Deal-Breaker

by Siri Caldwell

  “So. Will you choreograph our wedding dance?”

  “Me?” Rae ran a startled hand over her wet hair. “Why me? Don’t you want Lorenzo to do it?”

  “Lorenzo’s a snob. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great choreographer. He does a great job for the show. That’s why I keep him. But it’s no secret how he feels about my dancing abilities.” Her voice dropped to a masculine register. “‘Sing, Kaoli! Don’t dance.’” She made a disgusted face. “I’m not going to involve him in my wedding if I don’t have to.” She rose and nudged Rae’s arm with her toe. “I like you better.”

  “Thanks. I think. But you have plenty of other people you could ask.”

  “They’re busy. You’re not.”

  Because she wasn’t working? That was kind of rude. Rae was busy doing other things, namely rehabilitating her leg. Which was more important than stringing together dance steps for a wedding she was surely not even invited to.

  “What am I keeping you on payroll for if you can’t perform? This way I get my money’s worth.” Kaoli paused, letting the threat sink in. “Some of my money’s worth.”

  Rae worked for her. How had Jori not realized this? She’d assumed Rae’s “dance injury” was something she got from goofing around, but it wasn’t. She was a real dancer. For Kaoli Morgenroth. Who was famous and could hire anyone she wanted. Wow.

  “So will you do it? Will you choreograph our first dance?”

  Did Rae have a choice?

  “I’ve never done ballroom dancing,” Rae said, apparently not ready to concede, despite Kaoli’s threat to her paycheck. “Ballet and jazz and hip hop, sure. But none of that is exactly wedding dance material.”

  “It doesn’t have to be real ballroom dancing. It’s not like Griffin and I want to do an official waltz. Just throw some cool steps together.”

  Kaoli braced her hands on her thighs. The vibe she was putting out was very comfortable, very familiar, very I‌-‌know‌-‌you‌-‌want‌-‌me‌-‌but‌-‌there’s‌-‌no‌-‌way‌-‌in‌-‌hell‌-‌I’m‌-‌getting‌-‌back‌-‌in‌-‌bed‌-‌with‌-‌you‌-‌so‌-‌I’ll‌-‌taunt‌-‌you‌-‌instead. Very ex‌-‌lover. Could they be ex‌-‌lovers? Jori bit down on the inside of her cheek by accident. Ow.

  “Please?” Kaoli said.

  “I guess I could fake it,” Rae said.

  Jori shook her head. Don’t cave, sunshine. She didn’t know what their relationship was like, but it wasn’t hard to figure out Kaoli Morgenroth was no good for her.

  Kneeling in that damn skirt must not have been a problem, because there she went again. This time, Kaoli gripped the edge of the tile and kissed Rae on the forehead.

  Rae shot back, away from her. A wall of displaced water splashed behind her.

  Kaoli slowly stood, seemingly unperturbed by Rae’s reaction. Maybe she knew Rae couldn’t escape‌—‌that she had her trapped in the pool. And if Rae did try to leave, it would be in agonizing slow motion, limping on her bad leg. Kaoli smoothed the leather which had, against all probability, managed to stay where it was supposed to. “Will two weeks from now work? I should be able to drag Griffin out here the week after that, but I was thinking you could teach me everything first by myself, give me a head start. If I can get a room, that is. This place is surprisingly hard to reserve. How do they get so many visitors?”

  “I think there’s a hotel in town,” Rae said.

  “I saw it. It looks like a bedbug incident waiting to happen.”

  “Then crash on my sofa. Griffin can sleep on the floor.”

  Bad idea, sunshine.

  Kaoli made a face. She’d probably never slept on a sofa in her life. “By the way, Griffin can only make it for one rehearsal. He’s afraid he’ll miss important breaking news if he’s not at work.”

  “One rehearsal? Tell him he’d better be a fast learner.”

  Kaoli’s pleased smile made Jori not like her very much. “I knew you’d do it.”

  * * *

  What was she doing? Signing up to spend time alone with Kaoli? Rae splashed as she treaded water, less coordinated than she’d like.

  And what was Kaoli doing? Why would she kiss her? On the forehead, yes, which was maybe not a big deal in Kaoli’s mind, but Rae’s body couldn’t seem to tell the difference between a friendly kiss on the forehead and a passionate one anywhere else. There had been a time when she would have swooned for weeks over a kiss on the forehead.

