by Tracey Ward
Resilient as fuck.
“What’s been your mom’s favorite dance so far?” Sutton asks curiously.
“I think it was the Jive. She said we looked really in sync on that one.”
“I agree with her. She has a good eye.”
“She hated the song, though.”
Sutton laughs, glancing over her shoulder at me. “Seriously? Why?”
“She said it’s depressing.”
“No.”
“It’s called Breakup Every Night. The girl comes over for a quicky every night and then bails. It’s a bummer.”
“Why? Because a woman is acting like a man? Does that depress you, Shane?”
I smile. “Easy, Boss. I’m saying it’d be a depressing song no matter who did the bailing. A guy or a girl.”
“Are you saying you’ve never had a one-night-stand?”
“No, but that’s different.”
“How?”
“A one-night-stand is two people having a hookup. That song is about a girl who comes over saying she wants to be with him, she wants to be in love, but then in the morning she’s gone. Every single time. She’s addicted to the drama. That’s messed up.”
“Hmm,” she hums with a frown.
I chuckle knowingly. “I know that ‘hmm’.”
“You do, do you?”
“I do. It means, ‘You’re wrong, Shane, but I’m not going to fight about it because it’s not worth it. I’ll wait to fight about something fun, like how big your hands are and what your feet smell like’.”
Her body sags impatiently. “Okay, first of all—”
“Here we go,” I laugh.
“—your hands are huge. That’s not my fault. And second, your feet smell like rotten asparagus.”
“I started spraying all of my shoes with deodorizer!”
“And the world thanks you for it!”
“I’d be happy if just you thanked me for it. Just once.”
Sutton sighs heavily as she leans forward to touch her toes. “Thank you, Shane.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear that.”
She turns her head to shout at me with a smile, “Thank you, Shane!”
“You’re welcome, Sutton!”
I stretch forward over my legs, touching my toes the way she is. I’ve gotten more limber in the last five weeks. I was always in shape but now I can stretch in ways I never knew I should. I feel it when I’m on the field, too. I’m more elastic in my muscles and joints. I like the feeling. I plan on keeping some of the moves Sutton has taught me in my workout routine to maintain it.
“Is your mom excited to come to this week’s show?”
“God yes,” I laugh. “Are you still going to the airport with me to get her?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you don’t want to be seen with me.”
“Don’t be a dick.”
I smile, burying my face in my knees. I let the weight of my upper body fold me in half over my legs. It hurts but it feels good too, like a lot of things in life.
“I can’t wait to meet her,” Sutton continues. “I can’t imagine a woman large enough to give birth to your big head.”
“Shmf mrden ighta nfoo,” I answer into my lap
“Nope. I didn’t get any of that.”
I sit up straight. “I said, she’s excited to meet you. She can’t imagine a woman patient enough to put up with my shit.”
“That’s not what you said. That’s not what she thinks. And I’m not patient enough for your shit. You drive me nuts.”
“You act like it, but it’s not true.” I bend my legs, bringing my heels together in front of me. “You like me. You might even love me. I’ve made it onto The List. Everyone can see it.”
“Oh, they can, can they?”
“Stalling.”
“What?”
“You’re stalling,” I repeat clearly. “You always ask questions like that when you’re stalling or uncomfortable with what we’re talking about. ‘They can, can they? You do, do you? I have, have I?’ It’s your tell.”
She’s not convinced. “Really? And what does it tell you?”
“Not much. I just noticed it is all.”
“Yeah, well, stop noticing me.”
I laugh. “Fine. I’ll stop.”
The door to our rehearsal room opens without a knock. Sutton turns to glare at whoever is barging into her sanctuary. Her scowl deepens when she sees the camera crew.
“Do you have time for us?” Deb asks, but she’s only being polite. We don’t have a choice in this. If we don’t let them film us right now, they’ll be back in an hour. They’ll keep popping in until we give them what they need, and Sutton will go absolutely insane with the interruptions.
Sutton nods reluctantly. “Sure. Why not?”
“McKay wants us to get some footage of you practicing the lift in your number.”
“He does, does he?”
I snicker at her feet.
“Oh, shut up,” she snaps at me. “It doesn’t always mean I’m uncomfortable. Sometimes I do it because I’m pissed.”
“You do, do you?”
“Fuck off.”
Deb’s eyes bounce between me and Sutton. “Are you sure this isn’t a bad time?”
“Interrupting rehearsals is always bad timing,” Sutton answers coolly. “But we have to do it, right?”
“Right.”
“Great. Then we’re ready for you.” She puts her hands on her hips, watching Scott set up the camera. “Anything you want from us besides the lift?”
Deb checks her clipboard. “McKay was hoping you could talk about the Jazz genre a little. Can you explain to Shane and the viewers what makes a dance Jazz?”
“Sure.”
“You want me to ask about it so it looks natural?” I ask Deb.
“That’d be ideal, yeah. Thanks, Shane.”
“Anything you need.”
“Quit sucking up,” Sutton scolds. “Let’s get it over with so we can get to work.”
