by Jemma Harte
She pouted. Oh, he remembered that expression. Yeah, she hadn't changed.
"I don't even want kids right now," he added, as gently as he could. "Maybe in a few years, but not yet. I don't know about that, and I ain't gonna pretend." He'd been thinking about the young fireman who died in Buffalo. It wasn't the first, or the last time, that one of the brotherhood left behind little kids and a grieving widow. "I used to wanna be just like my brother, Mike, but as time goes by I see how his life is. And it ain't all roses. Sure it looks great from the outside...a lot of things look real pretty from the outside...but maybe marriage and kids ain't everything it's cracked up to be. Even if it is, I wanna find that out for myself, make that decision for me. I gotta be sure. Not because some girl thinks it's time I settled down."
"Some girl?" Her hands went to her hips, and she tapped her foot. Another gesture he remembered. "I thought I was more than that to you, at least."
Joe laughed softly. "Hey, I'm sorry, Donna. I can't say it with fancy words. You know how I am. Whatcha see is whatcha get. I'm just a regular Joe. All the designer silk ties and cologne ain't gonna change that, and you should know."
Her scowl deepened. "Is there someone else?"
"What?" He scratched the back of his neck.
"You're different, Joe. I can tell. Sherri says you disappear sometimes and don't even answer your brother's texts for hours. Whatever you say, you're not the same Regular Joe."
Again he looked away over the gray water, to where thin spikes of sharp winter sun hit the glass of skyscrapers in the distance. Maybe he had changed a little. He'd been thinking a lot about his life and what he really wanted lately, more so than usual.
Unfortunately, she didn't want him.
"There ain't nobody, Donna." It wasn't exactly a lie, was it? Lily didn't want to be his anybody, just his fuck buddy.
"Then let's go out for a beer. It doesn't have to be serious. It's just a beer."
"We both know you want more than a beer, Donna. You gotta go out and find something new for yourself. Take it from me, there's a big world out there with a lot of men who would be better for you than me. They'd give you what you want and make you happy. I can't do that." He pointed at the skyline. "Look out there, Donna. Know how many guys there are in those buildings, looking for a girl like you? You gotta widen your horizons. Sometimes we gotta get off Staten Island. Try something different. Take a chance and don't be afraid to fall on your face, 'cos you might find something real special."
"You sound like fucking Dr. Phil," she exclaimed.
He laughed. "Yeah."
"So who the fuck is she?"
Joe couldn't lie. Never could. "You wouldn't know her. She lives in another world. And she ain't mine anyway."
"What is she...married?"
He gave a snort, leaning on the railing with both arms. "Yeah, she's married." Married to dance, he mused bitterly.
* * * *
One evening when she arrived at the theater, her cleaned mohair coat was waiting for her, hung over her chair in a plastic dry cleaner's sleeve.
Peter couldn't wait to tell her about the handsome firefighter who'd carried it in and left it there for her.
"They let an outsider in here?" she exclaimed. "So much for security."
"Get real, honey...a hunky fireman on a mission of mercy?" Peter laughed. "Of course they let him in. Have you seen the giggling queen on the security desk? Besides," he pointed, "the man brought pie. I trust you're going to share."
There, on her make-up table, sat two red and white striped bakery boxes. One held a chocolate cream pie, the other a pecan pie. It was Thanksgiving tomorrow, she realized. He'd brought her pie. And he remembered the kind she liked.
It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her, and she had to sit down to let the idea settle. Several dancers had already clustered around hopefully, as if they'd smelled the pie from a distance. A rare treat. Lily with the pie was suddenly everybody's best friend. They'd know her name now, she mused.
There was a note too, tucked between the boxes in a sealed envelope with her name scrawled across it.
She opened it later when she was alone, and read that he was bringing his nieces to see Sleeping Beauty on Saturday at the matinee.
I'm looking forward to seeing you dance, he'd written.
Love, Joe
* * * *
He'd sweated over that note. Didn't want to be too soppy. Maybe he should just have put "Joe"— left out the love. But, nah. He knew what he wanted, and he knew what he felt. It was simple, like he'd told Donna. It wasn't about what should be or what other people thought. A person had to know what he or she wanted— for themselves. Then everything else would fall into place.
Whatcha see is whatcha get. He didn't play games.
So he wrote love. Because that was what he felt.
Let her think whatever she wanted to. Let her roll her pretty blue eyes.
Regular Joe was coming for his virgin princess, and she'd just better be ready. She was skittish, fearful of her feelings, so he'd have to pay court to her in the old-fashioned way. Yeah, pay court. Woo her like they did in the old country. His mother would approve of that.
He was doing it a little backward, maybe, considering the hot sex they'd already enjoyed, but they'd start over and he'd do it properly this time.
Somehow he'd try not to talk too much.
* * * *
The Lilac Fairy was exceptional that night. She glowed and sparkled and twinkled across the stage as if her feet barely touched down.
"Lily, you were beautiful."
"Well done, Lily."
"Charming, darling," Henri Paradisi exclaimed with a smile when he saw her in the wings. "So charming tonight."
