When the plane landed, nobody one a dance team was able to conceal the excitement. I mean, it was Paris after all. I've never even been outside of the US, excluding when I went to Canada to visit Mae when she lived there.
As soon as we got off the plane, we went to the baggage claim area to get our luggage. Once we all had everything, we near the exit of the airport. Lilith went to get a rental car. Well, a rental van. To save money, because that was all what we were about apparently, we were only getting one vehicle.
As soon as Lilith came back with the rental van, we all grabbed our belongings and went to the van. We piled our stuff in the back before climbing in. Mae and I sat down beside each other and she immediately rested her head on my shoulder.
"I'm so tired," she said. "I'm probably going to sleep when we get to the hotel."
"You can't," I said. "Registration starts in two hours, plus the tour of the venue so we know where everything is."
"But I'm tired," Mae whined.
"You're also adorable," I cooed, squeezing her cheeks. I then cupped her face in my hands and pressed my lips on hers. "I love you, by the way."
"I love you too," she said before leaning her head back on mine.
"Gross," Jerome said. "Now I'm going t be all alone for the next two weeks, watching you two being too cute. Gag."
I just rolled my eyes and intertwined my hand with Mae's and leaning my head on top of hers. June, who was sitting in front of us, turned around. "Aww, you guys are so cute," she said. "Can you two get married?"
"Really?" Mae asked.
"What? You don't want to marry your prince charming?" June asked.
"What a coincidence, because Ryder's last name is Prince," Mae said.
"You're avoiding my question," June said. "What about you, Ryder? You want to marry Mae?"
"Uh, that is a gargantuan contingency," I said. Great, here came my unnecessarily high vocabulary.
June furrowed her eyebrows, as did Mae. "I have no idea what that means," June said.
"Ryder, what are you nervous about?" Mae asked.
"Why would you think I'm apprehensive?" I asked.
"Because of your high vocabulary," she said. "That always happens when you're nervous."
I sighed. "Sorry. I'm just thinking about Internationals." That technically wasn't a lie. I was nervous about the competition, just not nervous enough to use my large vocabulary. People questioning me about marrying Mae, however, was definitely making me very nervous.
"We'll do great," Jerome said. "Well, you guys will. I won't be dancing unless someone gets injured so hopefully, that happens."
Mae gave Jerome a weird look. "Don't you mean you hope it doesn't happen?"
"Right," Jerome said. "That's what I meant. Totally. Why would I want someone to get injured?"
Mae rolled her eyes and scooted closer to me. "Wake me up when we're there," she mumbled before closing her eyes.
Unfortunately for her, we were at the hotel ten minutes later, so she didn't get that much sleep. She sighed irritably when I woke her up, and whined that she was tired, so I told her that she could take a nap before we had to go to the venue for registration.
Lilith got three cards for each hotel room that we had and told us she would distribute them when we got to the room.
We took separate elevators since there was eleven us and we'd rather not cramp together in one elevator. When we got to our floor, we found the three rooms side by side. It took a while to decide who was going to be in each room but finally, it was decided. Mae, Jerome, Arthur, Isla, and I were going to be in one room, and June, Dempsey, Milton, Amelia, and Marnie were going in the other room.
Once the five of us got into the hotel room, Jerome quickly went to the largest room. Of course.
Mae literally didn't care which one we got. She just wanted to lie down, so we got the last one and she flopped down on the bed. I climbed in beside her and she immediately curled into my side and rested her hand on my chest. "I'm nervous for the duet," she said.
"Me too," I said. "I'm confident we'll move onto the next round with it, but that still doesn't mean I'm nervous."
"Yeah," she said. "And these are the best studios in their country. We have no idea what they'll be like."
"We'll find out soon enough," I said. "Come on, let's nap before we have to go to registration."
We both ended up falling asleep, but then we were woken up by a very loud Jerome, yelling at us to wake up. I sighed, rubbing my eyes before sitting up. Mae sat up as well and after a few moments, we got out of bed.
The venue was only five minutes away and by the time we got there, many other teams were there. And now, I was feeling a lot more nervous. Mae was too, considering how tightly she was squeezing my hand.
We got into the line up to the registration table while Lilith went to where the studio heads were. However, at one point when the line was moving forward, a team cut right in front of us. "Um, hello?" June said to them. "You literally cut right in front of us."
Some of them turned to face us. "Oh, sorry," one of the male dancers said. "We didn't see you nobodies there. After all, my team has been here for five years, and this will be our third time winning."
I snorted but didn't say anything.
Too bad he heard me snort. "Oh, would you like to say something, commoner?" he asked.
Commoner? He needed better smack talk.
"Uh, I suggest you don't argue with him," Mae said. "Trust me."
The boy crossed his arms over his chest. "I can do what I want," he said. "Now how about you be a good little girl and go make me a sandwich."
"Oh, so I see you're sexist," I said. "Nice. Seriously, if I were you, I'd shut your mouth and not say another word to my girlfriend."
"What? You won't be able handle it?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I just don't want to bother arguing with an ignoramus."
"What did you just call me?" he asked.
"An ignoramus," I said. "I got a few other words. Imbecile, simpleton, and what was the last one? Oh, yeah. Idiot."
"Did you just call me an idiot?" he asked.
"Wow, I guess I can add oblivious to the list," I said.
"You're going to regret talking to me like that," he said.
"No, you're going to regret being a sexist pig to my girlfriend," I said, taking a threatening step towards him. "I don't care if you won two years in a row. I don't care that this is our first time in the competition. You have not seen a single thing we can do and the minute we get on stage, you're going very dumbstruck."
"You're going to be the dumbstruck one," he said. "Nobody has ever scored higher than us. In fact, our duet last year scored a ninety-seven. Nobody has ever scored that high."
Ooh, a duet. That was going to be fun to beat.
"Then wait until the duet portion," Jerome spoke up. "Our duet will blow yours away."
"Highly unlikely," the boy said. "Let me guess, your duet is Mr. Macho here and his so-called girlfriend?"
"Yes," I said. "And you know what we scored at the national competition for the duets? Ninety-nine. And since you're quite vacuous, that's two more points higher than you got."
"I don't believe you," he said.
"Believe it," I said.
Mae and I didn't really score ninety-nine. Mainly because she wasn't in the national competition, but he didn't have to know that. The best way to win an argument is to play with their mind.
They finally turned around since they got to the table.
"Ryder," Mae said in a soft voice, gently pulling my arm so I was crouched down at her height. She was so much shorter than me and it was so cute. "I wasn't in that competition."
"And how would they know?" I asked. "Trust me, if they believe it, they'll be stressed out and won't be able to do as well. They might even modify their duet at the last minute and ruin it."
"I'm trusting you on this," she said with a sigh.
When the team in front of us finished registering, they walked passed us, bumping into my shoulder on the way. Aww, looks like I made an enemy. Sweet.
After we registered, we went to where Lilith was standing. She had a map and began giving us a tour. We soon stopped at a practice studio and a lot of us went in to feel the space. We wouldn't be performing here, but at least this gave us a chance to practice.
"Ooh, Maeder has to do their duet," Jerome said.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because everyone else hasn't seen it yet," he said. "And after you smack talking, practicing it will hype you up even more. Lilith, do you think they have time?"
"I think so," Lilith said. "I'd love to see it."
"Do you want to do it?" I asked Mae and she nodded, so I hooked my phone up to the speaker in the room and Jerome held it since he knew when to press play.
Every single time we did the dance, it go a lot stronger. By the time of the duet portion, our dance was going to be unbelievable.
D.A.N.C.E. was definitely taking home the trophy this year.