Midnight Tango (Dances With The Rock Star Book 1)

by Cynthia Dane

  Olivia lifted her purse strap over her shoulder. “Thanks,” she said. “You too.”

  “You want to get out of here?”

  What? “Uh…”

  “There’s this really good restaurant down the street from here. Sushi. Not something I ever thought I would like, but…”

  “Well…”

  “My treat. Nothing weird.” Rick laughed, and that sort of made things weird. “I want to thank you for being so professional these past two weeks. I know how much a pain in the ass José can be. He’s run off some girls before because he made them cry.”

  Olivia shrugged. “Sure, I guess. I don’t have any other plans.” She would have to text her mother to say she wasn’t having dinner at home that night, but she didn’t dare think about telling her why. Last thing Olivia wanted was to remind her mother what her daughter did for a living. Plus going out with a man, let alone a celebrity man, would raise too many hackles to deal with.

  She thought they would get in a car and drive to this supposedly great sushi restaurant, but Rick merely put on a cap and sunglasses before stepping out into the sunlight. Olivia followed, looking around for anyone who might jump out and take their picture. “Aren’t you worried that we’ll be seen together?” she asked, as they walked down the street. They certainly were not holding hands or acting chummy, but they were alone, and that was enough for a pap to spin a story.

  Rick shrugged. Lackadaisical. Carefree. How could men be so… aware and yet not care? Right, because it wasn’t their “honor” on the line. “I know I’m recognizable. Experience says if I blend in then nobody cares. Besides,” he flashed her that stupid smile, “I don’t worry much in this neighborhood. Security patrols for paps.”

  Thank goodness the restaurant was at the end of the block. Olivia didn’t like feeling paranoid. She got enough of that when she took the bus late at night and all the weirdos came out to perform drug deals in the back and harass the driver up front. I’m still practicing the art of sitting in the middle. Less drama there.

  However, the restaurant was on the third floor of the high-rise. After dancing for a whole week, Olivia was looking forward to relaxing a bit. Elevator? Of course not! Rick had to show off how he could take three steps at a time if he really put his all into it. Grumbling, Olivia ascended slowly, holding her purse strap to her shoulder while her calves whined in pain and her heart asked her, “What is going on? You said we could take a break!”

  The sushi place was small, as they tended to be, and clean with bright wood décor. The place was empty aside from the Japanese sushi chef standing behind the counter preparing for the oncoming dinner rush. “Hey, Shota,” Rick waved, taking off his meager disguise. “What’s fresh today?”

  Olivia sat at the very end of the bar where she could put her purse down by the wall and not have to worry about anyone but Rick sitting next to her. Her muscles were too sore to deal with moving. “The salmon’s always fresh, especially at this time of year,” Shota the sushi chef said. “We also got some fresh crab, if that’s what you’re into.”

  Rick took the stool right next to Olivia, which made her sigh. These stools were pretty close together. Couldn’t he sit one spot down? Not that Olivia found him offensive to be around – she wouldn’t be having dinner with him if that were the case – but sometimes a girl wanted some personal space.

  “What do you like?’ Rick asked, pulling a menu in her direction. “Anything you know you want?”

  “Beer,” she said. “I’m assuming they have beer.”

  “Oh yeah, we got beer,” Shota said, a knife in his hand as he cut cucumbers and eggplants. “Kirin, Sapporo, Asahi… unless you want some other country’s beer, I guess.” He smiled and winked at Olivia. Great. Now two guys would be giving her shit all night.

  “I’ll try the first one. Sounds like ‘clean’ when you say it that way.” That and she couldn’t remember what the others sounded like at all on a Friday evening.

  “I’ll have the usual.” Rick slapped his hand on the counter. “Down the board.”

  While Shota got started on creating Rick’s dinner, Olivia perused the roll menu and wondered when the best time to tell him that she never had sushi before was. That’s a lot of fish. “I don’t really eat seafood,” she finally told Rick. “It’s okay though, I’m not super hungry.” It felt weird having him pay for her anyway. A beer was enough.

