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Sam and Bucky managed to be back in Delacroix for a solid eight hours before Sarah walked in on anything mildly curious, utterly ridiculous, or downright dubious. With the exception of how oblivious they could be, nothing really shocked her about the duo anymore. “Do I even want to know?” She came to a stop beside AJ, who was standing off to the side where her couch and coffee table had been pushed up against the wall. She could have been annoyed but opted for exasperation instead. Whatever those idiots were up to, she knew they’d at least have sense enough to fix her living room back to normal when they were done. Unless they suddenly get called away on a top secret mission. Sarah frowned at the invasive thought. If her dumbass of a brother and his dumbass of a partner got called away and she had to fix this mess, heads were gonna roll.
“Uncle Sam and Uncle Bucky are showing Cass how to dance,” AJ stage whispered as he munched on a bowl of pretzels. His eyes were wide behind his glasses, as if he had never found anything so entertaining in his life.
“Are they now?” she asked with a near snort, dark eyes moving to where Cass slouched in the corner, ensconced on his tablet and barely paying them any attention, obviously not as enraptured with the proceedings as his brother.
For two people trying to teach a kid something, Sam and Bucky were paying said kid very little attention as they opted to bicker instead.
“I’m telling you, James, people don’t dance that way anymore. This ain’t the 40s.”
“And I’m telling you, Samuel,” Bucky charged right back. “He ain’t backing it up in some club either. It’s a school dance.”
“What do you know about quote unquote ‘backing it up in some club?’”
“I’ve been around.”
“Not enough. You just tried to play “My Funny Valentine”. I promise that ain’t on the playlist.”
“Well neither is “Rump Shaker.””
Sarah almost choked. What the hell did Bucky Barnes know about “Rump Shaker" of all the damn songs?
Of course, Cass looked up for that. “What’s that?” he asked with newfound interest, zeroing in on the word ‘rump.’ Somebody help her, she wasn’t ready to deal with growing boy hormones and now she had two of the little heathens to get through puberty. Sam better step the hell up, is all she had to say about the matter. After all she’d done for him. After all the countless times he’d disappeared. He owed it to her to give these boys ‘the talk’. When it came time, she was damn sure collecting.
“Song from the 90s,” Sam said, waving the question off. “He hasn’t gotten to the more current stuff on the playlist I made him yet. And yes, Bucky, I know that’s not gonna be played at the dance.”
“Your playlist has like 4,000 songs, Sam.”
“You need a proper education on all the music you missed.”
Sarah rolled her eyes. Hard. She did that a lot when these two were in her general vicinity. Of course, Sam made Bucky a playlist. Of course, Bucky was diligently working through every last bit of it. Of-freakin’-course.
“How am I enlightened by that or O.P.P. exactly?”
“What’s O.P.P.?” Cass chimed in again. Sarah was pretty much ready to kill her menace of a brother and his loud-mouth partner.
“Boring song about acronyms,” Sam tossed out quickly.
“Boring. Wouldn’t recommend,” Bucky stated solemnly.
Cass went back to his tablet. Sam and Bucky went back to bickering, this time at a lower volume though she could still hear them just fine.
“I grew up on that shit, c’mon. Quit being a prude, Mister I Like 40s Music.”
“I can jive.”
“You can…you know what, no. I can’t with you right now,” Sam grumbled as he proceeded to push a side table back. How much room did he think they were gonna need exactly? Now she was convinced he was just moving stuff because he could. “You're old and I can’t deal with you right now.”
“How did all this get started?” Sarah asked AJ, afraid to know the answer. Also afraid to interrupt. Getting in the middle of SamBucky (yes, she combined their names in her head during times like this, because if two idiots ever deserved an ill-conceived ship name, it was them.) Shenanigans could get exhausting. “Start from the beginning.”
AJ’s brow creased as he thought it through. “I got up this morning. All the Frosted Flakes were gone, so I asked for Cinn-”
“I was there for that part. Less of the beginning and more like the last 15 minutes or so. Go.”
He thought a little bit more, his face so damn cute she had to stop herself from kissing his round cheeks. Goodness, she loved being a mom even if she did spend the majority of her days exhausted. “Okay, so Uncle Sam overheard Cass on the phone telling Trey that he might not go to some school dance. Then Uncle Sam thought it was because Cass didn’t know how to dance. Then Uncle Bucky came in and heard them talking and offered to teach Cass some steps. Then Uncle Sam said that Cass needed to learn moves not steps and if anyone needed to be teaching him it wasn’t the centurion.”
“Centenarian,” Sarah gently corrected. “But you’re right. Centurions don’t need to be teaching dance moves either. So lemme guess, all that devolved into whatever this is right now.”
