by Tracey Ward
“I know, I remember, I just…” He smiles big and bright because Shane Lowery doesn’t do anything small. “I’m proud of us, Sutton. No matter what they said, we did good. We did great.”
“Yes. We did.” I push against his chest without effect, but it’s the gesture that matters. “Go. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Shane takes a step back before pausing. His eyes are on mine, his face falling serious.
I know what he’s about to say.
I shake my head hard. “Let’s not talk about it tonight, okay? We can dissect it another day. Or not at all.”
“I could live with not at all.”
“Even better.”
He surprises me when he darts in close to kiss my cheek. The gesture is soft and unassuming. It’s the perfect opposite of what happened in the rehearsal room. I feel relieved as he does it, like he’s wiping the slate clean for us. This is what we are; chaste and professional. We are not and cannot be what happened before.
I smile at him when he pulls away. He waves a quick goodbye before disappearing into the lounge with the rest of the guys. I hear cheers come up from the others when he enters.
People love him. There’s no denying that.
I go to the exit at the back of the studio. Most of the time I avoid it because this is where the smokers go on break. The area is empty but the scent of nicotine still lingers in the air around the ashtray strewn picnic tables. The smell makes my throat close painfully like it’s shortening, vomit rising to choke me. I consider having an air freshener glued to my upper lip just to make it through the day, but that’s not the real problem. My problems are in my head. In my gut.
The door to the studio opens. I look to it with a strange feeling of hope. I think maybe Shane has come out to keep me company, because, like he said, we’re a team. We stick together.
My stomach clenches tight with irritation when I meet Eric’s eyes.
“Go away,” I tell him harshly.
He doesn’t flinch and he doesn’t go. “You shouldn’t be out here alone.”
“You shouldn’t be out here at all.”
“I was worried about you.”
“Thanks,” I tell him coldly. “I’m fine. See you later.”
Eric comes closer. Just a step, to test the waters. They’re icy cold but it won’t stop him. It never has. “They were hard on you because you’re last year’s winner. Everyone expects the best and you have to admit, that wasn’t your best.”
“It was better than sixes.”
“You’re right, but so am I.”
I shake my head, looking down. I stare at the grease coated cement under my shining shoes. “I’m working with what I’ve got.”
“Shane is a solid partner. What you’ve got is more than most of the other girls.”
“Tell it to Milan and Desmond.”
“I don’t speak to the judges. You know that.”
“I don’t give a shit what you do, Eric.”
He takes another step toward me. I feel it more than see it. Like the way you feel someone invade your space in a pitch-black room. Your hair stands on end. Your fingers tremble and your stomach quivers.
“You care more than you let on,” he whispers delicately. “About everything. You act like you only think about the show but you’re always working on something, aren’t you?”
“Go away,” I warn him nervously. I wrap my arms around my stomach to protect myself. To close the cage of my body tight.
“What are you working on right now, Sutton? What’s in your head?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s never nothing.”
I close my eyes against the night and him and the feeling he gives me. “I don’t want to do this.”
“Sutton.”
“Stop.”
“I can’t,” he whispers, his breath hot as fire on my face. “I never could with you.”
He kisses me. I immediately compare it to the kiss that Shane and I shared, and I can’t get over the difference. Shane’s was passionate. It was compulsive and desperate. It lit me up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Eric’s kiss is gentle and sweet but it hurts. The sensation aches all the way down into my toes and I feel like I might vomit for the tenth time today.
It isn’t healthy. None of it.
My life is literally making me sick.
I keep my arms around my body as he steps in front of me. His tongue invades my mouth. His hands tangle in my hair. He tilts my head back to open me wider for him, but I refuse. I clamp my mouth shut tight and I try to turn away, but he doesn’t let me. He presses his forehead to mine, breathing heavy and needy against my lips.
“I came out here because I was worried about you,” he promises.
“You came out here because you wanted to fuck me.”
“I want to love you.” He presses his head against mine harder. So hard it almost hurts, like he’s trying to get inside my mind. “Why are you so afraid to let me love you?”
I shake free of his hold, tears blurring my eyes. “Because I don’t want to. Because it’s wrong. Because you’re married and I can’t stand you. I don’t know how else to tell you so you’ll hear me. I hate you, Eric.”
“Sutton—”
“Go away!” I cry, unable to contain it. “Get away from me!”
“Stop shouting.”
“Leave me alone!”
He holds up his hands, his face dark with anger. “Keep your voice down before someone gets the wrong idea about what’s happening here.”
“I will lower my voice when you start listening to me. Go. Away. Don’t call me. Don’t corner me. Don’t you dare touch me. Do you hear me?”
Eric stands there staring at me like I’m a wild thing. Like I’m crazy and unpredictable, and that should send him running but it won’t. This is all part of the cycle. We’ve been here before, so many times. This is the arc where the passion comes back and the trysts in dark corners begin again. This is where he can’t resist me and I can’t stand myself as I let him have me. Again and again and again.