  “Sushi doesn’t have to be fish,” Rick said, pulling out a pair of wooden chopsticks from a bin. “That’s a common misconception, though. Sushi is defined by the rice, the vinegar sauce, and of course the nori.”

  “I’m sorry, the what?”

  “Dried seaweed!” Shota held up a long, flat green thing that looked like crinkly wrapping paper. “I can make you vegetarian sushi easily. Raw fish is called sashimi. You like eggplant?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  “I can also cook you some salmon.”

  “That’s okay.” Salmon was good for her, but she wasn’t a huge fan, cooked or raw. “I’ll try vegetarian.”

  Shota put his nose to the grindstone preparing their dinner, but not before delivering their beers, which Olivia opened as soon as possible. Even if it was foreign, she was winding down her athletic week with as many carbs as possible.

  “How do you know so much about sushi?” she asked Rick after taking a drink. Decent. Would probably taste better as she drank more. “You don’t seem like the kind of guy who is all over Japanese food.”

  Rick laughed, but at least this one was genuine and not his usual diffusion shtick. “You don’t know much about me, do you?”

  “I know you’re a good dancer.”

  “Aw. Wait.” He looked at her curiously, those sculpted brows he would never admit to having professionally done traveling up the length of his forehead. “Can you even name one of my songs?”

  “Duh. ‘Midnight Tango.’”

  “I should hope so, considering you were in that video and heard it a million times in one day. Name another one.”

  Olivia named every song of his she knew. Surprise, surprise, they were only the ones on his concert set list. If he noticed, he didn’t let on. He totally noticed. To Rick’s credit, he didn’t make fun of her for not fawning over his talents. “All right, I get it. You know enough about me from working together, but not the stuff anyone who even watches entertainment news would know. No wonder you don’t know about my heritage.”

  “You’re Argentinean.”

  “Only on my mother’s side.” Rick rubbed his stubble. “My father was Brazilian.”

  “What’s that got to do with Japan?”

  “There is a big Japanese population in Brazil. My mother thinks my father may have been Japanese-Brazilian and tried to raise me with some knowledge of the culture. Simple as that. I like sushi. Also, I took jiu-jitsu growing up. Really good for helping you learn to dance…”

  “Wait. She thinks your father was?’

  Shota brought them a plate of beans to munch on while they waited for their sushi. Olivia watched Rick pile some salt on before popping pods to get to the meat of the snack. “He wasn’t around while I was growing up.”

  “I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard on your mother.”

  “Not really.” Rick was through five beans before Olivia ever had one. “My mother liked doing things herself. Having and raising a kid was something else she did. Superwoman.”

  Olivia tried one of the salted beans. It was tangy to the tongue, but the flavor quickly disappeared. She grabbed another one, and soon realized why people popped these like candy. “You sound like you really admire your mother.” There was something to be said for that.

  “Yes, I did. Well, still do I guess. Just because she’s dead doesn’t mean I stop.”

  Olivia dropped a bean. It rolled off the counter and onto the floor, but neither of them bent down to pick it up. “I’m so sorry! I had no idea.’

  “It’s fine. It happened a really long time ago.”

  Even thou
gh he said it was fine, a shadow still fell over Rick’s face. Then he smiled again. That fake one. “Again, I’m sorry,” Olivia said more softly. “How did she…?” So much for being understanding.

  “Cancer. What else?”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Eh, she went quickly.” Rick tapped the chopsticks against the counter, absentmindedly twirling them in his fingers. “The worst part was when she couldn’t dance anymore. One day she was twirling and leaping through her studio, and then the next she was in the hospital.” He didn’t have to say the next part for Olivia. She didn’t come home. “Whatever. Nobody, least of all me, should remember her for that.”

  “What was she like?”

  A mischievous smile pulled at the corner of Rick’s mouth. He leaned one elbow against the counter and took a deep breath. “You know the phrase ‘Amora a prima vista?’”

  Olivia recognized the words, but her Spanish was too fuzzy that exhausted night to put them together. So she shrugged.