She knew she had danced that night to impress, but for the first time in her life she danced for a particular person in the audience. A man. Of course, she could see nothing from the stage, just a black, open mouth gaping back at her, but she felt him there, watching.
There was something very sexy about it, she mused. Certainly it was different to dancing for her grandmother or the company director's critical eye. Or for herself.
She'd almost expected Joe to call her after he got the gloves. At first she didn't know if she wanted him to call her, but she thought he might. Then he didn't call and she knew she wanted him to. Good grief, she mused, I'm a teenage girl again.
Stopping one of the young pages backstage, she passed him a note and explained who she was looking for. He nodded and hurried off, looking very serious and important about his mission.
Twenty minutes later, as she sat in the cluttered dressing room, the page brought Joe and his two nieces to see her.
She stood at once and welcomed them warmly, wanting to show how much she appreciated him coming to watch the ballet when it really wasn't his sort of thing. He introduced the little girls— his nieces— who both stared up at her, awestruck and shy, because she was still in her make-up and tutu. Lily could remember being their age, back when everything was simple, black or white, yes or no.
"Thank you for coming," she said, shaking Joe's hand. "I hope you enjoyed it."
The touch of his warm palm was like a kiss that traveled through her body, touching every part of her. He didn't immediately let go of her fingers, but held them in a light squeeze. His eyes were dark, his gaze heated.
"It was beautiful," he said.
She knew he meant it, because he wouldn't be able to lie.
Finally he released her fingers. He was silent, leaving a gap for her to fill.
"I'm so glad you came," she muttered, pressing her hands together.
He tugged one of the girls closer. "Antonia's gonna be a ballerina too. She's taking lessons."
"Oh. That's good." She smiled down at the wide-eyed girl. "You must train very hard."
Antonia nodded. "I can do the splits," she spurted.
"Excellent."
"You can do the splits too, right, Lily?" Joe whispered, giving her a wink
.
She felt her face getting warm. "Hmm."
The other girl had run up to her make-up table and grabbed some eyelash glue. "What's this?"
"Ah, that keeps these on." Lily sat and peeled off her eyelashes.
"Does it hurt?"
"No. As long as you don't get the glue in your eye or stick your eyelids together."
"What's this?" Next the girl picked up a tube of lipstick, so Lily showed her, carefully daubing a little on to her small lips, while Joe came to stand behind her.
"Nicolette's the nosy one, aren't you, kiddo?"
"No," the girl yelled into the mirror, puckering her newly colored lips.
"I want some." Antonia tugged on her tutu so Lily lifted her up onto her knee and gave her lips the same treatment. "More! More pink!"
"I think that's enough. You don't want to overdo it. This make-up is for wearing under stage lights. It's too much for the real world."
The children had soon forgotten lipstick anyway, their attention drawn to the glittery paste tiara she'd taken off her head.
"Is it diamonds and rubies?"
"No," she chuckled softly. "It's not real. Nothing here is real. It's a make-believe world."
She glanced up and caught Joe staring at her in the mirror. How strange it was to have him there. He looked a little uncomfortable surrounded by hanging tights and all those sequined, girly things.
"Did you like the pies?" he asked.
"Of course I did. Thank you." How awful that she hadn't thought to thank him at once. "They were much appreciated."
Tiffany, who wasn't dancing until the evening performance, had just come in and heard him speak. "Hey, you're the guy who brought the pies?"
He smiled guiltily. "I am."
At once a flock of tutu-clad dancers descended on him as if from nowhere and he looked even more out of place, but he was probably enjoying the attention. Watching in the mirror as she saved her tiara from his nieces' sticky fingers, Lily smiled. Yes, it was odd to see him in her dressing room, but it wasn't horrible. It wasn't horrible at all.
She'd forgotten to thank him for the pies because she was just too unsettled to see him again, too anxious. Now that he was there she felt giddy, as if it was her birthday or something and the hottest boy in school had turned up at her party.
A few dancers glanced her way, looking slightly puzzled, wondering how she knew him, how she— dull, shy, dreary Lily, who had no other life— had managed to find someone outside dance.Was it obvious that they'd been lovers? It felt as if it had to be. Her skin was alive and tingling in his presence and her lips kept smiling. Even if no one noticed a difference in her, they would see the way he looked at Lily. They must.
It almost melted the make-up off her face.
Chapter Eight
"Why can't Lily come with us?" Nicky exclaimed.
"She's busy," he replied. "She's dancing. She's always dancing."
But he almost fell over backwards, when the woman sitting at the mirror said, "No, I'm not dancing in the evening performance today, just the matinee."
He stared.
"Then Lily can come," his niece declared. "Can't she, Uncle Joe?"
And Antonia put her hands around Lily's face and said solemnly, "We're going to skate and have hot chocolate."
There was a pause, then Joe said, "I don't think Miss Keene likes hot chocolate."
She turned to look over her shoulder. "Actually, I love hot chocolate, Lieutenant."
He squinted, uncertain.
"If I may come?" she added. "I don't want to spoil your plans." Her gaze wandered slowly down to his hands.
"No problem." He was surprised and happy as a boy who just got his first kiss, but he didn't want to say too much. From now on he was going to use his words sparingly. "Hot chocolate for four it is."
