I said softly, "Whadya mean?" Tom's soft brown hair hung slightly over his forehead.

"Just that you always look so sad, Danny. It can't be as bad as all that..............you know, whatever it is that made you this sad."

I turned my head and looked at the ceiling. "You really think I can learn to dance like that?"

Tom sighed. "Okay.................you don't want to talk about it."

I just said, "Dancing, can we do it?"

"Sure! Danny, I know that it isn't what we expected but I think we can do it." He rubbed his eye with his fingers and it made him look like a little boy. "It's just snapping your fingers and swaying to the music." His face was close enough to mine that I could feel his warm breath.

I said, "You wanna put the video back on and see if we can do it?" His face lit up and he grinned at me. I grinned back at him.

Tom got up and turned the TV back on and then hit play. He came over and held out his hand. I took it and he pulled me up. His hand was warm and dry.

He positioned us in front of the TV and had the remote control in his hand. "Now we gotta concentrate on the guys, see if we can get their movements down pat."

We watched the screen as the professionals ran thru the number. They were really good. We had no hope of matching them but then we knew that going in. I'd be thrilled if we could get through this with something short of total humiliation.

We watched them run thru it three times. Then Tom started the tape again but stopped it after about fifteen seconds. He said, "Let's just see if we can get these first moves, nothing else." We pushed the furniture back so that we'd have room.

"Tom, rather that trying to do the dancing yet why don't we just stand together and see if we can snap our fingers to the beat at the same time. Then if we can do that we can start moving our butts around." I really wanted to move his hard butt around.

So we stood there snapping our fingers as the music played. It was harder to coordinate than I would have imagined but it was one of those things that once you got it you had it.

"Okay," I said, "let's just try and walk around the room together and in time to the music while were snapping our fingers."

He gave me his sexy little grin and said, "Cool!"

So we just walked together around his room in time to the music snapping our fingers and moving in perfect lock step. After a few minutes of that we started experimenting. We'd stop in mid stride lift our right legs by bending our knees and swing around in the opposite direction. I was beginning to think that we might be able to do this and I was kinda liking it.

Tom said excitedly, "Okay, okay, okay, let's try doing doing the individual steps that those dudes are doin. See, they take their hats off and hold em to their chests and then twist em like?"

"Okay but to do that ya also gotta do the dance step or it don't mean anything cause they happen together."

We practiced and practiced and practiced. I watched us in the mirror over his dresser, two young, thin guys dancing and lip-synching to Steam Heat. When Tom bent forward and shook his shoulders his shirt spread open and I could see his left nipple. It was small and tight with a small dark brown aureole, his pec looked really hard.

"I've got.....clang clang.....sssss steeeaam heat."
" I've got ....clang clang.....sssss steeeaam heat."
" But I need your love to keep away the cold."

I said, "Hey, you know, we're not absolutely disgusting!"

"And Tolleridge hasn't even done anything yet!" Tom was excited. "He's supposed to be really great at teaching people how to do this shit."

Suddenly we heard, "So which one of you boys is Bob Fosse and which is Tommy Tune?"

"MOM!!" We stopped in shock, mortified.

She laughed. "You're actually not bad...........and I saw the play."

"You saw it?" We almost said it together. I couldn't believe anyone was alive who had actually seen it.

"Don't look so shocked! And no I'm not that old but it has had a few revivals." She put her hand on my shoulder and I forced myself not to jerk away. "Danny, can you stay for dinner?"

The words weren't even out of his mom's mouth and Tom yelled, "Yes! C'mon, Danny, you can stay can't ya?"

He had this wildly happy puppy dog look on his face and I just couldn't say no and I didn't want to. Well, one part of me did. One part of me just wanted to run and hide from everyone but I also knew that I needed, really needed, friends and Tom was the closest I'd come to one since...........well since Carl.

I nodded yes while Tom was going ballistic. His mom headed for the door and said, "Be sure and call your mom and let her know." Yeah that was gonna happen!

