Hot Moves

by Kristin Hardy

  She flinched. “No. No more.”

  “No more what?”

  “I can’t do this. I thought I could but I can’t.”

  “You can’t what?”

  “Let someone control my life. You, him, anyone.”

  Brady frowned. “What does that have to do with us? I’m not trying to run your life.”

  “Oh Brady, you’re just like him.”

  It was the most hurtful thing anyone had ever said to him. “Just like him?” he repeated incredulously. “How can you…Thea, I’d never hurt you or try to force you.”

  She gave him a brittle smile. “Neither did Derek, at first. He just ran my life. Or, excuse me, ‘helped me understand what was best for me.’”

  “I don’t run your life.”

  “No? Then what are you doing here? I said I was okay.”

  “You weren’t,” he said immediately.

  “Do you hear yourself? I said I didn’t want to talk about it, I said I didn’t want to tell you about Derek, and you wouldn’t stop. You don’t listen, you do what you want or you talk me into it. That’s how it started with Derek, too.”

  “Thea,” he said desperately, “this isn’t us you’re talking about. I’m not him. I care about you.”

  “That’s what Derek said.”

  “I’m not Derek,” he bit off. “Can’t you understand that? I don’t know why we’re arguing. I want to be with you, that’s the only reason I ever do anything. I love being with you.” He swallowed. “I love you.”

  She fought off the words, threw up her hands. “You hardly know me. What’s it been, a month? You don’t love me, you love an idea.”

  “Don’t tell me what I feel.”

  “Then don’t tell me what it is I need. You are like he was. You’ve got a different style but you’re the same. You still never listen. And I’m no better than I was with him. I get around you and I wind up doing what you want, every single time.”

  The color drained from his face. “I love you,” he repeated. “I don’t try to make you into someone else. I just want things good for you.”

  Her laugh ended in a choke. “Oh, I know that line. God, I know it. My father always knew what was best for us, too, until we got away from him. Shoot, he made Derek look like an amateur. So I ran right out and found a boyfriend to get me out of the house, except guess what? He wound up being exactly like dear ol’Dad after a while. Same thing at college, and then Derek. Story of my life. I always say it’s going to be different this time and then I look up one day and realize I’m with the same person, only by another name.”

  Tears began slipping down her cheeks. “I can’t do this anymore. I care about you and I’m not going to sit around and watch it fall apart. I’m not going to wake up and find myself in the same sick spot. I’m going to change it this time, no matter what it takes.

  “And if that means walking away, then that’s what I do.”

  She stepped closer to him. “Goodbye, Brady.” And she pressed her mouth to his.

  15

  BRADY FLOORED IT from the green light, tires chirping as he turned onto the ramp to I-5. The wind roared in the open windows. He reached over to switch on his CD player, turning it up, then turning it up some more. And then, what the hell, rocketed it up to the top.

  Gone. She was gone. His mind shied away from it. Like slipping down a slope of ice, she’d said about Derek. And that was how the past hours had been for him, a slide he had no control over, even as he grasped desperately to avert disaster.

  No more of her laughter, no more kisses, no more sharing the golden evenings, no more holding her in the round of the dance.

  No more waking with her and knowing that his world was right.

  And so he took refuge in anger to escape the tearing, bone-deep, impossible loss. Didn’t she understand how wrong she was? How could she throw it away, what they could be together? How could she let the things that bastard had done and said destroy it all? How was it she couldn’t believe in them?

  How was it she couldn’t love him?

  He slammed his fist into the wheel.

  She hadn’t listened to a word he’d said. He might as well not have been talking. All she’d heard were the resonances in her own mind. And he’d been an idiot to sit there arguing with her. He was like Derek Edes? He was like a man who’d hurt a woman, forced himself on her, made her fear?

  She wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to Edes, she was talking to all those other guys. She was talking to her father, for cripes sake. And holding him, Brady, to account for all of it.

  He hit the wheel again. It didn’t help.

  What he really needed to be doing was climbing the Karate Wall at Smith Rocks or paddling the Rogue. Something that would use up all of him. Something that would extinguish his wanting to howl at the moon to fight off the emptiness.

  The problem was, there wasn’t any moon and it was full dark on a Sunday night. He’d have gone to one of the pubs and brewed, but the way he felt, if someone even tried saying hello, he’d probably bite their head off.

  So he drove, feeling the wind, blasting old Cake and telling himself that it didn’t matter, telling himself it wouldn’t have worked anyway. Telling himself that she was too damaged to deal with, that he was better off without her.

  He only wished he could make himself believe it.

  SHE KEPT IT TOGETHER until he left. She listened to the sound of the door closing and she listened to the thundering silence that came after and she fought not to run after him. Instead, she waited for his Jeep to leave.

  Only then did she break down.

  She’d done the right thing, Thea told herself. For the first time in her life, she’d read the signs, walked away before the debacle. It was hard but she’d done it.

  She should have been proud of herself. She should have been relieved.

  Why was it she couldn’t get her breath?

  She thought of the days after she’d fled Derek and New York with Robyn’s help, the nightmare of emotional and physical pain, the hunt for sanctuary as though she were some wounded animal going to ground. And the years, the lost years while she waited to heal, never knowing if it was even possible.