  “It means love at first sight. That was her motto. Fall in love, go for it, if it doesn’t work out… well, you tried and hopefully had some fun.” When Olivia gave him another confused look, he continued, “My mother had a lot of loves in her life. Dancing, teaching, traveling… ah, and men, of course.”

  “She sounds interesting, for sure.”

  “She traveled around the world before I was born.” Rick waited for their meals to be placed in front of them and for Shota to go about cleaning his workspace before continuing. “She went all over, learning different dances and savoring cultures she may never see again. Then, I dunno, she got knocked up with me and settled back in the States where she opened up a dance studio. It was always busy growing up. Everyone wanted to take lessons from Angelina Rodriguez. Was pretty awesome to grow up in.”

  “Oh?”

  “Hell yeah! I would come home from school and there would be people from all over the world hanging out. I met so many dancers and instructors. They would give my mom and I lessons in exchange for lessons from her. My mother really believed in bartering. We got lessons, world foods, things, books… I took French lessons for a while from some poor sap who wanted to learn how to dance the tango in order to become a pro. We didn’t have a whole lot, and there were times I didn’t get to see her much and was babysat by some of her students so she could work, but she always said, ‘Ricardo, you can love life as long as you let yourself love life.’”

  Only one thing stuck out to Olivia. “Your name is Ricardo, huh?”

  “Shh. I need to keep my old man name under wraps. Just don’t call me Ricky.”

  “Ahaha, like Ricky Martin?”

  Olivia soon got the point when she saw the exasperated look on Rick’s face. “Do you know how many times I got called that in high school? Shit.”

  “Sorry, sorry.”

  ‘Hey, eat your sushi.” Rick jabbed at Olivia’s plate with his unused chopsticks. “You don’t know what you’re missing. This stuff’s good. And look, no fish!”

  Olivia tried to remember how to hold chopsticks as imparted to her from many nights ordering in Chinese at her house. However, her culturally lazy family often just unearthed a hoard of forks to eat their chow mein and Kung-Pow chicken. When she dropped one of the wooden chopsticks onto the floor, she grimaced and pulled out another pair.

  “Watch how you break them open. You want to do it as cleanly as possible, because then you’ll have good luck.”

  “Hai, sensei.” Olivia snapped the chopsticks apart only to have them break across the top. “Oops. No good luck for me.”

  “Here.” Rick reached over and took Olivia’s hand. She stared at this uninvited touch, wondering if this man realized what the hell he was doing. Personal space, dude! Just because you put your hands all over me in the studio doesn’t mean I want you… Oh, he was trying to show her how to hold chopsticks.

  Olivia was well aware of what Rick’s hands felt like by now. After all, she had them on her arms, legs, sides, and even shoulders for many days. Yet he rarely put them on her bare skin. Usually she wore a jacket and pants for their dances, so to have his hand entwined with hers as he tried to show her how best to hold a pair of chopsticks for eating went straight to her gut. Specifically, it unleashed a flurry of butterflies in her stomach, each of them bumping into her heart, which in turn thumped against her rib cage. Why am I reacting like this? Yes, Olivia thought that Rick was hot. That first time they danced together was unlike anything she ever experienced before. Only when they became highly choreographed did that feeling fade. Now, when Rick gently touched her out of his own desire to do so, she could feel that strange thing coming over her again.

  When she next realized that Rick was no longer touching her, she glanced down to see her hand holding the pair of chopsticks as they were meant to be held. Olivia followed Rick’s lead and picked up one of the rolls of sushi, flawlessly bringing it up to her mouth and giving it a nibble. She didn’t quite expect the punch of flavor. Once it was done shocking her tongue, Olivia put the roll down again and covered her mouth with her hand while she chewed. Crunchy. “It’s good,” she said. “Thanks for making me try it.”

  Rick continued to watch her eat as his chopsticks poked the top of his rolls. “So I don’t know anything about you. Why don’t you tell me a bit about yourself?”

  “Huh?” Olivia dropped her roll back onto her plate. “I don’t know what I would say about myself. I’m pretty boring.” She caught his disbelieving look and said, “I’m serious. I’m an average girl.”

