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5th floor common room - Wed. Eve.

Annette was in the common room alone. She was sitting on the couch in her dorky long sleeved Valentines tee and a pair of pink sweats that had been cut off just above the knee. She had thick fuzzy pink socks on and she pulled them all the way up cause she totally felt dorky tonight. Alone. On Valentines Day. She was staring at the TV. MTV was on but the volume was turned all the way down because she was listening to her ipod. Dorky love songs.

Every now and then she would glance down at her right. There beside her on the couch was that very expensive bottle of rum she had Rose purchase for her. For the squirrels. For bribery. Totally for bribery. She brought it with her just in case. You know, if a squirrel happened to show up. Yeah.

Drumming her fingers atop her thigh she thought for a moment on all her gifts and smiled. Dick was just so dang cute. Everyone had just been so nice.

She looked down at that bottle again and moved it closer to her thigh. Then she picked it up and unscrewed the lid. Bringing it to her nose she sniffed. "Hmm. Maybe I should test it for the squirrels?" She nodded. Bringing the bottle to her lips, Annette took a wee tiny sip. "Hmm. Can't really tell." She took another. Then another. And then maybe another.

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After getting a lovely gift from Tori, Neil headed out on his nightly raid of the food stores of other floors. At first, he almost missed Annette sitting there but as he turned, carrying a loaf of bread, he spotted her on the couch.

"Oh! Hey there, Annette. I'm sorry, I didn't see you when I first came in."

She only knew someone was there when movement caught the corner of her eye. She pulled her ipod earplugs out and shoved the bottle of rum behind her back.

"Oh, uh, hey Neil! And it's okay. I'm sort of short." Didn't matter that she was sitting on the couch. Short was short. Right?

"And I'm sort of clueless." Neil offered with a quick grin.

"Having a good Valentine's?" He asked as he walked towards the couch.

She flashed him a quick grin back.

"My day has been great actually, thanks. And what about you?" Shoot! Did I put the lid back on the bottle? Uh...

Did it need to be said that growing up in an all male school...if he hadn't sniffed alcohol from the stuff the other boys snuck in, he'd sniffed it on the Dorm Masters after hours.

Sniff...sniff

"Umm... it's been good." A perplexed expression came over his face and he looked around before looking back at Annette.

"Annette? Were you drinking?"

Her brows shot up a good inch at his question. "Um..." Nervous little chuckle. "I'm not old enough to drink, Neil." That should work. But her hand was still behind her back, holing the bottle of rum. And the lid? It had dropped to the floor and rolled a few feet away from the couch.

Neil's eyebrows went upwards.

"Doesn't stop people from drinking." Neil pointed out, taking in her posture and a quick look around had him spying the lid to the rum.

Leaning down, he picked it up and sniffed at it.

"Rum, nice...though, why are you sitting here drinking alone? Why not just go down to Caritas?"

Annette wasn't quite sure how to handle this situation. And her face turned ten shades of red as she tried to compose her thoughts.

"You like my tee-shirt, Neil?" She said finally, showing him the big dorky heart on her chest.

"It's cold outside and...I'm not a drinker? It's for the squirrels." She slowly brought the bottle from around her back and a good half was gone though he couldn't tell because of the dark bottle and the printing all over it. "I just tasted it. To see if they would like it."

"It's very cute." Neil said, though his eyes politely remained on her face not on her ... err ... chest.

"Uh, given the way radio tends to confuse things as it is, do you really think the squirrels need to be drinking?"

"No, but it's my understanding that they like it very much." She wrinkled her nose. "And since that day in the tree, well, I thought I might be prepared from now on." Which totally didn't explain the bottle of rum in her hand.

"So, um, did you get some candy?" She blinked and felt her head lean back slightly towards the couch cushion.

Nor did it explain why she was sipping it also.

Slowly taking a seat beside her, Neil held out his hand under the guise of offering to cap the bottle for her.

"Like it or not, must not be very good for them." He remarked, before smiling. "Tori gave me some candy, it was very kind of her. How about you? Been racking in the Valentine's Day loot?"

She smiled when he sat down beside her, she also kept smiling when he held out his hand with the cap. Annette shoved the bottle towards him, allowing him to cap it and hold it. Cause she let go of it. It was the least she could do. That's right.

"Likely not. But since when can you tell the furry rascals what to do, eh?" She laughed lightly and slouched a bit. "Tori is such a sweet girl. Really. I've gotten my fair share, yes. Most likely I'll end up having to share my share because my share is really kind of a lot and I'd rather share my share than leave my share to collect dust cause I can't eat it all." She nodded and pursed her lips into a crooked smile.

Living for years with Knox, meant that he was actually able to follow all that.

"Well that's good to hear." He decided to focus on the positive. "So, which lucky fellow is taking you to the dance on Friday?"