For the first time, I see that this isn’t only my weakness. This is Eric’s too. He can’t stop any more than I can. He’s riding the wave, as much at its mercy as I am, but I can’t anymore. I won’t survive it again. Tonight I can’t be inside my body if he’s going to be in here too. I’m too intangible. I’ll disappear forever like a wisp of smoke off a snuffed candle if he tries to take me.
“Nothing’s changed,” he swears to me. “We’re the same as we’ve always been.”
“I’m not,” I rebel, hoping against hope that it’s true.
“Maybe not yet. It’s too soon. I’m sorry. I just… Roe, I just wanted to touch you. I couldn’t stand to not feel you.”
“Leave me alone, Eric. Please.”
“I’ll give you more time.”
I keep my eyes closed tight as I listen to him go. He lets the door slam shut hard behind him. The sound makes me jump. My arms tighten around my belly. I rock slowly from side to side in a soothing motion that reminds me of being a child.
“It’s okay,” I whisper softly to the night. “I’m okay.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SHANE
May 29th
Palmetto Warehouse
Los Angeles, CA
My feet hurt. It should be from cleats and days spent on the field, but it’s not. It’s so, so, so much worse.
Sutton has started making me wear the dress shoes to rehearse in. Six hours a day. Six days a week. It’s brutal. I don’t know how she does it in heels, but she’s in them every day. I rarely see her wearing anything else. Her feet are red when she takes them off, but they’re intact. Mine are covered in blisters and callouses trying to form before being rubbed right off by the next wave of rehearsals. I soak them in Epsom salts every night, and every day they get ravaged again.
When I stumble home from a grueling day of practice and then rehearsals, I wonder why I’m doing this. For the kids, sure, yeah, but Sloa
ne was right – I could just write them a check. What’s the real reason I’m putting up with this? It’s a question I’ve been careful not to ask because the answer is confusing as fuck. I know it has something to do with gray eyes and a blood boiling kiss that still keeps me up at night when I’m trying to go blank and pass out. I see her in the dark. I can feel her. In my mind, we’ve gone so far beyond that kiss, it’s indecent.
I feel like a perv for using her like that but it’s my imagination. I can’t control it and the girl keeps feeding it like she’s creating a monster to destroy me. Our first two styles were the Charleston and the Jive, but then last week we did the Paso Doble. This week is the Tango to the Demi Lovato song Sorry Not Sorry and I come home with blue balls every night. The dances are getting sexy. The girl is even sexier. There’s a point in the song where I lift her to spin her around and make her black dress fly away from her body like a set of dark wings, and it’s the best moment of my day. She’s light in my hands and heavy in my eyes. Every time I do it, she gives me this look that’s not like anything she’s ever given me before.
She looks at me like she trusts me. Why that’s so sexy, I can’t put into words, but it’s true. I feel it now just thinking about it.
I’m also thinking about ditching rehearsal. It’s been almost a month since I started pulling double duty between football and DNA, and it’s catching up to me. It’s not just my feet that hurt. It’s my entire body, including my brain. I need a break but no one is giving any. This morning off from practice is the first one I’ve had in four weeks. I’ve spent it sitting in Colt’s living room with him and Tyus watching bad martial arts movies and dreading the time when I have to go to the KBC studio.
“When is dance class?” Tyus asks me from the other end of the couch.
I glance at the clock above the TV. The time makes me wince. “In an hour.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. No shit.”
“I thought you liked being on the show,” Colt says.
“I do. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“Don’t you get days off?”
“On Friday, the day after we film, but even then Sutton wants to get together to watch the tape and talk about all the ways I screwed up while it’s still fresh in my head.”
“How does that work for the other guys competing? They have mandatory practice with their teams now, same as you, right?”
“They do a lot of flying. Brett told me he flies out here the day before the show, stays until Friday morning, and then he and his partner Ana fly back to Dallas together. She works with him after his practices there, same as Sutton and me.”
“So you’re not the only one being tortured?”
“I don’t know, man,” I admit tiredly. “From the sound of it, Ana isn’t half as hard on Conners as Sutton is on me.”
Tyus grunts unhappily. “She sounds like a real bitch.”
“Nah, she’s not a bitch. She’s just complicated.”
“Complicated is a nice way of saying she’s a bitch.”
“Our boy is a nice guy,” Colt points out.
“Too nice. He should have told her to dance by herself three weeks ago when she went at him in the park. She’s running around acting like he owes her something when he’s the celebrity doing the show a favor.”
“I’m getting paid,” I point out. “And it’s for charity.”
“You’re getting paid less than our Super Bowl bonus and they’re doing this charity gig to try and save their own asses ‘cause their ratings are shit.” Tyus points at me. “They need you. Don’t let this girl treat you like a chump when you’re there to help her keep her job.”
“I don’t look at it like that.”
“Maybe you should,” Colt suggests with unexpected seriousness.
“Sutton’s not that bad. She could be better, but I poke the bear sometimes.”
“You piss her off on purpose?”
I shrug, smiling. “It’s petty, but it’s fun.”
Tyus snorts. “If she’s gonna treat you like you ain’t shit, it’s not petty. It’s deserved.”