I rise slowly, smiling at Deb. “Do you guys ever think about airing footage of her talking like that? Just for the fun of it?”
“All the time,” Deb answers drolly.
“You can,” Sutton tells her plainly. “I don’t care. I’ll be real for the camera.”
“Nope. Sorry. Real is not what the doctor orders.”
“McKay is one of the only people in the world you’re nice to. He thinks you’re sweet,” I remind Sutton. “He probably wants everyone else to think the same.”
Deb shakes her head. “Nope. It’s not McKay. He knows what she’s really like. He wants to shoot the real her but Eric won’t let us. He’s hell bent on making Sutton America’s sweetheart.”
I make a point of not looking at Sutton when Eric’s name is mentioned. I don’t want anyone catching it. If we start sharing furtive glances every time he comes up, people will talk. Questions will be asked and rumors will start going around. I wonder if they already have. When Sutton and Eric were flirting years ago, did anyone notice? I caught on to the weird vibe between them when I first started the show, but I didn’t realize what was really going on. Sutton has been alone with it for over a year, and my heart beats hard with frustration that there was no one to help her.
Her fuckin’ mom. If I was the kind of guy who was willing to hit a woman…
“Can we start?” Sutton asks briskly.
I smile at her clipped tone. At her absolutely unbreakable will. “Ready when you are, Boss.”
Deb nods silently when the camera is rolling. Before the lift, we run through the opening of the dance where it kicks into gear. I can see it all in my mind. The stage will be dark, the lights pure white. A stained-glass window will be up behind us, implying we’re in a church, and we’ll both be dressed in bright, happy colors that imply springtime and rebirth. This number is pure joy and I can feel it when I start to move. I feel the lightness in my limbs.
Sutton smiles at me proudly when we
finish the first combination. We run through the start of the number again, giving the cameras a second chance at different angles. They’ll chop it all together later in the comfort of the booth upstairs. Eric will probably be there, watching. I take some serious joy in the fact that he’ll see Sutton smiling at me. When she hugs me after the second run through, I hold her a little longer than I normally would. Just for good measure.
I’m getting territorial about her. When I look at Sutton, I feel pride, desire, and something else. It’s new for me. It’s a need I can feel in my heart and my head, but I don’t know how to satisfy it. Fucking doesn’t quench it. Kissing doesn’t curb it. The only time I feel the least bit of relief from it is when she looks up at me with her eyes full of a softness that I never see her give to anyone else. When she melts into my arms against my body and she feels like forever, like she’s doing right now. I feel sated when I hold her like this.
I’m not an idiot. I’ve never felt it before but I know what it is.
I’m falling in love with her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SUTTON
Shane’s mom is like a kid at Christmas. The second we brought her onto the KBC lot, she was wiggling in her seat excitedly. She can’t believe she’s about to see the stage where her favorite show goes down. She’s been protesting for the last hour that she doesn’t have to see it, she’ll see everything tomorrow when the show airs, but it’s half-hearted politeness. She’s dying to get her feet on that stage.
Shane was worried about bringing her here after dinner. I think he’s afraid we’ll get in trouble with Eric, but I say fuck him. What can he do? Fire me?
“It looks deserted,” Lynn comments as we pull through the gates onto the lot.
Shane has finally put the roof and doors on his Jeep. He did it for his mom. When I saw the way they greeted each other at the airport, I felt a tug in my stomach that felt a lot like homesickness. I miss my mom and that feels messed up. It still hurts, though. Even after everything she put me through and the hundreds of ways she screwed me up, she was still my mom. My dad was never around. I barely knew the guy growing up, but my mom was there for all of my firsts. She gave me flowers after my first performance on Broadway. She was there in the audience when I won my first Tony. She was my date to my first gala event, giving me my first sip of alcohol that would turn out to be my last. She taught me how to sing. She taught me how to dance.
For better or worse, she molded me into the woman I am today, and when Shane’s mom immediately pulled me into a bracing hug at the airport, I felt an emptiness in a dark corner of myself that I know no one will ever be able to fill. It will be my mother’s greatest legacy.
“It’s pretty empty right now, but there are people filming,” I assure her. “TV shows and movies that are getting night shots will be on the outdoor sets. Some of them might be inside burning the midnight oil.”
“Will anyone else be inside the Dance the Night Away studio?”
Shane chuckles. “What’s the matter, Mom? Me and Sutton aren’t celebrity enough for you?’
“No! Of course you are. But I wouldn’t say no to meeting Jerry Feagan.” She turns in her seat to look back at me where I’m sitting behind her. “I was a huge Paper Turbine fan in the nineties. I had every album.”
“I’ve never listened to any of their music,” I confess.
“That’s fine. They were terrible. But Jerry was so sexy, I’d listen to him read me the phonebook if he wanted to.”
“Gross,” Shane mutters.
“I can see Jerry being sexy,” I admit. “He’s sort of a silver fox now.”
“He was a ginger back then,” Lynn tells me excitedly.
“Also gross,” Shane mumbles.
“Don’t be mean, Shane. Sutton is probably friends with Jerry and she doesn’t want to listen to you insulting him.”
