the crowd. This was Jayne’s kind of music, and Carter even managed to fight his way through a wall of blond babes long enough to drag Jayne out on the floor a couple times. Nick only danced with Linda.
    Lisa!
    After the last round with Carter, Jayne started off the floor when the first few notes came over the speakers. She froze in mid-step, searching the crowd for Nick.
    It was her song. He’d “given” it to her for her sixteenth birthday, for the title more than anything else, and it had become an unspoken rule that this was not just her song, it was their song.
    Where was he? Had he forgotten? She stretched on tiptoe, craned her neck … and there he was, striding toward her with his mouth tipped up in one of his goofy grins.
    It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside …
    Jayne took a couple steps toward him, feeling her smile all the way down to her toes, then stopped. LindaLisa grabbed Nick’s hand, tugged him back, and said something Jayne had no hope of hearing. He shook his head, motioned toward Jayne, and even took a step in her direction, but LindaLisa pulled him back and smiled up at him with nothing short of pure sunlight.
    He stared at Jayne for a long moment, undecided, until she finally shrugged, sighed, and waved him off.
It was just a song
.
    Maybe if she repeated it enough times she could convince herself that was true, and maybe—just maybe—she might be able to close the giant gaping hole that had suddenly opened in her stomach.
    And you can tell everybody this is your song …
    Apparently, Sir Elton, it wasn’t her song anymore.
    Back in her chair, she closed her eyes, chugged her beer, and prayed the alcohol would help ease the pain that somehow connected the cavern in her belly to the pounding in her head.
    “He’s an idiot.” Carter stood in front of her, his hand out, offering her a smile. “Come on, Jay, let’s dance.”
    “Thanks, but I think I better sit this one out.”
    “You okay?” Carter twisted a chair around and straddled it so he