I do not own Dirty Dancing.

Chapter Forty One

POV Johnny

Dream Lover

It still caused me a bit of shock each time I opened my door to find Baby standing there. There was a part of me that thought, despite us agreeing to meet tonight, she might just realize that she could have better than me. So whenever she appeared like we'd agreed, I was still a bit surprised, just as I was tonight, to find her standing there.

There hadn't been dancing tonight, with all the setup for the show filling the play house. There had been a bunch of games, and things like that, rather than dancing, which meant that I didn't need to be there, and had been able to shower tonight. That I was very much grateful for. A lot of people wouldn't think it, but you worked hard at dancing, especially ballroom. In this heat, after, say, two or three songs, four if I was lucky, I found myself soaked in sweat, especially in those suits. And that always happened, be the dances Rumba, or Peabody, Quickstep or Balboa. It was gross, and I didn't want to meet Baby looking sweaty and disgusting.

I opened the door for Baby, and let her in. She was wearing her Keds and a white sleeveless dress where the top buttoned down. Furtively, I glanced to the dance shoes she'd left behind the other day. Penny wanted her to have them, so she'd have to take them back soon, or they'd get left here when her family went home in two days.

"Would you like to sit down?" I asked her politely, waving at one of the chairs in my cabin. Thankfully, tonight my room was relatively clean, so I didn't have to deal with the mess of awkwardly picking up things while she was here.

Baby glanced at the record player for half a second, which was playing Dream Lover currently. "Um. Sure," Baby answered bashfully, lowering herself into the seat. I sat down in the chair opposite her, elbows propped up on my knees, watching her.

"You left your shoes behind in my car after the Sheldrake,"I remind Baby, looking at the spot where I'd set her shoes on my floor. At first I'd thought that she just didn't remember to get them back, which would be understandable, but it also occurred to me later that maybe she'd meant to leave them behind.

"Yeah, I just kind of forgot them," Baby explained, looking from the shoes to me and back again. She brushed a silky lock of hair from her eyes. "To be honest, I kind of thought that Penny might want them back,"

"Keep them," I say to her "You're one of us now, you dance. Those shoes are broken into your feet." That was what happened, after a few days of dancing in the same shoes, after all. "Besides, we have at least ten more like them sitting in the closet in the practice room," Neither of us said a word after that, not for a while. Long enough to make it feel strange.

"I saw what you did earlier," Baby spoke, breaking the uncomfortable silence. "With Vivian."

I nod. I'd figured as much. She'd been in earshot, even if she didn't look like she was paying attention to me. "It felt good to turn her down this time," I confessed. "I know I've done it before, but this time it felt different. Better. I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but I kept on hearing your voice in my head. Not just because of what we are, though that was part of it. You keep on saying to fight harder, to be better. I just wanted to be someone you could be proud of," I tell her, smiling gently in her direction.

For all I have said to Baby about her being naive, about half the things I say to her that aren't about dancing make me feel so uneducated. Like I hardly know anything. She acts so much older than she is, but hardly seems to know a thing about the real world, and yet she knows so much more than me, and probably always will. I don't know what that is, but confuses the hell out of me.

"You did make me proud," Baby said to me. "Especially..." Her brown eyes looked down to her lap, and then back up at me. "I mean, you could've just skipped our date tonight. You could've taken the money and given her the dance lessons, no matter what she really wanted. I know you wouldn't have slept with her." Baby firmly told me. "But they were offering to pay you an obscene amount of money to skip one date with me, and you didn't."

"She couldn't have paid me enough to drop tonight," I tell her. Nothing on this world could possess me to spend a night fending off Vivian Pressman's advances over being right here, in my room, with her, the woman I loved. No amount of money would make this not worth it for me.

"I'm nothing special," Baby whispered to me. I still wondered how she couldn't see her own worth in moments like these, when Baby insisted that she was average. She wasn't average in any way, and least of all to me. If only I could make her see that.

I stand from my seat, taking one of Baby's hands. They felt so small compared to mine. I help her to her feet. My left hand slid up her arm, over her shoulder to the back of her neck, toying with her locks. The other arm snaked around Baby's waist, urging us closer together. Her hands landed on my chest, breath hitching. Couldn't she see how beautiful she really was? "You are irreplaceable," I insist in a soft voice. I don't know what I would do if I lost her. "Never let anyone tell you different," And then I kiss her.

Her arms looped themselves around my neck, and she deepened the kiss, breaking only when it has gone on so long that neither of us can breathe. My arms tighten around her, and I lift her feet from the floor, touching kisses to Baby's throat. Her fingers net themselves in my hair, she pressed a kiss to my forehead. I let her back onto the floor, feeling her arms drop to my waist. Her fingers run down my back, shoulders to hips, going over the lines of different muscles. My palms slide from her waist, over her butt, to land on Baby's thighs. I kissed her on the lips, again and again, each one quick and leaving us both wanting more. Between two kisses, I say to her, "You're wearing too many clothes."

"So are you," Baby managed to get out. I agreed. Tired of waiting, Baby pulled her dress off, tossing it aside. I pull her slip off. She was only wearing her underwear and bra, by then. I pick Baby up, and her legs wrap around my waist, hitching themselves at the ankle. I walk her over to the bed, and lay her down on it. Baby pulled me on top of her for another kiss, a kiss of passion and need.

It didn't take long for the rest of the clothes to disappear that night. I couldn't help but think of how helplessly in love with her I was. And Baby didn't even know. But I was going to have to tell her soon. Very soon, or she might never know how I felt.