  She wasn’t swooning now. More like squirming. The squirming was self‌-‌defense, an instinctual reminder to stay far, far away from this person she’d wasted too many hours on in high school, waiting for the next confusing peck on the cheek, the next secret smile, the next ambiguous touch.

  Because Kaoli was straight.

  More or less.

  She’d hoped for less straight for a long, long time, but somehow less straight never meant go all the way and have sex with my good friend Rae, it only meant flirt with her and lead her on and make her absolutely fricking crazy because I’m STRAIGHT. Maybe straight.

  It was all coming back to her, the way Kaoli would lie propped up on her elbows on the wall‌-‌to‌-‌wall carpeting in the Morgenroths’ den with her trigonometry textbook open in front of her and Rae would sit cross‌-‌legged beside her, patiently explaining how to calculate the cosine while Kaoli sighed and tossed her shiny blond hair over her shoulder, sending whiffs of strawberry‌-‌scented shampoo her way.

  “Can’t you just let me copy off you?” Kaoli would whine. “It would be so much easier.”

  “That would be cheating,” Rae would say. Not because of any moral conviction, but because she knew if she let Kaoli copy off her, that would be the end of their tutoring, and tutoring Kaoli was not something she wanted to give up. If it meant she had to sound like a nerd, so be it.

  Kaoli rolled on the floor, obliterating the smooth lines in the carpet that were evidence of recent vacuuming, stretching like a cat and bumping against Rae’s thigh. She pouted, looking up at her in entreaty. Rae held her breath, praying Kaoli couldn’t tell that the feel of her pressed against her thigh was making her melt.

  Except part of her was also praying she could tell.

  Staying unnecessarily low to the ground, Kaoli reached across Rae’s lap for her guitar. Her budding breasts brushed against her leg.

  Rae was dying. She didn’t know exactly where she wanted to touch her, or how, but she wanted to. Not that she would ever get the chance. Kaoli would not be cool with it.

  Cradling her guitar, Kaoli rolled onto her back and rested her head on Rae’s thigh like it was her personal pillow, then adjusted another quarter‌-‌turn and settled in the crease of her hip. She felt perfect there. Rae stroked her hair. She was in heaven, staring into Kaoli’s eyes, afraid to breathe for fear of breaking the spell.

  This was so much better than helping friends from dance class pin their hair into a bun. This was real. This was…‌different. She was allowed to appreciate the silkiness of Kaoli’s hair and touch it as slowly as she wanted, and no one was spilling hairpins into her hands and ordering her to hurry.

  Kaoli nestled deeper into her lap and strummed a few chords. “No one will find out.”

  Find out what? That Rae had her fingers in her hair and Kaoli was rubbing her body against her in the den while Kaoli’s parents were upstairs?

  “Raaaaae,” Kaoli complained impatiently.

  The homework. Kaoli was talking about the homework. No one would find out if Rae let her copy the homework. But she couldn’t let her do that.

  “Do you really want to bomb the test?”

  “Oh, all right.”

  Kaoli’s parents loved Rae because Rae was the reason their daughter was suddenly getting A’s in math. They thought Rae was a math whiz. Maybe one day Rae would look back on this and feel bad about not correcting them, but right now she was willing to pretend whatever the hell she had to pretend to keep Kaoli brushed up against her and not running away screaming. And trig
was the perfect excuse. The longer it took to help her with the homework, the more time she got to spend with her stretched out on the floor. Alone.

  So what if it meant Rae had to beg her older sister to explain the homework to her first and pore over the textbook for hours, praying that the numbers would start to make sense? Whatever she had to do, it was worth it.

  Kaoli was counting on her. And Rae was happy to oblige.

  Rae was over her now.

  And Kaoli and Griffin were all grown up and getting married. Overachieving, self‌-‌important Griffin, the little shit who’d boasted all through high school that Kaoli would always be his, was marrying her. Well, good for him.

