Page 83 of Going for Gold (Sweet Cravings 3)

"God, don't even talk about that shit." Kristen shook her head. "I think she's ready though. She just killed it in rehearsal. As long as you're out there to give her encouragement, I think she'll do great."

"But I'm not going to be out there. Not unless one of the other backup dancers gets hurt or doesn't show."

"Yes you are," said Tim. He had unzipped his morph suit and pulled the top down around his waist.

Kristen leaned on one of her crutches and fanned herself with her hand. "Now that's what the backup dancers should wear."

"Tim, I can't let you do that," I said. "I know how much doing this dance means to you. You're the better dancer, you should be out there."

Tim waved his hand dismissively. "No way. Trust me, you need to do this now. You being out there to support Alina gives us the best shot to bring home the gold."

"You sure?"

"Yes." Tim picked up the morph suit in front of my locker and tossed it to me. "Now suit up."

Chapter 34

Sunday

Alina

"It's starting," said Kristen. She turned up the volume on the TV mounted on the wall of our changing room.

It was a good thing I was scheduled to dance last, because Judy and Cindy were still working on my hair and makeup and I was still wearing my bathrobe. I turned my attention to the TV.

The cameras panned over the thousands of people in the audience cheering as Owen Harris walked out onto the stage. He was dressed in a tux rather than the suits he usually wore in the studio.

"Ladies and gentlemen," began Owen, "welcome to our final event here at the 2016 International Tournament of Athletes. Incredibly, after two weeks and over 900 medals, Brazil and the United States are both even with 41 gold, 27 silver, and 29 bronze. It would be against the spirit of the games to end with a tie, so we have the pleasure of seeing one final event: the strip dance."

Owen stopped and repeated everything he had just said in Portuguese before continuing.

"To ensure a proper level of competition, athletes from the five countries with the most medals will be competing. The order has been predetermined based on a random draw. Germany will go first, followed by Russia, China, Brazil, and the United States. The scoring will be determined by our panel of five esteemed judges. Each judge will give the performances two scores on a scale of one to ten. The first score will be for technical aspects and the difficulty of the dance routine. The second score will be for creativity and sensuality. The top and bottom scores for each category will be discarded, and then the total score will be the sum of the remaining scores. The maximum possible score is 60. In the event of a tie, all scores will be taken into account, including the highest and lowest in each category."

Owen again stopped to translate his speech to Portuguese and then the camera zoomed in on the first judge.

"At the judging table, we have Mi-sook Park from South Korea, famed instructor at the Seoul University of Performing Arts." Mi-sook Park nodded her head curtly.

"Next we have Dean Smith from South Africa, award winning choreographer for countless movies and music videos." Dean gave a toothy grin and turned around in his seat to wave to the crowd. He seemed a hell of a lot more fun than Mi-sook.

The final three judges were Leon Green, a Jamaican performer, Lucas Ramos, a TV personality on a Chilean dancing show, and Corinne Bellerose, editor-in-chief at a hoity-toity sounding French dance magazine.

"Done!" said Cindy, spinning my chair away from the TV so I could look in the mirror.

"Holy shit," I muttered. I barely recognized myself. My hair had been curled, but in a way that made it look a million times better than when I do it. And somehow Cindy had done my makeup to accentuate all my best features and make my imperfections disappear. She had turned my eyes into mini American flags by applying sparkly blue eye shadow and adding red and white striped eyelash extensions. She also made my lips appear way more full than they ever had before. My upper lip was blue with white stars, and my bottom lip was striped red and white.

"Wow, you look incredible," said Kristen.

"Can you guys always follow me around and do my hair and makeup all the time?" I asked.

My stylists smiled. "We're glad you like it."

"Ready to get dressed?" asked Annie.

"Yeah," I said. I got up and walked over to a raised platform in the center of the room. It seemed so fancy, like I was at one of those boutiques on the shows where girls try on $10,000 bridal gowns.

Annie untied my robe and hung it up on a hanger, leaving my completely naked. I didn't know if I should cover myself or not. Is it rude to have my tits everywhere? Or will it make everyone uncomfortable if I act like it's a big deal and cover myself?

Before I could come to a conclusion, Annie handed me a lacy blue thong. It didn't cover much, but it was better than me standing here completely naked.

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