Pas de Deux

by M. J. Duncan

  “Oh, I know. I just…” Addison’s lips pressed in a thoughtful line as her head gave the tiniest of shakes. “You love it. So I wanted to learn more about it.”

  “You’re adorable,” Mallory murmured before she could censor herself. The words had been soft, but the way Addison’s lips quirked in a small, pleased smile was enough to tell her that they’d been heard. “Anyway,” she continued in a stronger voice, “have you found anyone you like?”

  Addison nodded slowly, her gaze soft as her head tilted ever so slightly to the left. “I have.”

  Mallory smiled. “Brilliant. Wait… Please tell me it isn’t Mozart. I mean, nothing against Mozart, of course, it’s just that he’s like the only name half the Board seems to know and for as much fun as some of his stuff is to play, it just gets old when there’s so much other music out there.”

  “I… No.” Addison pulled a pair of tapered fleece track pants from her bag and pulled them up over the bottom half of her legs. “It’s not Mozart.”

  “Who, then?”

  Addison shrugged as she angled her slippers over her feet, and let it slip free as she pushed herself to stand so she could finish pulling up her sweatpants. “I like the faster, more modern compositions.”

  “So…like what we’re doing here? With Halonen’s stuff?”

  Addison huffed a little laugh. “Yeah. Like what we’re doing here. Exactly that, really.”

  “I’ll see if I can’t think of any recommendations for you, then,” Mallory promised with a smile.

  Addison sighed softly and nodded. “Cool,” she murmured after a few beats. “Thanks.”

  “Of course.” Mallory changed her ballet slippers for the pair of flip-flops she’d taken to wearing up to the studio, and pushed herself to her feet. “So, shall we go see what costumes we’ll be expected to wear?”

  “We shall,” Addison agreed with a small smile as they started for the door.

  The smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, however, and Mallory’s heart dropped as she quickly set about replaying their conversation to try and pinpoint the moment she’d said something to upset her. Gwen had accused her of being too self-absorbed to even notice that something was wrong with their relationship—which she now recognized was true—and so she had been making a concerted effort to change. To do and be better, so her friends didn’t feel like she was taking them for granted. The problem was, however, no matter how she looked at the conversation they had just had, she could not figure out what she had done wrong.

  “May I ask you a question?” Mallory ventured in a soft voice as they waited for the lift.

  “Of course.”

  “Did I…” Mallory fiddled with the strap of her violin case. She hated that she even had to ask, but if she didn’t, the fear would only fester and grow until it was the only thing she could think about and she just didn’t have the time for that level of an anxiety attack this week. Which was, in itself, selfish and self-absorbed, but it had to count for something that the root of it all was her concern for someone else—right? “Did I say something to upset you just now? In Fonteyn? I…I’ve been told that I can be rather—”

  “No,” Addison interrupted. She shook her head as she reached out to still Mallory’s fingers. “You didn’t say anything wrong.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure, sweetie,” Addison murmured, giving Mallory’s hand a squeeze.

  Both the touch—which Mallory hadn’t even realized she’d been missing until right that moment—and the soft crinkle at the corners of Addison’s eyes quieted the panic in her mind, and she nodded. “Okay.” She licked her lips and looked away, at once relieved and monumentally embarrassed that her lingering insecurity had given Addison a glimpse at how broken she actually was. It was easy to pretend to be strong when her life had consisted of work and old friends who knew all her faults and loved her anyway, but it was so much harder when the friendship was new and she had no idea how fragile it might be.

  She was busier than she had ever been in her life, but she was also happier than she could remember ever being as well, and the last thing she wanted was to sabotage it all.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized.

  “No reason to be sorry.” Addison squeezed her hand again as the lift pulled to a stop. “You okay?”

  “I’m trying to be,” Mallory answered honestly.

  Addison huffed a wry laugh and nodded. “Aren’t we all.” She gave Mallory’s hand one last squeeze before pulling away, and she sighed as she motioned toward the doors that had begun to slide open. “Shall we?”