Tom grabbed the portable phone in his room and handed it to me. "Call, Danny, make sure you can stay. This'll be cool."

I dialed weather and pretended to ask my mom if I could stay. Fortunately Tom had walked over and was playing with his VCR and not paying much attention to me.

I handed his phone back to him "No problem, I just have to be home at a reasonable time. Whatever that means."

Mr. Tolleridge seemed pretty surprised two weeks later when we tried out the number for him. He laughed. "You boys have been practicing."

We both grinned and Tom said, "Maybe a little."

He smiled. "I think maybe more than a little but that's good. The best way to learn is to actually care about it. You're making a few mistakes but I think we can correct those pretty easily."

He gave us some tips and then started rehearsing us. Carol wasn't there so we were a little limited because she was central to the number but Tolleridge seemed annoyed with her and told us in no uncertain terms that she would be there tomorrow.

"Boys we've only got a month so I hope you're figuring on a lot of rehearsal time."

We both nodded enthusiastically.

"Okay, now watch me do those steps. I'm gonna do em slow so you can see better what I'm doing. It's really a simple thing. Now if this was Kiss Me Kate you'd have some worries but this is an easy number. Every high school in the country does it."

"Now watch this." He did the step we had practiced where the dancers did some moves and then used their bowler hats and clasped them to their chests with a twisting motion. "See the snap? This is a perky number and your movements have to have a snap to them. Now you boys try it."

And try it we did, over and over and over again.

Tom and I were trudging back to his house exhausted. He looked at me and grinned. "So you don't wanna be a boy dancer on Broadway?"

"I'll tell ya, Tom, I got more respect for em. I guess I never really thought about how hard it must be. I mean fuck! Why would you go thru this shit? According to Tolleridge the don't even know if the job is gonna go past opening night. That sucks!"

"So what ARE you gonna be when you grow up?"

"I dunno, maybe I'll do computer shit, you know? I gotta pretty good handle on that stuff. What about you?"

Tom smiled. "My dad wants me to get an MBA. Shit he'll be lucky if I get outta high school!"

I didn't really know how to ask this but it was something I was really messed up about so I buried my chin in my hoodie and said, "You like your dad, Tom?"

I didn't look at him but I knew Tom was staring at me. He put out his hand and pulled me gently to a stop.

He said softly, "Danny, I love my dad."

I said, "Oh, cool," and started to walk away.

He grabbed my arm. "Danny! Is that it, Danny?"

"Whadya mean?"

"Is it your dad?"

"No, Tom, it's cool. Hey speaking of dads mine is waiting for me." I laughed. "He bought this model ship that he wants us to build. Some kinda freakin bonding thing. Lame, right? But I gotta humor him or my mom is on my case." I know, I even felt nuts to me.

"Danny!"

"I'll see ya, Tom. Tomorrow, it'll be cool."

Well after that major embarrassment I tried to distance myself from Tom but it was harder than I thought it would be. Somehow he seemed to know what I was trying to do and even when I got really mad at him one day and told him to fuck off he just said, "No! I'm not gonna do that, Danny. You can try and chase me away all you want but it ain't gonna work. I'm your friend now and I'm stayin your friend and unless you want me camping outside of your house waitin for ya in the morning you'll quit acting like an asshole."

So Tom and I started hanging out like all the time and it took me awhile to get it thru my head that I now had a best friend. At first I figured he was queer for me or something but he never made a move or if he did it went right over my head. I probably wouldn't have minded him making a move on me because he was a pretty hot guy. Well, maybe not hot like Carl was hot but still an attractive guy and since we showered together after track I also knew that he also had a nice dick. After we appeared in Pajama Game we both got a lot more attention and pretty soon Tom was dating like three girls at one time but he never stopped making time for me and come hell or high water the first thing we did at school in the morning was to find each other.

