I started talking, and it was as if my brain and soul took over. “I want to run. I love running. I want to dance. I need the movement, the expression.” I felt tears, and didn’t bother stopping them. “I don’t want to dance professionally anymore. I don’t. I lost that—that part of me died in that car, I think. I just…I don’t have the will to do that any longer. And…” I sobbed, a hiccup. “And that’s okay. I have to grieve it. I have to be okay without that. I just…I don’t know what it means for me. Dance is who I am, who I’ve been my whole life. But what do I want now? I want to put the accident behind me. I want to move normally, like I used to. Run, dance, jump, all of it. That’s what I want.”
He nodded. “I’ll have you walking without a limp, or much less of one, in a couple weeks. Running short distances a few weeks after that. By fall, you’ll be dancing and the past’ll all be a bad memory.” He smiled at me, and something about him just…encouraged me. “Focus on that, on those goalposts. By the time you get there I think you’ll know what you want, long term.”
Two weeks passed, and I missed Ink worse than I thought it was possible to miss anyone.
I’d learned from Mom that he’d taken a leave of absence from his tattoo shop and was living at his remote hunting cabin somewhere outside Anchorage. To give me space, she said.
Somehow, that made me miss him all the more—it made me care more. Because I did need the space. I needed him out of my life so I could focus on me. If he was here, I wouldn’t be able to do that. I’d want him.
Need him.
Think about him.
Be with him.
Learn him.
Damn him…he’d been right. I’d been using him as a distraction from the work I needed to do on myself.
And then, to give me space, he’d left his home, his job, his family, his friends, and me—for whatever it was I meant to him—so I could do what was needed to be who I needed to be.
I was grateful to him, for that.
But holy shit, I did miss him.
I let myself think about him—really truly openly deeply think about him—but only once a day. At night, in bed before I went to sleep I’d bring up an image of him, hear his voice, feel his voice. See his eyes. Feel his hands on my skin. His kiss.
I’d let myself remember his mouth between my legs. His hardness inside me. His kisses drowning me, drugging me.
I’d remember him, all of him, allow myself to want him, let myself need him.
I’d touch myself thinking about him, bring myself to orgasm and wish it were him doing it.
And then I’d fall asleep, wishing his arms were around me.
When I woke up, I’d put aside all thoughts and memories of Ink, and focus on my day. Coffee. Stretching. Testing movement, feeling myself for aches, pain, tweaks, twinges. Walk over to Bax’s gym. Work out until I was totally sapped—conditioning, strength, toning, muscle building, flexibility as well as working on rejuvenating my bad leg.
The two weeks became three, and I was able to walk without limping, and could run a mile, almost two before the deep throbbing ache in the muscle and bone started again.
But the more time passed, the more I missed Ink.
And the more I realized how much he’d come to mean to me in a bizarrely short time.
I’d fallen for him.
I’d caught feelings, and I was okay with that.
But now…now I wanted more than just feelings. And I was beginning to understand what he’d told me about not falling in love, that it wasn’t an accident, or something beyond control, a black-and-white you-are-or-you-aren’t thing.
It was an organic, living thing. You grew love.
I had the feelings, the connection, and the attraction.
But I wanted more.
It was going to take work, and it would be a risk. I could hurt him, he could hurt me. We would fight. There’d be times we wouldn’t feel love.
But I wanted the process. I wanted the work.
And I wanted it with him.
So, four weeks and three days after meeting Baxter, I sat across from him in his office. “I’m taking some time off my rehab.”
He set his pen down, flipped the folder of his financial reports closed, and propped his feet on the desk. “Oh?”
I nodded. “I have to go talk to Ink.”
He lifted his chin, hands behind his head, a knowing grin on his face. “About fuckin’ time, sweetheart.”
I frowned. “I haven’t talked to you about him, like, at all. I don’t let myself think about him during the day. I focus on me during the day.”
He rolled his eyes. “I hope you don’t think you’re good at hiding your feelings, Cassie-Lassie, cuz you ain’t.” He just laughed. “I’ve watched you shake him out of your head at least once an hour every single day for the last month.”
I laughed. “You are far too observant for a barely sentient gorilla.”
He snorted. “You just wear your entire self on your sleeve.” A gentle smile. “It’s a good thing.”
I let silence wreathe between us—he had quickly become one of my best friends, which was weird because I’d always thought it was impossible to have a real and truly platonic friendship with a heterosexual member of the opposite sex. But then I’d met his wife, and I understood. Not only was she one of the most ridiculously, extravagantly, absurdly voluptuous women I’d ever seen in person in my life, she was breathtakingly beautiful in a classic, early Hollywood sort of way, and was also the sweetest and most genuinely kind person I’d ever met.
I simply understood that I could never hold a candle to her, and I understood that that was okay, that I didn’t have to feel like less of a woman because of that. He loved her absolutely, and she him, and she trusted him. Of course, she still made a point to come by the gym a few times a day to say hi and kiss him and let him rub her round pregnant belly, and to chat with me.
So we were friends, Bax and I.
It was a friendship I valued, and appreciated. He’d helped me find myself again. Helped me center my life. I was running again, slow and not far, but running. Dancing, gently and carefully.
