any performer just before stepping into the spotlight. I haven’t felt it since my last ballet performance, back when I was a senior in high school. And I didn’t expect the sensation because there’s no audience watching.
But just because the audience isn’t here doesn’t mean none exists. There will be an audience, and they’ll see my beautiful Iris dancing with me. And that will last forever. Euphoria and adrenaline light me up.
“Picture is up!” Jonathan’s assistant director—I can’t remember her name—calls and the chatter in the room hushes, but it doesn’t disappear completely. The scene is in a dance hall after all. People murmur, clink glasses, and scrape chairs against the floor. I’m on my mark, as is my first dance partner. Her name is Bella, and she’s a local from right up the road in Scott. We met at yesterday’s rehearsal. I nod at her before I put my hands on her.
“Background action!”
That’s our cue. The music starts and the dance floor comes alive.
Jonathan’s voice rises above the sound. “Action!” Two seconds later double doors blow open and three wrestling figures tumble onto the dance floor. Two of them, the shape shifters Raven pursues, are dressed all in black. The third is in boots, a red dress, and a cape identical to Iris’s, but it isn’t Iris. It’s her stunt double.
She and the demons grapple on the floor for just a couple of seconds before Jonathan calls, “Cut!”
Everybody stops while Jonathan and his AD review the clip. I drop my hands from Bella’s waist and search for Iris again. When I spot her, I can tell by the look on her face she’s already in character. Her expression is hard-edged as if she just pushed a demon through a set of doors.
Seconds later, we’re called to order for another take, and the whole thing happens again. This time, Jonathan must be satisfied because when the AD calls, “Places,” Iris takes her stunt double’s spot on the ground along with her demon co-stars.
The band starts up again, and we’re off. My heart thumps hard against my ribs as I circle the dance floor with my partner, and just as we reach Iris, one of the demons peels Bella from my arms and I sweep up Iris in her place.
I feel the camera just over my shoulder as it captures Raven Blackwell’s startled expression. But even though her character looks surprised, my girlfriend doesn’t miss a beat. She slides right into the quick, two-step rhythm and into the counter-clockwise motion of the dance.
We do the brush off perfectly, and I beam with pride. She cuts under my arms, and I twirl us before releasing her in a flawless spin. Her teeth flash. I clutch her back to me and—
“Cut!”
We both jerk our gazes to Jonathan. He’s giving us an arch look. “Iris, you’re smiling too much,” he says, as though this is obvious.
I cut my gaze back to the woman I love in time to see that wide smile vanish. “Sorry, Jonathan.”
Her director doesn’t acknowledge the apology, but busies himself reviewing the take. Iris’s eyes are tight. I feel the tension in her grip and beneath my hand at her hip.
“Hey,” I whisper. Her startled gaze snaps back to me. Our eyes latch, and she softens. “It’s okay.”
“I forgot where I was for a minute,” she confesses softly, looking crestfallen. “That’s so unprofessional.”
“Chère, you just nailed that dance,” I tell her, practically splitting at the seams with pride. “If smiling too big is the worst thing you do all day, you take that win and run with it.”
Her eyes stare deeper into mine. I watch her swallow. She looks like she’s prepping to jump out of an airplane.
“I love you,” she whispers. And it’s my heart that’s falling at 9.8 meters per second.
My breath leaves me. In a million years, I never expected her to say it first. I never expected for her to feel it.
I’ve never been so glad to be wrong.
“I love you, too.”
And if she wasn’t smiling huge before, she is now. We both are.
“Okay, let’s take it back to the partner swap,” the AD calls. “Places, everybody.”
I want to yank her into my arms before she can step away and plant the deepest kiss in the history of kisses, but there’s no time. I squeeze her hand instead and let her go.
I try like hell not to smile too big. But seconds later, when I take her in my arms again, our eyes lock with the power