  Mallory nodded as she fisted her hand around the strap of her violin case. It was partly to keep herself from reaching for Addison’s hand, but mostly to ground herself. She had already made things awkward enough, but Addison had been kind and understanding, and she was okay.

  The door to the costume department was only a few steps from the lift, and Mallory hurried to pull it open for Addison. She longed for the return of their usual easy banter, and forced the closest thing to a genuine smile she could manage as she tipped her head and motioned for Addison to go ahead of her. Her smile became more effortless when Addison’s hand brushed lightly over her arm as she passed, murmuring her thanks, and she took a deep breath as she made to follow.

  She could do this.

  They were okay.

  “There they are!” Ginny Sanderson, the tall, raven-haired seamstress who was in charge of the ballet’s costumes declared with an air of mock relief when they finally found her and Nina at the back of the large room. Standing an inch over six-feet, Ginny was taller than quite a few of the male dancers Mallory had met about the halls, and while she claimed to have two left feet, she moved about her domain with just as much grace as the athletes she dressed.

  Nina smirked and arched a brow as she made a show of looking at her watch. “Did you get lost on the way down here?”

  “Something like that,” Addison sassed as she tossed her bag onto the floor beside a small wooden stool. “What’s up, Gin?”

  “The usual,” Ginny replied. “Sewing, sketching, waiting for diva dancers to show up for fittings…”

  Addison laughed and pointed an accusing finger at the seamstress. “Not you, too! I thought we were friends!”

  “We were, but then I met Mallory, and she’s so much more charming than you…” Ginny’s voice trailed off into a chuckle at the way Addison gasped and clasped a hand over her heart as if wounded, and shook her head as she turned to Mallory. “Hiya, Mal.”

  “Hello, Ginny,” Mallory murmured, offering her a small smile as she set her things down with much more care than Addison had shown. They had met the week before when Nina had ordered her to go get measured, and she had immediately felt safe with Ginny—which was good, given the fact that there wasn’t one inch of her body that had been spared the measuring tape. The most bizarre had been the “tip-to-tip” measurement, but by the time Ginny had gotten to the point where she was measuring the distance between her nipples they had settled into such an easy conversation that Mallory had been only vaguely aware of where the woman’s tape measure was stretched. “I apologize if we kept you waiting.”

  “You’re fine,” Ginny assured her with a wink.

  “Mallory has a concert this evening,” Nina drawled, bringing their playfulness to heel, “so if we could start actually trying on the clothes…”

  “Yes, your highness,” Ginny muttered.

  Mallory pressed her lips together to keep from laughing and shot Addison a did she really just say that look, but Nina just chuckled and gave Ginny a playful shove toward the rack of costumes that had been pulled toward the center of the room with a brusque, “That’s enough, you.”

  Ginny smirked and turned to pull two dresses from the rack. One was the color of sun-kissed copper with a loose, uneven skirt that was made of layers of a soft, gauzy fabric in varying complementary shades of gold and crimson, while the other was a rich crimson knee-length number that was m
ore tailored than the first but looked like it would be just as easy to move in. “I still have a bit to do with embroidery and such, but I want to make sure the dresses themselves are right before I set about making them ready for the stage.” She waved the dresses at Mallory and Addison as she pulled a curtain to separate them from the rest of the workspace. “You heard the mistress, chop chop.”

  Mallory looked for a place to change as she took the hanger from Ginny, but realized what was expected when Addison grumbled something under her breath and immediately began stripping where she stood.

  Ginny smiled kindly at her. “I can drag out another curtain out to create a changing room if you’d be more comfortable, but when it’s just us girls we usually we just…” She waved a hand at Addison, who was working her leotard, sweats, and tights down over her hips.

  Mallory shook her head. The idea of stripping down right here in front of everyone was enough to send her pulse racing, but she told herself it was just like being in a locker room at the gym. “No, no. This is fine.”