He’d helped me, but I’d done the work.
Now it was time to put Ink back into my life.
Bax was eyeing me, and I recognized the thoughtful look on his face. “Uh-oh,” I said. “You’re thinking.”
He shrugged. “Been thinking.”
“About what?”
He set his feet on the floor, waved at the plate glass window and the gym on the other side. “Expansion. Adding another trainer.” A glance at me. “Adding classes.”
“Classes?” I asked, a pit opening in my stomach, one filled with butterflies and possibilities.
“Yeah. There’s a market for…” he paused, chewing on the right phrasing. “A certain kind of fitness instructor. Which I am not. Lots of tourists around here, lots of younger women and certain kinds of men, too.”
“Quit waffling and say it, bonehead.”
He grinned; he truly did respond best to good-natured but brutal teasing. “Dance classes.”
I sighed. “You’re creating something to throw me a bone.”
He ignored that, rifling in a drawer and coming up with a notebook, battered, dog-eared, filled with Post-It Notes and folded down page corners. He opened it, flipped toward the front. “This is my ideas book. Like a journal sort of, but for shit I want to do and how to get there.”
“Okay.”
“I date each page, each entry. So I can refer to when I had the idea, because usually there’s other shit I’m thinking about related to it, and I need to reference it.”
I nodded. “Following you so far. What’s your point?”
He rotated the book and slid it to me. “Look at the date.”
I did—it was dated six months before I ever met him. “Okay.”
He tapped a line item, scrawled in messy, barely legible handwriting that was a mix of all-caps and cursive: Expansion ideas—classes. Boxing? MMA? Self-de
fense martial arts. Anti-rape defense skills for women. Dance fitness? Find dance instructor, I don’t fucking dance. Zumba or some shit. Women love that shit.
I laughed. “Okay, okay. You were thinking about it before you met me.” I rolled my eyes at him. “What’s your point?”
A shrug. “I’m just laying out a possibility. I’ve not found the right person, someone who I get along with, who represents the mentality my gym is built around. Someone who can dance, and who understands fitness. My thought was, the classes would use dance to teach flexibility, movement, whole-body understanding, provide aerobic conditioning, strength. But it has to be the right person teaching.”
I swallowed. “Bax.”
He closed the notebook. “You could do it. I’d like it, personally, if you did it. One class a week to start. You create it—it’d be your baby. We could do a thing where people can take just the classes by themselves for one fee, per class or a group of classes, or get a discount if they join the gym to use the weight equipment and get one free training session per month with me, along with access to your classes, and we’d split those fees down the middle.”
I shifted on my chair. “I feel like the injured dancer who takes up teaching is such a cliché, though.”
He blew a raspberry. “Yeah, and? You love to dance. You’re out of the professional world, the competitive world. This lets you dance.” An arched eyebrow. “Plus, you’re hella fit. You clearly enjoy fitness, being active, being strong. Get certified as a personal trainer, put your shingle out next to mine.”
I dragged my hair out of the ponytail, finger-combed it, rebound it. “I’ve been doing a lot of yoga with my mom since I moved here,” I said, letting myself conjecture out loud. “I’m really good at yoga, and I love it. I’ve been thinking of getting licensed to teach that.”
He nodded. “Do it.” A wave. “Do the yoga cert, the trainer cert, and while you’re getting those, start up the dance class and, as you build a clientele, add more services.”
I felt a little giddy. “I would love to teach yoga.” I couldn’t help grinning, letting excitement bubble over. “When I lived in Paris, at least once a week I had someone at the gym mistake me for a personal trainer and ask me for advice, and I remember thinking, if I ever stop dancing, I should be a personal trainer.”
He nodded. “You’ll kill at it.”
I eyed the gym space. “Where would the classes go, though? All your floor space is dedicated.”
He grinned and opened the folder that he had been working on. “The warehouse next to this one is about half this size, but they’re separated by only about twenty feet. That warehouse is for sale for wicked cheap. I put in an offer, super lowball, and they took it. It’s, like, a steal. Legit. Anyway. I had a contractor take a look, and he said I—we—could connect the two super easy. Wall off the empty space between each building at either end, roof it over, insulate everything, put in doors, connect the electrical and shit, and bam, I’ve got two connected warehouses, with a new twenty-by-one-hundred-foot space between them. More lockers. Changing rooms. Some chairs, a TV. Then the new warehouse becomes class space. It could be designed with flexible instruction spaces that could even be rented out to independent teachers, you know like, tap or ballet, meditation, whatever.”
My mind was buzzing, and I felt an excitement I hadn’t felt since the last time I stepped on stage.
“You know, when I was dancing I made good money. Saved most of it, as my ex-fiancé and I lived in an apartment his parents owned, so I had super low living expenses. Meaning, I’ve got a good bit saved, since I’ve been living with Mom and she won’t let me help with money. Plus, there was an insurance settlement payout, which wasn’t anything to sneeze at.”
He just looked at me, waiting for me to continue.
“So,” I continued. “What if we go in fifty-fifty on the new space and reno costs?”