“Yep. Just between us, my uncles are kinda chaotic.”
His delivery was so deadpan that she almost let out a hoot of laughter. “Child, don’t I know it.”
“Okay fine then, Fred Astaire, show me your moves,” Sam ribbed Bucky.
“Okay then, Ginger Rogers, step back and give me some room.”
“Why am I Ginger Rogers?”
“Because you literally just made me Fred Astaire.”
“Screw that, I’ll be Sammy.”
“You already are Sammy, Sammy,” Bucky returned, sounding so damn fond that Sarah wondered how much longer this nonsense could go on. She’d never understood that poorly drawn ‘now kiss’ meme until Bucky followed Sam home. “You’re probably right though. It needs to be music he listens to. Hey Kid, what do they play at these shindigs?”
“You did not just call it a shindig; nobody calls it a shindig,” Sam countered, glancing at Cass who looked like a deer caught in a pair of headlights under the sudden attention. “He means dance.”
“He knows what I mean. Everybody knows shindig means dance.”
“Don’t everybody know shindig means-”
“Uh, I dunno,” Cass interrupted. “Jonas Brothers?” When Sam looked at him blankly, Cass tried another name. “Niall Horan?”
“Are you being serious right now?”
“Now who’s old,” Bucky said smugly.
“Shut up, I bet you don’t even know who Niall Horan is.”
“Wrong. I’ve seen The Voice,” Bucky said proudly.
Sam chose to ignore that, focusing on his nephew instead. “How ‘bout The Weeknd. I know y’all listen to The Weeknd.”
“I guess?” Cass said.
“Perfect.” He scrolled through his phone. “How ‘bout “Die for You?””
“Ain’t that a little intense for his age group,” Bucky argued as the song started playing.
“You know this song?”
“I told you. I’ve been around.”
“The lyrics don’t matter,” Sam said flippantly. Though tempted to argue that they most certainly did matter, Sarah was pretty sure this particular song didn’t have any rough language and she was enjoying this exchange entirely too much to interrupt. “Now Cass, just watch where I put my hands here.” He turned towards Bucky. “Nothing too it.”
Bucky stood there unimpressed as Sam demonstrated on him, lightly placing his own hands on Sam’s shoulders as Sam moved toward his waist. “I still don’t think this song is it. Would they even play this song at-”
“Nope, you lost your right to offer an opinion on music when you said you didn’t like Marvin Gaye. Don’t wanna hear it.”
“I never said I didn't like Marvin Gaye. In fact, I specifically remember saying I did like Marvin Gaye. You just weren’t listening.”
“You either love Marvin Gaye or you’re wrong, Barnes.”
As much as she hated agreeing with her brother on anything, Sarah couldn’t help but nod at that. She’d fallen in love more than once to a Marvin Gaye song playing in the background.
“Hey now, hands up here, Wilson. Eyes too. This ain’t some back alley,” Bucky had to ruin the mood by barking.
“Like my hands are gonna wander down your boney hips,” Sam sniffed. “Though that does make me wonder what exactly you were doing in back alleys back in the day.”
Sarah fully intended to stop the chatter with some scolding but Cass beat her to it. “Little ears! Gross!”
“What’s that mean?” AJ murmured.
“Never mind, Baby,” Sarah said with a reproachful shake of her head. She watched as Sam whispered something to Bucky, Bucky whispered something back, and then they both just swayed there for several moments.
Cass wound his way over to his mother and brother. “I don’t wanna hurt their feelings, but this is dumb. If I go to the stupid dance, I’m just gonna stand around with Trey and Shelby an’ talk about Roblox or the new Minecraft World we’re wanting to build. Nobody actually dances. That’s just weird.”
“I know. Go on upstairs and work on that laundry that needs folding. I’ll take care of this.”
He looked so relieved to be excused, she was torn between laughing and hugging him. Sam and Bucky were too busy staring at each other to notice that their mentee had escaped the premises. Well Sam was anyway. She doubted anything got past former assassin Bucky but voicing it would mean having to let Sam go; therefore, he kept quiet. She had his number. He wasn’t nearly as slick as he thought he was.
She nudged AJ. “Wanna help me make homemade pizza for supper?”
“Really?”
“Really. Should we tell them Cass left?”
AJ considered the two men dancing in the center of the living room for a solemn moment before turning to his mom. He gave a little shake of his head. “Nah. I think they like having reasons to hug.”
“Yeah, me too.” Sarah ushered AJ out of the room, wondering how long it would take Sam and Bucky to realize their audience was gone and they were only dancing for each other.