“Sutton doesn’t have friends, Mom.”
“Shane!”
“No, it’s true,” I agree with him amicably. “I don’t usually like people.”
“But you and Shane seem to get along well.”
“Shane isn’t like most people.”
I feel Shane glance at me in the rearview mirror, but I don’t meet his eyes. I’m worried that if I do, his mom will see what’s between us. I don’t want any questions about what we are or where we’re going. I can’t answer them tonight and I definitely don’t want to lie to Lynn. She’s as sweet as her son. They’re both the kind of inherently good people that make my stomach squirm with nervousness, worried they’ll see what a mess I am inside.
“We’re here,” Mom whispers to herself happily.
Shane chuckles as he pulls into his usual parking spot. “You don’t have to whisper, Mom. It’s not a church.”
“Maybe not to you,” I remind him.
“Right. Sorry, ladies. I’ll mind my manners.”
We tumble out of the Jeep together. Lynn is barely taller than I am and I’m a little relieved to see her struggle with the monster as much as I do.
“You should really get running rails on this thing,” she complains to Shane.
“I can’t. It’d ruin the lift height.”
“What’s a running rail?” I ask.
Lynn gestures to the doors we just fell out of. “It’s a bar that sits a little below the door to give you something to step on to climb up inside. Most lifted trucks have them.”
“Most lifted trucks are lifted for show, not to clear a log in the middle of the woods,” Shane complains. “I’m not getting them.”
Sutton stares at me in amazement. “We’ve been mountain climbing our way up into that thing all night and you could have step stools installed?”
“Hey! I help you get in.”
“Maybe we want to get in without help!”
“Are you going to stay out here yelling at me all night or should we go inside?”
“It’s nice to see that you have a woman who’s yelling at you,” Lynn tells him fondly. “You’re the kind of man that needs yelling at.”
“Wow. Thanks, Mom.”
“You are who you are, Shane.”
When we get to the door, it’s locked. The place is as deserted as the rest of the lot. Lynn’s disappointment is palpable, though she tries to hide it. She suggests that we call it a night. It’s been a long day of traveling for her, and me and Shane have to be back here early tomorrow for the dress rehearsal. All good points, but I’m no quitter.
Plus, I have a key.
“Do all the regulars have a key?” Shane asks quietly when we get inside. He watches as I punch a series of numbers into a lit pad before flicking on a light to scare away the darkness. “And an alarm code?”
I give him a stern look that tells him to stop asking questions.
He promptly shuts the hell up.
The truth is, no one else has a key. Or codes. I shouldn’t have them either, but I got them from Eric over a year ago. He saw the obsession in me. I refused to leave when everyone else was supposed to so he caved and gave me my own means of locking up. He had other reasons for the generosity, though. One late night when he ‘just happened’ to come back to the studio was when we first had sex. A lot of what went on between us happened in this building. It’s haunted in that way. I can feel his hands pulling at my hair as I pass through the shadows of the coffin room. I can taste his beloved lemon drops on his tongue when we make it to the stage. But once I flick on the main lights and Shane’s mom giggles with delight, the ghosts are gone. They’re run off by new feelings, new smells, new sounds that make me sigh with relief down to my marrow.
“It’s smaller than I imagined it,” Lynn confesses in a hushed voice.
“The angles they shoot from make it look larger,” I explain. “And the edges of the audience are always dark so you have no idea how far back the seating goes. It’s not as much as you’d think.”
“Where will I be sitting tomorrow?”
Shane points to the front row along the right side of the stag
e. “Right there. Across from the judges.”
“Up close and personal with Jerry,” I tease.
Lynn smiles ruefully. “I’ll be sure to bring my camera.”
I frown apologetically. “You can’t. They don’t allow phones or personal cameras in the studio while we’re filming.”
“But you’ll be able to have it after the show when we take you backstage to meet everyone,” Shane promises.
Lynn smiles gratefully. She rocks on her feet, her hands held loosely together in front of her.
“You can go on up if you want to.”
The words are not even fully out of my mouth before she rushes for the stage.
I laugh at her excitement. She’s so enthralled by the entire thing, it brings me back to the first time I stepped into the studio. I felt the same way she does now – like I couldn’t wait. Like I wanted to take the world in one bite and swallow it whole.
“Thank you for this,” Shane tells me quietly.
I glance up at him. His handsome face is happy and smiling. Relaxed like I’ve never seen him. “It’s not a big deal.”
“It is to me.” He looks at his mom exploring every corner of the stage with a massive grin on her face. They have the same smile. They have the same kind of easiness inside of them. It makes me very aware of how complicated I am. “She follows football for me, but she doesn’t love it. She never has. This show, though,” he chuckles to himself, turning his eyes to mine. “She loves this show. She loves you and she loves us together on it. Calling her after every episode to break it down with her is the closest we’ve ever been and it’s awesome. It means a lot to me. So, thank you, Sutton, because I wouldn’t have made it this far without you and that means I wouldn’t have that connection with her.” He nudges me gently with his elbow. “I owe you.”