  With Derek, she’d hurt when she’d made the wrong choice. Now that she was doing the right thing, it hurt even worse. Maybe what Lauren had said was true, that the two of them weren’t cut out for relationships. Somewhere along the line, they’d missed some fundamental part of their emotional makeup or it had been distorted.

  Maybe they were meant to be alone.

  Thea slid down to sit on the floor by the door, shivering. Meant to be alone. For eight years, it had been fine. Now, it sounded like a prison sentence. Darlene ticked up, snuffling, snorting, pushing her nose against Thea, who gathered her into her lap. And as she held onto the tough, warm little body she felt the tightness in her throat ease. She felt herself finally, really let it all go.

  And she wept for all that might have been.

  HE DIDN’T SLEEP. It wasn’t that Brady tossed and turned, he never even bothered to go to bed. Why, when all he’d wind up doing would be staring at the ceiling? Instead, he paced. He did push-ups. He tried to read, but the book only made him think of Powell’s and the whole gory scene with Thea. Instead, he grimly waited out the hours.

  And watched the brightening sky with disgust.

  In the end, he grabbed his mountain bike and hit Forest Park. People ran at dawn. No reason he shouldn’t be biking at 5:00 a.m. At least there he was completely present in the moment rather than sliding back into the night before. When you were attacking a fifty-degree incline, you had to be in the moment, unless you wanted to eat a mouthful of bark and pine needles.

  He kept at it until his legs and arms were like lead. Then he headed home, which unfortunately gave him time enough to think about Thea. And think he did, from the park to his shower to the theater.

  He talked her into things, she’d said. Made her do things she didn’t want to. Controlled he
r. All he wanted to do was go to her, talk to her, try to make her see.

  And that was the one thing he couldn’t do.

  The thoughts were still chasing through his head as he walked through the lobby doors into the Odeon. He wasn’t going to let the place remind him of Thea. He wasn’t going to think about dancing with her there. He wasn’t going to remember holding her in his arms. And he definitely wasn’t going to remember how she’d cried out when he’d taken her where she’d never been before.

  Just like Edes? Not exactly, babe, Brady thought grimly.

  He did his usual circuit, starting with the upstairs, working his way down. Back in the stage wings, the dressing rooms were taking shape as guest rooms, with new walls going up.

  Brady stopped at the last room, where the carpenters were busy fitting a new door. He watched them work for a moment.

  “Is this the right molding?” he asked, running his fingers over it.

  Chad, the older of the two, shrugged. “It’s what came with the door. It’s prehung.”

  And that was wrong. “It’s not supposed to be,” Brady said. “We need to match the other moldings.”

  “Better ask the boss.”

  “I think so. Don’t do anything on that until I get back,” he directed as he walked out.

  Ahead, he saw a couple of guys painting the baseboards at the bottom of the front face of the stage. Those were wrong, too. Not the ones he’d signed off on three weeks before with Hal. Then again, there had been a few small changes like that of late. None of them really worth making a big deal over, not in the interest of time. But now…

  “Hey, Pete,” he said to a passing worker, “where’s Hal?”

  “With the crew up front working on the bathrooms, last time I saw him.”

  “Thanks.” Brady was already headed to the front of the auditorium as he said it.

  The tile of the bathroom in the side hallway sent echoes booming around of fierce debate over the best way to install a wheelchair accessible stall to conform to ADA regulations. Brady knew all the regs by heart because he and Hal had gone through the lot, trying to determine what, exactly, had to be upgraded.

  He stuck his head into the room. “Hal, got a minute? I need to talk with you.”

  Hal glanced up. “Sure. Be right there.”

  Out in the hall, Brady inspected the candy counter. Hal walked out, wiping his hands on his jeans. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was back in the dressing room guest area, where they’re putting in the new door.”

  “Right.”

  Hal, he noticed, was watching him carefully. “It’s a prehung door. It doesn’t match the other moldings.”

  “But we—”

  “National Historic Landmark, Hal.” He let the faintest of edges slip into his voice. “We talked about this. You go with the plan. If you’ve got to make an exception, you clear it with me.” Brady looked at him more closely. “Unless you didn’t make the exception,” he said slowly. “Did someone else authorize it?”

  The silence went on a beat too long.

  “Who gave the order?” he asked, though he had a pretty good idea who.

  “Well.” Hal shifted uncomfortably.

  “Who gave the order, Hal?”

  “I did,” said a voice behind him.

  And Brady turned to see Michael. “And I’m not even a little surprised. Morning, big brother.”

  “’Morning, Brady,” Michael said. “You look like hell.”

  “So do the moldings in the dressing room area. And the stage front baseboards and the replacement doorknobs upstairs. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about any of that, would you?”

  Michael eyed him for a moment. “Maybe we should take this somewhere else. Excuse us, Hal.” Michael headed toward the front lobby.

  He was in no mood for it, Brady thought. No mood at all. “You’ve been doing it right along, Michael, haven’t you? You’ve been doing your little visits, coming in and making changes with Hal behind my back.”