“Come on, man. Are you going to sit there and act like Mila doesn’t bust your balls left and right?”
“When Mila does it, it’s sexy. It’s foreplay. She’s riling me up for something good. Are you getting off fighting with this girl?”
“No,” I admit glumly.
“Then you’re not doin’ it right.”
“You’re saying I should hate fuck her?”
“Some of the best sex I’ve ever had was with someone I hated.”
“Truth!” Colt shouts at the ceiling.
I chuckle, shaking my head. Trying to dislodge the memory of the kiss I had with Sutton. But it’s useless. It’s etched on my brain like a brand. “It’s not like that with her. We’re dance partners. That’s it.”
“That’s a wasted opportunity.”
“Whatever.” I lift my foot out of the salt bath I’ve been soaking it in, inspecting my blisters. They’re smaller than they were before but they still suck. I’ll wear flip flops to the studio and I don’t give a shit what Sutton says about them. She’ll be lucky I showed up. “What’s up with Sloane?” I ask, slowly lowering my foot. “I thought she was due this month. Where’s that baby?”
Tyus scowls at me. “Dude, you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“That’s right. You’ve been bailing right after practice every day. You didn’t hear.”
“Hear what? What happened to her?”
“She’s fine,” Colt assures me. “She’s on bed rest in the hospital, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she’s being kept at the hospital until she has the baby,” Tyus explains calmly. “And they’re trying to keep her from going into labor for as long as they can. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“The baby didn’t grow like it was supposed to. They’re worried he’ll need help when he comes out.”
“What? Like breathing tubes and shit?”
“Most likely.”
I fall back into the couch with a frown. “Fuck. That’s gotta be killing Trey.”
“Trey is Trey. He’s cool as ice.”
“It’s probably for Sloane’s sake,” Colt guesses. “He’s holding it together but he’s gotta be freaking out on the inside.”
“I sure as hell would be,” I agree heavily.
“Hey, they’ll be fine,” Tyus tells us like it’s fact. Like he’s got it on the low from God himself that it’s all going to work out. “She’s at UCLA Med Center. It’s a good hospital.”
I nod, not saying a word because I’m not sure what to say. I’m worried about Sloane and the kid, but I’m also looking at Tyus with a scar the size of the California coastline running across his skull from where they took out that tumor earlier this year. They did it at UCLA Med. They saved his life, so I have some faith in the joint. Still, I remind myself to go in and see Sloane this weekend. I’ll bring her magazines and flowers and shit. Anything to help keep her busy.
An hour later, I’m out the door from Colt’s apartment and headed to rehearsals. My head is foggy. I’m exhausted. I’m not looking forward to breathing, let alone rehearsing. And if Sutton is in one of her moods, I don’t know what I’ll do. Most of the time I can take it. I don’t let her bother me because her anger isn’t about me. It’s about something else I can’t see. Or someone else that she tries not to see. I’m convinced she and Eric have something going on, and whatever it is, it isn’t good. We don’t see him very often around the studio but when we do, it’s awkward as fuck. They barely look at each other. They don’t speak directly to one another. And I’ve noticed that for all her anger, Sutton doesn’t talk shit about anybody but Eric. Either they’re hooking up or they were or she wants to be or he wants to be – I can’t pin it down, but there’s something there. Something ugly.
When I open the door to the rehearsal room, she’s
at the bar. Or ‘barre’ as she so vehemently corrected me last week. Her face is blank but once her eyes meet mine, she smiles brightly. “You made it.”
I hesitate inside the door. For a split second, I feel like I’m in the wrong room. The energy is off. Her face is weird. She looks happy. She sounds it too, and that’s so far from the norm, I’m convinced I’ve stepped into another dimension.
“I did,” I reply hesitantly.
“Good timing. I have some awesome news for you.”
I glance around the room, looking for cameras. This is how she is when they’re filming our rehearsals. To the outside world, Sutton is sunshine and rainbows. Meanwhile, when they’re not looking, she’s a storm cloud hovering low overhead.
But we’re alone and she’s still standing there like pure daylight.
“What the hell’s happening?” I ask her bluntly.
She laughs, giving me a quizzical look. “What do you mean?”
“You’re being weird.”
“You’re being weird.”
“Not as weird as you.”
Sutton rolls her eyes. “Don’t be annoying. You’ll ruin my good mood and I’ll make you work for an extra hour.”
I drop my duffel down on the floor with a heavy whump. I watch her closely as I come into the room with cautiously slow steps. “I wouldn’t want that.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m treading lightly. Literally.”
“Well, stop it,” she commands forcefully. “It’s annoying.”
I smile as I take up my regular stride. “What’s got you in a good mood? Is it something I can bottle and save for a rainy day?”
“No, but you are part of it.”
“That can’t be true.”
She casts me a cryptic smile before handing me a piece of paper she plucks from the seat of a chair. “The donation and voting results so far.”
I snatch the paper from her excitedly. In small, simple font are the names of each team in the competition, along with columns of numbers. One is for the judges’ votes, another for donations, the third is the viewer votes, and the fourth is our total.