  “Come on, give me at least something. For example, how did you get into dancing?”

  Olivia pondered the two remaining rolls on her plate. “That’s a long story,” she said. “I guess the simple answer is that my grandmother got me into it.”

  “Tell me more.”

  She shrugged. “My grandmother was from Colombia. Nobody else in my family is from around there, so she was a bit of a fish out of water. I guess her mother-in-law tried to make her as white bread as possible back in the ‘50s, but my grandmother was always a rebellious sort. When I was born, she told my father that she was going to turn me into a star. My grandmother was too old to dance at that point, but she had me watching all these videos whenever she babysat me, and the next thing I knew she had paid for me to attend dance lessons. I loved it, and that made her happy.”

  Rick was silent for a while, giving Olivia time to eat more food. When he did speak again, it was with an understanding tone. “Good thing we had some women in our lives who knew what we really needed.”

  Our situations are a bit different. Olivia grew up with an extended family, while Rick only had his mother and the people who passed through her studio. Even if Olivia’s family weren’t the most supportive people in the world, she at least had them to rely on. She never had to really worry about her parents running out of money, having a roof over her head, or no food on the table. Sure, they weren’t even upper-middle-class, but she never wanted for anything. Here I am assuming he grew up in squalor. Olivia further chastised herself and looked away.

  “So now I know why you really got into Latin dance. Except I don’t know anything else about you.”

  Olivia ate her last roll and drank from her beer. “And you won’t know anything else about me tonight.” She picked up her purse and slipped off her stool. “Thank you for the food. I’m afraid I need to get going now.”

  Rick’s face dropped as if she just said she was quitting dance forever. “The fun just began though.”

  Purse strap on shoulder, Olivia turned around long enough to wink at him. “Let’s save some of the fun for next time.” When she stepped out of the restaurant, her breath pushing through her mouth, Olivia had to stop and contemplate the man she left behind. Why did I leave so early? She didn’t have anywhere to be. She was a grown woman and could stay out as late as she wanted.

  Then she remembered the way her heart fluttered when Rick touched her hand. That man was dangerous. Olivia wouldn’t l
et chemistry cloud her professional judgment.

  6

  On one of his rare days off before he was set to leave for his first world tour, Rick sat in his apartment, bored… and lonely.

  He was used to boredom. Whenever someone left him alone during the day he often found himself staring out the window, mindlessly strumming his guitar, or playing games on his phone. I can’t sit still and relax. Growing up in a vibrant, exciting world of dance and culture had made him come to expect certain things. For one, he expected to always be with someone. Even when his mother wasn’t around he had some unique guest to swap stories with after school. These days he was usually working with people or out on a date.

  The other thing he expected was excitement. People, of course, brought excitement, but he was also used to finding it on his own. Before the fame, Rick would wander the streets on a sunny day, looking for new holes in the wall and joining games of basketball in parks. Then he became famous. Seemingly overnight. Suddenly Rick couldn’t go out without a bodyguard and a goofy disguise that only made him stand out more.

  So here he was, a sunny day off, and he had nothing to do. Everyone was too busy to hang out. He couldn’t go out without supervision. Being holed up in his apartment was fun only until he fully woke up, ate a late lunch, and watched one show on TV. Rick tried to write a song, but his brain wasn’t with it that day. Come tour time he would be teeming with ideas, he was sure, but until then…

  His phone buzzed. It was a text from Fiona. “What are you doing today, sugar?”

  Rick would bet that she wanted him to say her. “Day off. Just chillin’.”

  “So you got some time for me?”

  Those words remained on Rick’s screen, staring back at him for far too long. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Fiona. She was fun, flirtatious, and definitely sexy. A triple threat. The kind of girl Rick usually liked. Except he was trying to move away from the flings and bed buddies. Fiona had made it clear more than once that she wasn’t interested in a serious relationship. Neither was Rick, really. And yet I’m tired of it right now. He wanted fun, but mindless fun was getting old.