The play went on early in November on a Saturday and we were a real hit. Tom and I had rehearsed our asses off after we got that dipstick Carol to understand that she was gonna look like shit if she didn't rehearse with us. The truth was that we were so good that we made Carol look better than she was and I think she knew it. Tom like totally sparkled. Well that sounds too gay but he kinda did. He was really electric on stage and the babes were after him big time at the party. After the play there was a big party for the cast and anyone else that wanted to show up and that was the very first time that I met Dodger.

At the party I was leaning against a wall trying to look invisible. I wouldn't have come at all except that Tom had gone ballistic when I told him I thought that I'd just skip it. So anyway, there I am leaning against my wall watching my best friend lining up pussy when a hand is placed on the wall about six inches from my head and a totally hot guy is standing there leaning in to me with his hand next to my head.

"Hi. You're the guy from the show, right?" You know how sometimes you meet someone your own age and they seem like somebody must have got their birthday screwed up because they seem so much older.

I tilted my can of Coke towards the dance floor and said, "Me and Tom, the dude out there surround by chicks, we were dancers."

He held out his hand and said, "Roger Lindsey, wrestler."

I shook his hand and replied, "Danny Larkin, track." All that was going thru my sick brain was, "Roger Dodger you old codger." I also was pretty sure this dude had like a really big dick. You know how you run into a drop dead gorgeous guy and you think, "Hey, maybe he's got like a three inch cock" you know, to make up for cheating the rest of us outta those looks? The thing is that they never have little dicks. It's like the gods must figure, shit we might as well blow the whole wad on this one. Let's give em a nine incher.

He grinned at me. "I'm not crazy about the Rodger. I don't like the sound of it and there's not a way to shorten it. Rodge doesn't sound right and I suppose I could use Rod but that sounds like a porn name so I guess I'm stuck with Rodger."

His blue eyes were kind of boring into me and I said, "I'd change it to Dodger."

He was biting the inside of his cheek, which only made him look even better, and those eyes were practically blinding me.

"Dodger, huh? Dodger. That's not bad."

I reached over took his hand and shook it. "Nice to meet you, Dodger."

He laughed. "It is kinda cool. So how did you get to be such a good dancer?"

"Worked my ass off." That sounded a little abrupt so I added, "Ah, Tom kinda sucked me into it. Neither one of us knew that there was dancing and singing and shit but then we just had to practice a lot."

"I saw the play with my mom and dad in New York. You guys were pretty good. Actually I think you were probably as good as the real dancers there." He said quietly, "I thought you were especially good." And he got this dead sexy look on his face.

Dodger, even then, had a way of getting this "I wanna fuck you," look on his face and while that was setting my blood to boiling I was wondering when he was gonna actually do something. But after awhile he just grinned hooked his thumb over his shoulder towards the corner of the building and said, "The team, those animals in the corner.........gotta talk to em." He started to leave but then turned back and said, "We'll be seeing each other...........you know, around."

Over the next three years it seemed like I saw Dodger maybe once a month. Well, saw to talk to, that is. I saw him plenty. Whenever there was a group of hardcore jocks there would be Dodger talking laughing and always a girl near by. I'm pretty sure that in those three years he went thru the whole female population of the school.

He was a one-date guy, two at the max and I guess it worked because he had a great rep. Even his ex's thought he was fantastic. I had pretty much decided that I had to be wrong about him being attracted to guys.

In those three years there had never been any suggestion that he was other than totally straight. I was beginning to wonder if he was mind fucking me but then he'd stop by my table in the cafeteria always when I was alone and did what I could only call flirting. Not that it was really out there flirty it was subtler than that but there wasn't anything else to call it and if Tom showed up Dodger would immediately stop and switch to jockspeak.

The other thing he did was show up at every track meet. The first time I saw him I was walking back and forth to cool down after a win and I looked over to the stands and there he was sitting there in all his studliness. Then when I realized it was him and he caught my eye I smoothly put one foot across the other and fell flat on my face. Tom was there in an instant and when I looked up Dodger was sitting there with an odd little grin on his face.