"Marco asked me yesterday." She grinned. "We're friends. We've been friends. He's short but taller than me." She gave a nod of her head and decided it would be best if she just leaned it back against the cushion, though she did turn a bit to face him.

"And you? What lucky person are you taking?"

"Marco...Marco... I don't know if I've met him yet but that sounds like a really nice plan," Neil said with a bright smile before giving his head a shake. "I'm not going."

"You're not? Why not? You're too cute to leave the girls without dates dancing by themselves." She nodded with an arch to her brow.

Neil laughed warmly and gave his head a shake, shifting the bottle of rum from hand to hand.

"I don't expect any of the girls in this school to be left without dates or dancing by themselves unless that is their choice."

He leaned and gave Annette's shoulder a little nudge and grinned at her.

"I have more respect...okay more fear of you ladies than that."

She giggled which sounded more like a snort sort of thing. "I would dance with you. And you shouldn't fear me, I mean...really. Oh. Wait. Do you know how to dance? Is that it?" She watched the movement of the bottle for a moment but quit cause it was making her eyes swim.

"You can have that if you want." She was so generous.

Given the way she looked at the moment, Neil decided that maybe he'd better keep the bottle.

"I do in fact know how to dance. West coast swing, Lindy hop, tango, Charleston, Foxtrot, waltz...is that a good start?"

Her eyes grew round as he named off the dances he knew. Then she leaned towards him and almost whispered, "I don't know the West Coast Swing. Will you teach it to me? Please?"

Neil blinked and seemed genuinely surprised by her request but then he smiled and gave a small shrug and a warm smile.

"Sure! When would you like to give it a try?"

Annette scooted up and off the couch. "I'm ready!"

Laughing softly, Neil nodded and reached over to set the rum down on the table and then he stood up.

"All right. Let's see here..."

Walking around the room, he pushed a few pieces of furniture out of the way to give them more room, the roof after all was quite spacious and then when he was happy with the space, he found the fifth floor radio and tuned it in to his favorite radio station.

"Well, it's not exactly the right music...but close enough."

Stepping to the middle of the room, he held his hand out towards her.

She watched him, smiling, excited that she was going to learn a new dance. And, no more being alone on Valentine's night! Yay!

"I hope just my socks are okay," She said, moving towards him and taking his hand.

"It'll be fine." Neil promised, taking her hand.

"Okay so basically this is based on a Lindy hop. West Coast Swing consists of 6 and 8 count patterns and is a very slotted dance. The follower travels forward and back along a single straight line or slot. By staying in the 'slot', followers lose the ability to move much left and right or to improvise or be creative; but followers are able to better control their spins while in the 'slot'. The leader pretty much stays in one place, sometimes moving off and on the follower's line of dance. There are lots hand and arm motions, underarm turns, back & forward passes, turns, spins, various wraps, etc in this dance. Patterns for the follower begin with two walking steps, followed by two triple steps -or a triple step, two walks and another triple. The second triple step is generally danced in place and is called the 'anchor step'. The main purpose of the 'anchor step' is to reestablish physical tension between the partners, generally achieved by leaning slightly back."

As he spoke ~~shamelessly cribbed!~~ he walked her through each motion slowly, letting her get a feel for how the dance would work.

"Feel comfortable to you? Want to try it sped up a bit?"

She listened and followed along with his leading as he walked her through the various steps. It seemed a little complicated but being a throw-off from a Lindy hop, Annette thought she might be able to pick up on it fairly well.

Nodding at Neil, she said, "It feels pretty good. And yeah, let's speed it up a bit." She grinned and enjoyed the music that they would be dancing too.

"As the lady wishes." Neil said in a proper gentlemanly tone and brought Annette back to the beginning position.

Neil had been raised learning how to be a young gentleman of society. True, he did not come from the old money blue bloods as most of his class mates did but he did get the same education. That had always been his father's purpose with Welton after all.

Not only had he been taught how to dance, he'd been taught how to lead. How to make it effortless for the young lady to follow your steps while still remaining proper and he employed that skill tonight.

Taking the lead, he was careful never to jerk or jolt Annette through the motions but gave the lead and was there to catch her through the follow through. Faster and faster until they were up to the proper tempo for the dance.

Annette recalled what it was like, for a moment, to attend formal soirees. Where dancing was such an affair; the gentleman almost always remaining a gentleman and where etiquette reigned.

She was parading about in nothing more than a tee, sweats, and socks, and yet Neil retained the air of a young gentleman of society. It was pleasantly surprising. Perhaps he would be able to note the same manner in her, although of course, in a much more feminine approach.

The rum seemed to evaporate as he lead her in the dance and Annette smiled continually as she caught on quickly, hopefully giving him an equal dance partner.

It was fun, exciting, and truthfully she could keep dancing until they were both too tired to continue. She let him know this several times and smiled wide when he obliged her, sweeping her around the make-shift dance floor once again.

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5th floor common room - Wed. Eve.

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