  She kept her eyes on the floor as she stripped, glad that the black bikini briefs she’d pulled on that morning at least matched the sports bra she had grabbed from her drawer without realizing they would be seen by anyone else. She considered it a victory that her hand didn’t shake when she held it out for the dress she was to try on, and she nodded slightly at Ginny as she took possession of the crimson dress. The dress was gorgeous, even without embellishments, and she arched a brow when she saw that the back of the dress had a light-colored panel of fabric that was a perfect match to her skin-tone that, from the audience, would make it seem as if she were wearing a backless dress.

  “We went for the elegant look for you,” Ginny explained with a small smile. “Zipper is tucked into a flap under the seam on the left side of the back. You get it on, and I’ll close you up?”

  Mallory found the zipper and looked down at her chest as she pulled it down. “Bra off, then? Because this one won’t work…”

  “For now, if you don’t mind. If you feel the bodice doesn’t provide enough support, I can add some more, and if that still doesn’t work, we’ll find something that will go with the design. We should be able to build it in, though. You’re not that much larger than most of the girls I usually dress.”

  Mallory’s brow furrowed as she bit her lip and nodded. She had no idea how to even respond to that one.

  “Welcome to ballet, the land of tiny titties,” Addison drawled. She winked and added, “We do have great butts, though.”

  Nina laughed, though it sounded like she was trying not to. “Addison… Must you really?”

  Mallory glanced up at Addison, whose devilish smirk belied her wide-eyed faux-innocence, and chuckled softly under her breath.

  “We all know that I absolutely must really,” Addison told Nina.

  “Tell me again why I saw fit to bring you into my company?” Nina grumbled with a fond smile.

  “You’re a closet masochist?”

  “That must have been it,” Nina agreed with a little laugh. “Now, could you please finish putting on the bloody dress so Ginny can do her job?”

  “It’s all right, I’m quite enjoying the floor show,” Ginny insisted.

  Mallory smiled as she turned her back to the group and pulled off her bra and then slipped the dress over her head. The fabric, while opulent, was sinfully soft against her skin, and she took a deep breath as she turned to Ginny. “Well…?”

  “I am a genius,” Ginny replied with a grin. “That color is perfect on you. Turn around, now, so I can zip you up, and we’ll see what we need to do to this thing.”

  Mallory hummed under her breath as Ginny closed the zipper. The dress fit like a dream.

  “What do you think?” Ginny asked when Mallory turn back to face her. “Is the bodice supportive enough? Or does it need something more?”

  She stretched her arms out and did a little twist before miming holding a violin, and smiled as she shook her head. The dress honestly provided more support than the sports bra she had just taken off. “No, I don’t think it does. This is great.”

  “Brilliant. And how about you?” Ginny rounded on Addison, who had finished getting into her dress while Ginny had been tending to Mallory. “Is the skirt length okay? It’s a bit longer than what we did for the showcase last year, but I tried to keep the length to places where it wouldn’t get in the way. Move around a bit and let me know if it gets in the way of anything.”

  Addison obediently popped up onto the ball of her right foot and into a quick pirouette. After she’d moved through a few other steps, she reported, “Perfectly perfect, as usual.”

  “Just wait.” Ginny winked. “Go stand by your leading lady, there, and look in the mirror.”

  “Pretty sure we’re both the leading lady, Gin,” Addison teased.

  “Hush, you, with the commentary. I swear, everything takes five times longer than usual with that mouth of yours.” Ginny held up a warning finger when Addison arched a brow and smirked. “Don’t you even think of turning that into something dirty.”

  “Who, me? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Mallory laughed and grabbed Addison’s arm to pull her closer. “If you wouldn’t mind just doing what the poor woman asked, darling,” she murmured as she turned them toward the mirror on the wall to their left, “some of us have to get to work after this.”

  “Sorry,” Addison whispered, her expression genuinely contrite as she looked around the room for a clock. “Are you okay on time?”