  “What I’ve been trying to do is hold this project to budget.”

  “The project’s on budget.”

  “Exactly. Thanks to me. You didn’t leave any room for things to go wrong.”

  He hadn’t spent enough time fighting the trails, Brady thought, not if he could feel this ready to go off again. “You ever notice the slush line item at the bottom of the budget? It’s there to cover overages. We don’t need all your cute little changes, and those cute little changes might screw up our application to get this place designated a National Historic Landmark.”

  “It’s little stuff.”

  “It’s little stuff that matters. I talked with those people, I found out all the things they look for, including the original damned doorknobs.” And suddenly all the anger and frustration coalesced into one point. “Look, did we or did we not agree last month that I’d take over this theater project?”

  “Well, we—”

  Brady took two steps toward Michael. “Did we or did we not?” He demanded. “You know we did. You said unless I was prepared to do it, it wasn’t going to get done. I’m the one who agreed to do it, so fucking well let me do it. You’re here every time I turn around, talking to the contractors, giving instructions, countermanding my orders. People don’t know who’s in charge, you or me.”

  “Don’t you go—”

  “So who was the guy who’s always been on me about taking a bigger role in the business? Face it, Michael, you’re a control freak. You say you want me to do more but you won’t let loose. You just want to give me crap and then wade in like the big brother to tell me how it’s done.”

  “That’s because you don’t know how it’s done.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Brady said furiously. “I’ve been working my butt off and it’s all gone smoothly so far. You always say I never stepped up to do my part but now that I’m trying to, you can’t keep your hands out of it.”

  “And you can’t keep your hands off your consultants. Did you sleep with her before or after she started working with us? You are sleeping with her, aren’t you?”

  Brady fought for calm. “No. I’m not sleeping with her.”

  Michael studied him. “Ah. I see.”

  “What do you see?” Brady snapped.

  He gave his head a slow shake. “I was out of my mind to ever agree to you running this thing. The minute I did, I knew you were going to screw it up, I just didn’t know how. I gotta admit, you’ve come up with one I never would have guessed. So what’s your tango theater going to be without tango, little brother?”

  “I’ll get a new group in here.”

  “Why, so you can nail one of them, too?”

  The words stung the air. Brady’s eyes blazed. “Get off this site,” he said, voice low and deadly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I want you out of here, for good. You want to come back on this job site, you call me and make an appointment. Maybe you’ll get in. Until then, you’re gone.”

  “Wait just a goddamned minute. I’m part of this partnership.”

  “And I’m not taking that kind of talk from anyone, including you. As far as our partnership is concerned, if you don’t leave this site right now, I’ll have you tossed. Because let’s get one thing straight—there’s only one person running this project and that’s me.”

  “But I—”

  “But you’re going, right?” Their eyes locked for a beat. “I said, ‘right?’” Brady repeated. And he stood there long enough to see Michael turn away.

  ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES, Thea thought as she walked through the airport. Coming and going. Going and gone.

  Like her and Brady.

  Maybe amputees felt this way after the operation, the anesthesia gradually wearing off to unmask a shocking pain and a loss so profound that the mind shied away. And now that the anesthesia of fear and desperation was gone, all she could do was put her head down and endure what followed in the blind hope that one day she would he
al. All she was left with was the thought—the hope—that she’d made the right choice.

  “Thea!”

  Thea glanced over at the escalator to see Robyn waving, tired-eyed but still cheerful. She wore an expedition hat with a leather chin strap and a brand-new golden tan; her backpack was slung over her shoulder.

  “G’day, mate,” Thea said as Robyn reached for her.

  Robyn slung an arm around Thea’s shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I’m excited to see you, trust me. It’s just that it’s three in the morning by my body clock and I’ve spent the last twenty hours in a plane. I’m numb.”

  “Here, let me get that.” Thea pulled the backpack off Robyn’s shoulder. “Twenty hours?”

  “Torture, but worth every minute of it.” Robyn gave a jaw-creaking yawn and they walked over to the baggage carousel. “And I had to sit in LAX for almost two hours after I cleared customs. I have a funny feeling that I’m going to last about another hour or two and then completely fall over. Hopefully near a bed.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “I know.” Robyn pushed out her lip. “How’s everything been?”

  “All quiet on the western front.”

  “That’s what I like to hear.” Robyn started to reach for a bag on the belt but subsided. “Not mine,” she pouted. “How about you, everything all right? How’s the Love God?” Thea didn’t know what expression passed over her face, but Robyn gave her a sharp look. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” Thea tried for offhand. “We’re just taking a break.” And it was killing her to be standing where Brady had surprised her the night of Kelly’s wedding.

  “Taking a break? Granted, I only have about two brain cells working, but it’s an affair, not a nine-to-five job. What’s this break stuff? The last time I talked with you, you guys were crazy about each other. What did he do?”

  “Nothing.”

  Robyn put her hands on Thea’s shoulders. “Hey. This is me, remember?”

  “I know.” Thea sighed. “I just—”

  “Hold that thought,” Robyn said and grabbed a bag off the carousel. “Okay, start talking,” she ordered.

  The walking made it easier, but all around Thea, memories of Brady hovered.