Joe’s voice boomed over the faded music. We had only gotten about a third of the way through our song, which I’m sure was fine with everyone involved. “Let’s hear it for our rookie roller dancers, everybody! Aren’t they spectacular!”

More cheers from the crowd, and then the leopard-skinned skaters pounced on our jumbled pile to help us up, shouting encouragements the entire time. A bunch of the Honeys skated over to gather us up as well. I noticed Kat wasn’t one of them. Shanti was, though, and she reached for me and yanked me up with an ease that surprised me. I was also impressed to see she’d done it in roller skates.

“Well, that was something,” she said, a gleam in her eye.

I could tell she was searching my face and I tried to keep it neutral, but I found myself relieved that she seemed to have moved past our earlier, awkward conversation and I felt the tension in my jaw ease a little. “Yeah, yeah,” I replied, avoiding eye contact. I was all for ignoring awkwardness and just pushing through.

Once we were standing and stable, she said, “C’mon” and took my hand, lessening that earlier empty feeling. “Let me buy you a beer. You deserve it.” We skated off the rink and I noticed she seemed really comfortable on skates—easy and fluid like Alma.

As we sipped our beers at the edge of the rink, the real dancing teams began the actual dance-off, which I couldn’t help but be impressed by despite our debacle. In fact, I found the debacle bothered me less and less as we stood watching. No one else seemed to care that we’d messed up so bad. I also realized I hadn’t even considered the bruising I must have gained from our mash-up at the end. The thought didn’t occur to me until a drunken Potts toppled into me and I felt a tenderness on my left arm.

The sensation should have reminded me of my main goal—to make this team and collect more bruises—but instead, it made me glance over at Shanti, who was gazing out at the action on the rink. She must have felt my eyes on her, because she turned toward me and flicked my alien antennas. I would have turned toward her, too, but the cone bra was still in the way. I’d kept the clown nose off because it was making it hard to breathe, but Lena had told us we’d need to wear the costumes all night, so all the other nonsense remained on my body.