They waited for her outside the theater and she emerged after fifteen minutes with a clean face, wearing sweats, snow boots and wooly hat. The girls almost didn't recognize her and fell shy again for a while, until they had their hot chocolate and she was helping them lace up their skates. She was good with the kids—didn't talk down to them or act self-conscious— and he could tell they liked her. Why wouldn't they? He did.
"I'll sit here and watch, if you don't mind," she said. "I have to rest my ankle, and skating would be the worst thing for it right now."
"What's up? You got hurt?" He was concerned, looking down at her fluffy boots.
"I've been hurt for a while," she replied nonchalantly. "It's just a sprain."
Joe frowned. "And you're dancing on it?"
She shot him a look. "What else can I do?"
He shook his head. "Someone ought to look after you, Princess, since you don't do a very good job of it yourself."
"I've managed perfectly for twenty-two years," she replied crisply, chin up, her nose pink from the cold air.
Suddenly, while his nieces were chatting over their hot chocolate and busy pointing out the skaters, he couldn't resist whispering to Lily, "You're so fucking beautiful. I wanna kiss you right now."
Her eyes shone. "Oh?"
"And then make love to you. All night."
Now her nose wasn't the only thing pink.
"In every way imaginable," he added, his voice growing hoarse the lower it got.
"Oh," she said again.
"And no rubber. Just bareback, raw. Just my Princess and me deep inside her...coming hard. My cock filling her up with my spunk."
On a shocked intake of breath, she whispered back, "Now you're in the realms of fantasy, Lieutenant."
He put his head on one side. "Why does it have to be fantasy?"
"I don't take risks like that." She looked him up and down, haughty again. "And I doubt you do either. You're not stupid, Joe Rossini."
He laughed. "Hey, I guess that's the closest thing I'll get to flattery from you, huh?"
"Just go and skate, please, so I can watch you fall on your tight, hot, fireman ass."
So he took Nicky and Antonia onto the ice, while she sat and watched them from a bench, warming her hands around a tall hot chocolate. No doubt she was criticizing his every move, he thought, amused. Had he talked too much again? Ah, crap. He couldn't help himself.
When he saw her dance that afternoon he had helplessly fallen a little bit more in love with her, seeing that side of her life that she'd kept from him. Being in the audience had peeled another layer off the mystery that was Lily Keene, and seeing her with his nieces backstage had peeled off another. He was more sure than ever now that he wanted to be with her, but he still didn't know what she was thinking.
All his worries disappeared when he held her hand and he felt like anything was possible.
* * * *
An elderly lady had sat beside her on the bench and said "Hello".
Lily smiled and said "Hello" back.
"That's your family out there, is it? The two little girls and the handsome young man? I saw you lacing their skates. How lovely they are and you all look so happy together. It reminded me of when I was a young mother. You're very lucky."
About to deny that they were her family, Lily chose to say nothing. Why bother explaining? Instead she nodded, smiled again, and sipped her delicious, creamy hot chocolate.
Did they look happy together? She had no idea what they looked like. When she was with Joe she rarely considered her appearance and that, in itself, was a rarity for her.
She looked around and saw several families out to enjoy themselves on that chilly evening, the kids excited, the parents long-suffering but valiantly soldiering on. Christmas was in the air, of course. For once she felt as if she was a part of it too.
Lily had spent the last two Christmases alone, since her grandmother died. Before that she tried to get home to Boston to stay with the old lady at some point, even if it was just one night. There would be an exchange of professionally-wrapped gifts, a glass of chef-prepared eggnog around the designer-decorated tree in the parlor— not a real tree of course, fo
r that would leave too many pine needles on the carpet— and then she was back in the city to dance. Her grandmother rarely ventured out of Boston and hadn't come to the city at all for the last two years of her life, so she'd only seen Lily dance on stage once or twice, in the beginning of her professional career.
Having Joe come to watch her felt special.
His nieces were cute too, like him. Lily hadn't known many kids, even when she was one herself. Her best friend, as she'd told Joe, was Maria— the girl who left ballet school at sixteen and chose a real life instead. And left Lily behind too, after they'd sworn they'd be friends forever. Just like her parents who were supposed to be there for her. Although she knew it wasn't their fault that they died, an eight year-old girl couldn't be expected to grasp the concept of a god — a deity to whom she was supposed to pray every night— being cruel enough to take her parents away. In her eyes, they'd left her.
She supposed she'd separated herself from Joe, before he could do that to her too. But he came back. He didn't give up, damn him. He made it impossible to not like him. To not let him in.
The old lady beside her leaned over and said softly, "Make the most of your time together, dear, with the ones you love. It all passes much too quickly. Before you know it they grow up and take flight from the nest. Don't waste a moment."
* * * *
When he got off the ice, she was standing at the barrier, hands in her pockets. "You looked good out there."
"Will you teach me how to spin around?" Antonia demanded breathlessly, tugging on Lily's coat.
"It's called a pirouette, and I'm afraid I can't teach you on skates, but I can teach you on the floor, if you like."
"Yes!" the child bounced gleefully.
"Yes, please," Joe corrected her firmly.