  Rae hauled herself out of the pool and collapsed onto one of the long deck chairs. The chairs weren’t the usual cheap stuff, but were instead these sleek works of art that looked like deep lilac bubbles. Rounded bottom, long curving leg…‌very feminine. Kind of made her wonder what Sierra and Melanie were thinking when they picked these out. She stretched out and made sure her injured leg was positioned the way she wanted it. Kaoli dragged over a chair for herself, scraping it across the slate and butting it against Rae’s. Rae repositioned her leg, irritated with herself for being unable to look away from the practiced perfection with which Kaoli swiveled in her skimpy skirt to perch on her chair.

  “Can Griffin dance at all?” Kaoli’s own dance abilities were no mystery‌—‌Rae saw her onstage or in rehearsal every day. Kaoli might not have any advanced technical skills, but her sensuality combined with her crazy self‌-‌confidence and an ability to memorize steps meant she could fake her way through almost anything and her fans didn’t know or care that she wasn’t up to a real dancer’s standards. Her fiancé, however…‌

  “Griffin will do what I tell him.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “He’ll figure it out,” Kaoli said.

  With only one rehearsal? Good luck.

  “I’ll keep it simple.” Very simple. It was going to be interesting to see how she was going to teach anyone any steps at all if her ankle and knee weren’t better. Which they wouldn’t be, not in two weeks. How was she even supposed to figure out the choreography? It was hard to do that sort of thing in her head when she’d never studied ballroom dancing and wasn’t sure which leg or arm was supposed to go where. But she couldn’t tell Kaoli that. Kaoli was her boss, and if her boss wanted her to choreograph a dance for her, she’d do it, and do it without complaining.

  “Simple is fine,” Kaoli said. “Just make us look good.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Simple but flashy. You know what I like.”

  Rae resisted the urge to sigh. No wonder Lorenzo, their choreographer, was always snarling. “No limping or hopping, right?”

  Kaoli frowned. Her gaze lingered on Rae’s leg and Rae felt the urge to throw a towel over herself to hide the scars. At least she wasn’t wearing her brace. Why had she made that stupid joke, anyway? The last thing she wanted was to remind her she was injured.

  “How’s the knee, by the way?”

  Rae grimaced. Maybe part of her had wanted to force Kaoli to acknowledge that she was hurt. Because shouldn’t this have been the first thing Kaoli asked, not some kind of afterthought? Sympathy had never been one of her good qualities, though. It wasn’t huge for any performer. Faced with a colleague with a potentially career‌-‌ending injury, most performers averted their eyes, unwilling to deal with the fear that they could be next. Their own illusion of invincibility required it. The fact that Kaoli was visiting her at all was unusual.

  “Improving. I should be on my feet real soon.”

  “And dancing?” Kaoli leaned forward, even though their chairs were already close enough to be touching, and rested her hand on Rae’s thigh.

  Rae tensed. It wasn’t just her thigh that tensed‌—‌everything tensed. “Soon.”

  She missed dancing. The physical therapist she’d abandoned when she’d left for Pennsylvania had talked about getting to the point where she could walk again, but Rae didn’t care about walking. Walking was for losers. She was going to run. Jump. Spin. Dance. If she couldn’t dance, why bother? Since the minute she’d dropped out of high school and begun her professional dance career, she’d never dared jinx herself by considering what she’d do the day she had to stop dancing, and she wasn’t going to start now. She wasn’t going to wonder if trying college at her age with a bunch of eighteen‌-‌year‌-‌olds would be better than being stuck for the rest of her life teaching ballet to kids whose healthy young bodies would remind her every day of what she’d lost, or whether she’d have the money to even have that choice. She wasn’t going to think about it because she didn’t need to. She had a job. She was a backup dancer for a rising star destined to become one of the biggest names in music, and in a few weeks her knee would be healed and her ankle would be all better because she’d make sure of it, and then she’d be back at her job, proving what she could do in front of thousands of screaming, panty‌-‌throwing fans.

  Kaoli squeezed her thigh a little too hard. “I don’t want to be an ogre and remind you your contract is up for renewal in a few weeks, but I can’t keep you if you’re not ready to perform. I’ve got an empty bunk in the dancers’ bus with your name on it that I can’t afford to keep empty.”

  “I’m working on it.” A few weeks? She had all summer and through early fall before the tour ended and contracts were renegotiated. That was more than a few weeks. It wasn’t long, but it would be enough. It would have to be. “I’ll be ready.”

