Dancing for the Lord The Academy - By Emily Goodman Page 0,42
was the case, why dance with her?
Nicholas sighed. “Honestly?” he asked slowly.
She nodded. Might as well get it all out in the open up front. Worst case scenario, he tells me he’s secretly in love with her, she decided.
Nicholas was silent for several moments, his thumb tracing over her hand over and over again as he worked out the best way to say the words that he needed to say. “Kat’s good,” he said slowly. “I mean, she’s hard to work with, self-centered and self-serving, and her attitude leaves a lot to be desired…but she’s good. She has this incredible work ethic, and she’ll work herself into the ground if that’s what it takes for her to get things right. And she’s not like one of those girls who won’t work with her partner if he needs her help for something. She’ll go over it again and again, until I finally get it, and never issue a word of complaint.”
“Sounds like a pretty decent partner,” Danni said slowly.
“She is if what you want is to be the best.” Nicholas threw his good arm over his eyes; surprised, Danni realized that she was holding the bad one. Well, if he wanted to let go, he was more than welcome to; she knew from experience that guys were more likely to pull away than they were to initiate contact. “She’s not if what you want is a partner that you actually like—or one that, at the end of the day, you’re proud to claim, instead of ashamed.”
She winced. “She can’t be all that bad,” she pointed out.
“I just said she’s not,” Nicholas reminded her. “And Kat…she has her good points. She’s dedicated, for one thing; and she’s fair. She’s just as hard on herself as she is on anyone else.”
“Kat,” Danni said slowly. “That alone implies that you’re pretty close to her.”
“Oh, she hates it.” Nicholas grinned. “It’s…well, it started off as a little bit of a joke, and turned into a bit of not-so-subtle revenge.”
Danni frowned.
He eased his arm away from his eyes so that he could see her expression. “Hey, you try dancing with the girl day in and day out,” he suggested. “You’d develop a few tiny little revenge habits, too.”
Privately, Danni tended to agree—but she wasn’t sure where she was going to stand on this one until he finished the story. “Explain,” she requested cautiously.
“Well….” Nicholas sighed. “Do you realize that because of her, there isn’t a single person in this school who will call me Nick?”
Danni’s eyebrows shot up.
“Katarina doesn’t like it. She says Nicholas is more formal, and sounds much more like a dancer—so she refused to ever call me by a nickname. People hear her doing it, and they just assume that if my partner doesn’t shorten it, I must not like it. So—Nicholas.”
Danni grimaced. “That would get irritating…if you prefer the other.”
“I prefer the other. I deeply prefer the other.” His expression was so comical that she had to laugh. “Anyway, I told her that if she got to call me whatever she wanted, I got to call her whatever I wanted. She put her nose up in the air and informed me that she had never answered to a nickname, and I put mine just as high and informed her that if she was going to have the whole school calling me Nicholas, I was going to have them calling her Kat by the time the semester was over.”
“How’s that working for you?” Danni asked wryly.
“Oh, it’s not. She’s made her preferences quite clear,” he admitted. “But it’s a very private revenge, you see. She refers to me as Nicholas…and everywhere I go, I call her Kat in front of at least one other person.” He shrugged, made a face as it dislodged the ice pack. “You’re a very potent distraction,” he informed Danni. “Because I actually forgot that was there.”
“How’s it feeling?” she asked quietly.
“Like little ice trolls are jamming cruel implements into my shoulder,” he confessed cheerfully. “But it’s not as bad as it could be, and the ice comes off in…what, another five minutes?”
She glanced at the clock on his bedside table and nodded.
“So, that’s ten minutes that I wasn’t sitting here counting down the seconds. I figure that makes you a success.” He flashed her that crooked smile again. “Much appreciated, by the way.”
“I’ll stay for the hour,” Danni promised. “But I’m going to have to leave after that. I have work to get done.”