  “I’ll be fine…” Mallory’s voice trailed off as she looked at their reflection. She knew she was supposed to be looking at how well their dresses looked side-by-side—and they really did look great together, the brighter colors and more carefree cut of Addison’s dress paired beautifully with the darker tones and more refined lines of her own—but all she could see was Addison curled into her side, smiling at her. She had watched their reflections dance together in the mirrors upstairs on the daily for close to two months, but this was different. This wasn’t worrying about body lines or making sure she didn’t poke Addison’s eye out with her bow. This was just the two of them together. She had tried so hard to convince herself that she didn’t want this, that she didn’t need anyone, but she did want it. She wanted someone to hold, and to hold her, and her heart ached at the sight of Addison curled so perfectly into her side because she didn’t just want someone, she wanted her.

  If only… the little voice in the back of her mind whispered.

  “Damn.” Addison whistled and nodded appreciatively as she leaned her head on Mallory’s shoulder. “We look good together.”

  Mallory nodded. “We do,” she agreed softly.

  “This is me.” Mallory pointed to a plain black door to a shallow alcove just beyond the windows of an upscale burger joint on Wardour Street.

  Addison nodded as her eyes swept over the variegated blue tile that skirted the base of the limestone building beside the sidewalk. “I think I’d be in there eating my weight in burgers every night if I lived here.”

  Mallory smiled. The restaurant had initially put her off the property, but her real estate agent had convinced her to go upstairs to look at the penthouse apartment, and she’d fallen in love the moment she stepped inside. “I got enough of burgers when I was in America,” she confessed as she punched the five-digit code into the lock on the door and ushered Addison to go ahead of her, “so I’m mostly only tempted when it’s late and I’m just too tired to even think about making something to eat.”

  “Makes sense.” Addison stopped at the base of the stairs and arched a questioning brow. “Where to, my dear?”

  “Third floor. All the way up.”

  “Fancy,” Addison drawled with a little laugh as she started to climb.

  “Fancy would be having a lift,” Mallory pointed out as she fell into step beside Addison. The two of them plus the bags hanging off their shoulders filled the width of the marble and h
ardwood staircase that looked like it belonged in a manor somewhere in Kensington, and she chuckled when Addison swayed into her. “Tired, Ms. Leigh?”

  “Fucking exhausted,” Addison admitted. “You?”

  “About the same,” Mallory admitted with a tired nod. They had gotten Evolution down from start-to-finish by Wednesday evening, so Nina had brought Henry Tonkins—the Royal Opera House’s music director—into the preparation fold. He had spent the last two days watching, videoing, and taking notes, and because it was a rare Saturday where neither she nor Addison had a performance, Nina had added an extra rehearsal to their schedule so they could run through the entire thing with Henry and his orchestra. “Excuse me,” she apologized as she edged ahead of Addison to unlock her front door.

  “Not a problem,” Addison assured her as she pressed herself back against the wall.

  “Here we are, then,” Mallory declared as she pushed the door open and waved a hand for Addison to go on in. Her flat had an unusual layout as the “front door” actually opened onto a wide hallway by the bedrooms, and she held her breath as she watched Addison interestedly take it all in. She had spent weeks choosing just the right warm gray paint for the walls to enhance the bright, pale blond hardwood floors, and the large framed photographs that lined the walls were prints made from pictures she had taken herself on her many travels. When Addison turned to her with a smile, she waved a hand at the door straight ahead. “If you’d like, you can leave your things in the guest room that’s just there.”

  “Oh my god, this room is gorgeous,” Addison murmured as she stepped inside.

  Mallory couldn’t contain her smile as she ducked into the smallest bedroom that she used as a practice room and study that was across from the guest room to put her violin in its usual place. They met up in the hall, and she smiled as she tossed her kit bag that was full of dirty clothes through the door beside the one Addison had just come out of.

  “This place is incredible,” Addison enthused.