He held an open but neutral expression on his face. “So you’re all in? No backing out, no second thoughts, don’t need time to consider? This is what you want? For you? No bullshit. You know—you know you want this.”
I nodded, unable to hide my excitement. I wanted this. I now had a future here, in Ketchikan. This was where I had Mom, where I had my new friendship and soon-to-be partnership with Baxter. This is where Ink lived.
This was home, and the realization hit me like a ton of bricks. In the last few minutes, here in Bax’s office, my life had changed and had taken on new meaning. Suddenly I could see the future, and it looked exciting.
“I want this, Bax. I want to teach dance and yoga and become a personal trainer. It all makes so much sense, and I can’t thank you enough.”
He broke into a boyishly excited grin. Stuck out his hand, and we shook. “Partners?”
“Partners.” I laughed. “Don’t you, you know, need to consult Eva?”
He pointed behind me—I twisted to see Eva, standing in the doorway looking as if she’d been there a long time. “Duh.”
Eva came in, bent over, and gave me an upside-down and from behind hug. “Congratulations, Cass.”
I wiggled, too excited to hold still. “Oh, Eva. I’m so excited. I gotta go tell Mom.”
Eva held my hand, kept me from bolting off. “I’m taking you for a girls’ night out to celebrate.”
I hugged her. “Oh, that would be awesome.”
“And not just me—the whole pack.”
I cackled. “Pack?”
“We girls of the Badd clan.” She grinned. “You haven’t lived till you’ve been out with all of us. It’s wild.”
I blinked. “How many of you—us—are there? And do I even count? Ink isn’t a Badd.”
“Ink is an honorary Badd,” Bax said. “And you’re my business partner, and your mom is shacked up with Uncle Lucas. You’re one of us in at least four different ways.”
“That’s three ways, dear,” Eva corrected.
“What the fuck ever,” he said, waving. “Three, then. Point is, yes, you’re in their pack.”
I smiled at their good-natured banter. “So, who’s in the pack?”
She took a deep breath. “Dru, Mara, Claire, me, Tate, Aerie, Joss, and Low.” A smile. “Plus your mom, and now you.”
I blinked. “I’ve laid eyes on everyone at least once, I think, except for Low. I’ve not met her.”
“Her real name is Harlow Grace,” she said. “She’s Xavier’s fiancé and he’s the youngest of Baxter’s family.”
“Harlow Grace, as in…”
“The actress, yes.” Eva shrugged. “We don’t think of her that way, though. She’s just family. She and Xavier split their time between Hollywood, Silicon Valley where Xavier’s robotics startup has offices, and here. So they’re only here part of the year, but they’re in town right now for a few months. They got in…?” She glanced at her husband for assistance.
“This morning, early,” Bax said. “I haven’t seen them yet, but we’re all supposed to meet at the bar for lunch.” He’d been on his phone, which he now put down, and winked at me. “Brock has the plane ready, by the way.”
I frowned. “What? Plane? What do you mean?”
“My next oldest brother, Brock is a pilot, and has his own seaplane. He took Ink up north.” He shrugged. “I mean, you’re not planning to drive to Talkeetna, are you? I hear it’s, like, a forty-some hour drive.”
I laughed. “Well, since I don’t even have a driver’s license, no.”
He furrowed his brow. “You don’t know how to drive?”
I shook my head. “After I graduated high school I moved to New York to study dance, and then ended up in Paris. Just never got a license. Never needed one.”
“So Brock can fly you up there when you’re ready.”
I moved around to hug him. “Thank you, Bax, for everything. You’ve just changed my life.”
He hugged me tight and then gave me a playful shove. “Thank you. We’re gonna make bank on this, you know. I’ve had people asking about classes of differe
nt kinds for years.”
I waved to both of them as I headed for the door. “I’ll see you…whenever I get back. No clue when that will be.”
“Getcha some, girl!” Bax shouted.
Whack. “Baxter Badd. Don’t be crude.”
“Have you met me?” I heard Baxter reply.
“Intimately, yes.”
I just laughed as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. It had been a gloomy, overcast day with low, heavy clouds hanging over the water. And there had been a light drizzle on and off all day. But when I emerged and started jogging, as if to validate my decisions, the sun peeked out from behind a break in the clouds and bathed me in a bright ray of warm sun which stayed with me all the way back to Mom’s condo.
Ink
Brock had flown me right into Talkeetna, situated up north with Mt. McKinley white-capped in the distance, and wild Alaska just steps beyond the town. After I’d said goodbye to Brock, I spent a couple of hours collecting more supplies—mostly perishable food items. And I did what I usually do in such situations: I fell back on my childhood and the week-long hunting trips with Dad, or one of my uncles, or cousins.
I cut some long poles out of fallen branches, and used some of the hemp twine I always carried to fasten smaller branches into a basket between the poles, which I’d crossed into an X at one end. This done, I had a crude but effective travois, a kind of sled which I piled with my gear and supplies. Then I plaited more twine into a long, thick strap and tied the ends together where the poles crossed. I hooked the strap around my shoulders, leaned into it, and started for my cabin.
For A Goode Time Call... Page 21