by Terra Kelly
“What’s this beauty?”
Izzy leaned in to see which one she had pointed at, and Shawna took that moment to bump the doughnut to her nose. Izzy let out one of her very loud laughs followed by a snort. She wiped off the frosting and licked her finger. “Oh, that’s the chocolate covered cherries. There may be some booze in that one…thank goodness we have two of those.”
Shawna took a huge bite and moaned. In between chews, she said, “You’ll have to share the other one. This one is all mine.” Then she licked the top of the doughnut to fully get her point across. Kenzie and Izzy just rolled their eyes and reached for one of their own.
After mixing up the margaritas, and each of them eating another doughnut, they finally went to sit on the patio together. Shawna raised her glass, and said, “Here’s hoping you still love me at the end of the night.”
Izzy reached forward and squeezed her knee. “Babe, we’ll love you no matter what your past holds. Our stories don’t define who we are today. We learn, grow, and move forward.”
Shawna let her eyes wander to the boardwalk that led to the beach. A young couple stepped onto the sand walking hand in hand. She noticed how the woman stumbled slightly, and the guy had some seriously quick reflexes to prevent her from falling. She loved how they seemed so affectionate with the looks they would give each other, or how the woman would rest her head on his shoulder. Shawna secretly wanted that, too.
She sighed. “Did you know I won state championship for ballroom dancing when I was sixteen? Youngest competitor to ever win that high of a title.” She took a gulp of her margarita and finally looked toward her friends.
Kenzie’s mouth was agape. “Are you freaking shitting me?”
Izzy snorted. “I always love that sentence so much. Like, why would anyone be shitting you?”
Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Really? That’s what you are thinking about right now? Dude, Shawna was state champion. Holy Hell.” She turned toward Shawna. “Wait a minute. Then why are you taking the dance lessons?”
Shawna chuckled lightly. “You two. Never a dull moment when you’re both around.” She leaned up in the chair and tucked her legs under her body. Grabbing a strand of her hair, she twirled it around on her index finger. “Well, I stopped dancing almost five years ago,” she whispered. Lifting her head up to look at her friends, she cleared her throat. “That part of the story gets a little more difficult to share. Probably because I miss my parents terribly these days. I haven’t seen them for over five years now.” She let out a heavy sigh. “My parents supported my dancing, but only thought of it as a hobby. When I mentioned over supper one night that I planned to audition at Juilliard, my dad went ballistic. They expected me to follow in the family footsteps and become a lawyer.” She let out a quiet laugh. “Can see me as a damn lawyer? Please.”
Kenzie snorted. “Um…no. I’m going out on a limb here, but you may not have the patience for that gig.”
Shawna quickly nodded. “Right? Not even a little. I started dancing when I was probably three or four. First, just at home for my parents. Then, weekly at my dance classes. It’s just in my blood. Dancing defines me.”
Izzy reached forward and squeezed Shawna’s hand. “When we were at the TV station together, you never showed the passion you do when on the stage dancing. It’s like night and day. How did your parents miss that?”
Shawna laughed. “How did they miss a lot of things? Too busy working. The year I graduated from high school, I had been looking at apartments in New York by Juilliard. I had my life mapped out. Of course, my parents were livid when they discovered my school of choice was thousands of miles away. They expected me to be the fifth Daniels in the family to graduate from the University of Michigan. I’m an only child, so I was their only hope.”
Kenzie shook her head. “If they took you to all the dance classes, then they knew how important dancing was to you. What the hell?”
Shawna cleared her throat. “One would think, right? I think they did know, but let work get in the way of passion. Honestly, I really don’t think my parents ever truly loved their jobs. It was just what you did to support the family, though. So when their only daughter diverts from their game plan, and has an outlandish idea to dance at Juilliard. Well, let’s just say, shit hit the fan that day. Today, I can see why they kicked me out. Then, I was torn into tiny pieces emotionally.” She grabbed the pitcher of margarita to refill her glass. She started biting at her lower lip. “Of course, all that would be fine and dandy if I would’ve actually got accepted into Juilliard.”
Izzy gasped. “What? Tell me why?”
Shawna shrugged her shoulder. “Well, somehow I missed the audition. I later found out that they had picked people pretty quickly for that semester. My chances were slim from the beginning. Before I made the trip I had checked on all the details to ensure it was not a wasted trip.” Shawna laughed lightly. “So much for planning. The moment I walked out of my parents’ house, there was no looking back. They expected me to make something of myself, and until I did, going home was not an option.”
Kenzie let out a little growl. “Parents are supposed to be there for you every step of the way. This breaks my heart.”
Shawna gave her a half-smile. “Yeah, tough love I guess. The really tough part of it all was trying to survive in New York City. This is the part of the story that changed me, made me start to avoid men. Unfortunately, that included Danny in that equation. After about my sixth month of living in the city, I met this woman. We lived in the same apartment building and would pass each other almost every day. One day I mentioned how I missed dancing. We get to talking about my dancing bug, but that I couldn’t afford to dance right now.”
Kenzie and Izzy both gasped.