  “Mmm.” Kaoli’s hand on her leg, which had felt so threatening a minute ago, now felt warm and concerned. Intimate. Gentle. Kaoli’s warmth seeped into her skin. Oh no, not this. Not…‌

  Too late. All the feelings from high school came flooding back. She’d thought she was over her, but all it took was one touch to show her she wasn’t.

  Damn body. Why now? She’d been dancing for Kaoli for two seasons and not once had she allowed herself to imagine that getting too close to her was a good idea. A few minutes of fantasizing was acceptable. A flush of excitement when Kaoli went onstage and turned on the charisma, or when the entire audience fell into synch with her and sang along? Harmless. But Kaoli had kept her distance, and Rae had done the same, and somehow, despite being old friends, they’d never been alone together, never gone out for coffee by themselves or hung out in Kaoli’s tour bus or had a private moment backstage. Which was how Rae wanted it. She didn’t trust herself. She didn’t want to ever give the other dancers a reason to whisper that the only reason she got the job was because she was a personal friend of Kaoli’s. A very personal friend. Going out of her way to avoid bumping into her was the only failsafe solution.

  And now? Now Kaoli was getting married, and Rae wanted to throw herself at her because of one flirtatious touch.

  But she wouldn’t. She was no homewrecker.

  Her inner bullshit meter laughed at that, reminding her how hard she’d tried to lure Kaoli away from her boyfriend when they were teenagers.

  But was it really poaching if the girl’s relationship with her boyfriend was shallow and passionless? Because Kaoli had never really had strong feelings for Griffin, not when she’d put so much energy into stringing Rae along on the side. And he was a boy, right? Automatic deduction of points for being a boy.

  Kaoli rubbed Rae’s thigh. “I miss you onstage. Let’s have lunch. Dinner. I’d love to catch up.”

  “Of course.”

  Kaoli broke the contact and Rae could finally breathe. Kaoli wasn’t usually like this these days. Never, as a matter of fact.

  Think, Rae. Think. Remember what she did to you.

  She glanced across the pool at Jori. Her aerobics students had arrived and she was splashing around waving a foam dumbbell to demonstrate a move, having fun. As tempting as Kaoli was, Rae had a feeling she’d rather have the imprint of Jori’s hand tingling on her thigh.

  Too bad she wasn’t listeni
ng to that feeling right now. Instead, she was listening to her inner idiot, who wanted another chance with Kaoli. Her inner rationalizing idiot, who would obviously tell herself absolutely anything‌—‌like that Kaoli and Griffin didn’t love each other‌—‌to convince herself this was okay.

  The problem was, she’d wanted Kaoli so bad for so long, she couldn’t turn it off.

  Chapter Seven

  After Kaoli left in the wake of Jori’s water aerobics students, Rae counted down twenty more minutes before retreating to the locker room adjacent to the pool. The students had cleared out but the air was still heavy with warm steam from their showers. The only person who remained was Jori, who was pulling her gym bag out of an open locker three spots away and catching a thick textbook as it banged the metal wall of the unit and threatened to tumble out. Not that Rae was paying attention, but the title was something about corporate accounting. Huh. Math. That shouldn’t be a turn‌-‌on, but it kind of was.

  Rae leaned her crutches against one of the long wooden benches lined up between the walls of lockers and punched in the four‌-‌digit code that opened her unit. Her crutches slid sideways one after the other and clattered to the floor, the sound bouncing off the tile. She turned, but Jori was already there, her body able to act on reflexes that Rae’s injury wouldn’t allow, the crutches in her hands before Rae had even taken a step.

  Smart and nice.

  And all of it wasted on a boyfriend.

  “Thanks,” Rae said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Jori propped up the crutches in a corner where they wouldn’t fall. “How’s the knee? Or…‌it’s your ankle, too, right?”

  “They both hate me right now.” She was used to being exhausted and in pain all the time, but she preferred to be exhausted and in pain because she was dancing, not because she was injured.

  “Do you need help getting in the shower?”

  Only if you’re not straight. Rae smiled at the thought. Two women hitting on her in a single day‌—‌that would be a personal record. Before she knew it, women would be waving their arms and screaming with joy and throwing panties at her like they did at her boss. Except Jori wasn’t hitting on her. Kaoli had been, but Kaoli didn’t count, either, because she hadn’t meant her to take it seriously.