Shawna nodded. “Yup, you see where this is going. Long story short, I find out she is a stripper at a local nightclub about two blocks from our apartment complex. I must’ve been drinking the night when I agreed to go audition, because I still can’t figure out what came over me. That was never what I planned for myself, yet I went and passed the audition with flying colors. And was told I could start the next day. No one could ever prepare me for what I encountered over those eleven months.”
Kenzie took in a deep breath and let it out. “Shawna, you won’t date Danny because you were a stripper in New York City?”
Shawna looked down at her hands unable to meet their gaze. She felt ashamed. “I avoided Danny because men scared me, they completely turned me off. Let me be clear, I like men. Trying to think about them in a sexual or loving way has been very difficult. I’m thankful I only experienced some harsh words and verbal threats. Some of the dancers at the club were physically assaulted. I guess you could say, I was one of the lucky ones. But between my experiences and what happened to my friends, I swore off men. My main goal had been to finally get out of the dancing scene, maybe out of New York City. Find a great job that could get me back on my feet.”
“Wilmington,” Kenzie and Izzy said in unison.
“Wilmington,” Shawna confirmed on a light laugh. “I basically played pin the tail on the donkey with a map of the United States. I marked three destinations, Wilmington, The Bermuda Triangle, and Kansas City. So really one of the options would work, and it involved the beach which was a bonus.”
Kenzie reached forward and grabbed Shawna’s hand. “You know your parents would be proud of you, right?”
Shawna didn’t know how she felt about that declaration, but she smiled at the gesture. “Would they? I don’t know. I didn’t end up becoming the lawyer they dreamed I would become. Hell, I didn’t even become a dancer in the end. So I leave, never talk to them, and become a failure.”
“Bullshit!” Izzy said with a loud and shaky voice. “You a failure? Fuck that. No. Shawna, you were given a tough path, but you’re an amazing woman with such a huge heart. I know you probably didn’t show us all of you, because you were worried what we would think about your past. Well, know this, I love you so much. Sexy dancer and
all!”
“What she said,” Kenzie said, piping up. “I love you, babe.”
A tear slowly fell down Shawna’s cheek. “I freaking adore and love you both so much,” she rasped out. She stood up and grabbed both of their hands to pull them to their feet. A quiet giggle escaped her. “Well, that felt good to get out in the open.”
Izzy rolled her eyes. “You know Danny has a pretty dark past, too?”
Shawna needed food other than doughnuts to continue the conversation, so she headed into the kitchen to grab the pizza. Over her shoulder she asked, “A past? What do you mean?”
Izzy followed behind her. “You have to ask him the full details. Basically, his parents were almost non-existent growing up. They would send him house to house when they would leave town, which was quite often.”
Shawna stopped dead in her tracks and turned to Izzy. “What? Who does that? That’s awful.”
Kenzie was taking a sip of her margarita and choked. In between her coughing spree, she managed to get out a question. “Are you serious?”
Izzy shrugged her shoulders. “Drew really won’t talk about it much, but yeah, I’m serious. I know his last name is Winters now because he asked Drew’s parents if he could change it to their name. Plus, like I mentioned the other day, apparently he used to dance. I guess his mom and dad were serious dancers, pretty well known, too. It’s a sore subject. Which is why Drew was not happy with me when I asked Danny to take my place at the studio.”
Shawna gasped. “Shit. Why did you ask him? Did you know that was a sticky subject?”
Izzy shook her head. “Not to that extent. I do now.”
Kenzie winced. “Are you and Drew okay?”
“Of course.” Izzy waved both hands in front of her, as if to say no big deal. She laughed. “He actually thinks it may have helped Danny.”
Shawna furrowed her brows. “How do you mean?”
“Because he can’t stop talking about the dance competition,” she said, while stifling a laugh. “Guess we know what you will be doing for the next few months.”
“You have some work to do, girl.” Kenzie bumped her hip up against Shawna. “Better pull those dance shoes back out of the black pit you call a closet.”
Shawna didn’t expect the conversation to end like that. Yet, a part of her felt excited.
“Well shit.”
Chapter 9
“Here’s your beer, Danny,” the twenty-something bartender said as he slid the bottle across the counter. “Just here for the main attraction like usual?”
Danny chuckled. “You all know me too well.” Of course he was there for one show: Shawna’s performance. He heard someone clear their throat from behind him, so he grabbed the bottle and turned in the chair to come face to face with the hottest woman on the planet. Damn, she was stunning. Shawna stood there in a bright green corset with a short, lacy skirt that showed off her sexy legs. He took a swig of his beer to calm his growing need for the woman.
“Shawna?”
She shook her head, walked up beside him, and leaned against the bar. Just then a pink drink slid into her hand. Letting out a heavy sigh, she said, “Why not stay for all the performances?”
He didn’t know how to answer that question. For so long he had come to Burlesque Me Tonight to just watch Shawna dance and then he would head home to tend to his needs by himself. It wasn’t ideal, but no one else stirred up his emotions like the little vixen standing beside him. He shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I could. Will you be in any of the other shows?”
“Just stay.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes.
Then he watched her saunter away. The bartender whistled from behind him. “That woman is on fire these days.”
Danny scowled. “What do you mean?” He took a few long swigs of his beer. What had just happened? Did Shawna just hit on him, like seriously hit on him? He knew he wasn’t in an alternate universe, so what had changed.
“Well, you missed her performance last night. She sang a Johnny Cash song that blew everyone out of their seats. The woman has mad skills on that stage,” he said and nodded to another customer calling for him.
Danny sat there completely confused. About ten minutes later, Shawna made her way on the stage in the same killer corset. That green ensemble had been a perfect pick for her long, red hair. His mind had been wandering to other places, thinking about things he would love to do to her if he had the chance. Then the music finally started and he stilled. He knew the song was familiar from the moment the first chord played, and then she started singing Crazy for You by Madonna and he was lost. That song had been in his favorite movie years ago, Vision Quest. He had been a wrestler in high school, so that movie resonated with him. He sat there unable to move, his beer bottle locked in his grip out in front of his body. He could tell Shawna’s eyes were staring directly at him, and the words she sang were only for him.
Was that possible?
“So, what did you think about the whole show?” Shawna asked as she sat down beside Danny at the bar.
He grimaced at her words, putting his hands up in surrender. “Fine. You were right.” He inhaled her scent…what was it? Strawberries, coconut, and maybe whiskey. Dammit, he could get used to that all day, every day.
She gasped. “I was what?”
He turned his head to look right at her…shit, her icy emerald eyes would be the end of him someday. Looking away to gain his composure, he said, “Yeah, yeah, you were right. So, what now?”
Shawna had been biting on her straw and moving the pineapple skewer around in her glass. “What now? I’m not sure what you mean?”
He loved how she seemed to be playing dumb suddenly. Danny realized it was time to seize the moment. It was now or never—he opted for the former of course. He put his hand out for her to take. “Let’s take a walk?”
She turned her head to the side and gave a half-smile. “Where are you taking me, Danny Winters?”
Of course, Danny would’ve preferred to answer, His home. Instead, he stayed strong and said, “The beach. Maybe we can find something exciting happening tonight on the pier.”
When Danny had been about ten, he and Drew skipped out on classes and spent the whole day on the beach. They had been pretty lucky, too. There was a group of conservationists with two big containers. When a couple of the guys tipped the containers over, hundreds of baby sea turtles scurried away. They obviously had one destination in mind—the ocean. He could remember how amazing it felt to watch them all run into the ocean. When the last one finally hit the water, everyone cheered. He actually became a lifeguard a few years later. There had been something about the ocean that drew him in like a moth to a flame. Now, even today he spent a good amount of his free time in or by the water. One of his favorite pastimes was paddle boarding.
As they made their way down the steps that led to the pier, he found himself wanting to go paddle boarding with Shawna. Would she want to, though? He hesitated a beat before asking, “Do you enjoy swimming or anything?” He sounded like such a moron, Do you enjoy swimming? What was he, twelve?
Shawna had been silent on the walk from the club over to the pier. Burlesque Me Tonight was only about a block or two from the ocean. The view in the daytime was breathtaking. Finally, she inhaled sharply and let it out. “Actually, I love swimming in the ocean. I usually try to get some laps in a couple times a week.”
Danny didn’t expect that answer. She didn’t seem like the fitness lover type. Which was probably an unfair assessment, but he had watched her party it up with Isabel one too many times. He stopped walking and turned to face her. “Really? I would not have guessed that.”
“I’m not sure if I should be offended.”
He watched Shawna turn away from him and continue walking in the direction of the ocean. “Plus, how would you know anything about me? I’ve never shared anything with you,” Shawna said as she started to twirl a lock of her hair around her index finger.
“You’re right.” He took the
few steps separating them and touched his hand to her shoulder. “Think we can change that?” he whispered. He was inwardly praying for her to say yes.
Shawna took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Then she sank to the sand and sighed. “Danny.” She lifted her head to look into his eyes. “I’m scared.”
Danny stood beside the one woman that he thought had the strength of hundred women…and noticed defeat. How could it be possible? Shawna had an air about her that screamed confident.
He sat down beside her and reached for her hand. “Scared? You?” He nudged her shoulder with his own. “That’s impossible,” he said jokingly. The Shawna I know, she kicks ass and takes names.”
Shawna rolled her eyes. “Me? I think you may have me confused with someone else.”
“Nope. I’ve been snubbed one too many times by you. Given the finger more times than I care to share. And, well, wondered about what could actually be wrong with me, because something had to be very wrong for you to ignore me that many times,” he said, a little out of breath. If she planned to be honest, he needed to be, too.
He noticed her wince at his words and glance down at her hands. “I’m sorry,” she said softly.
Could this really be Shawna next to him, or had her body been taken over by aliens? He didn’t feel ready for all this but welcomed it with open arms. It had been way too long since he had been with a woman, mostly because he only had eyes for one specific redhead.
If she really had changed her mind about getting to know him, Danny wanted to know why. He had to know the answer; it seemed only fair.
“Wanna talk about it?”
She laughed. “Maybe.” She fisted her hand in the sand and grabbed a handful. Playfully threatening to throw it at him, she said, “How much time ya got?”