how he’d ever convince her now that he was irrevocably in love with her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Let me get this straight,” Alima said. “This is you.”
She pointed at the still image on her phone where Jasmine’s silhouette was barely visible.
“Yep,” Jasmine said.
“And you’ve been teaching this little girl ballet.”
Now she pointed at Katie, who had frozen while high-fiving Archer when Alima paused the YouTube video.
“Yep.”
One of the other dancers sitting around the table at Steamy Beans with her said, “And you’re dating that guy, who’s a professional baseball player?”
The dancer, Wendy, pointed at Will’s image where he stood watching his daughter in the background. The word “dating” caused a sharp pain in Jasmine’s chest…the same one she’d been experiencing since the terrible words they’d exchanged the last time they’d been together.
“Yeah,” she said.
Although she had attended a couple of previous gatherings with Alima and her dancer friends over the past few weeks and she found them all wonderful, she didn’t see any need to go into her relationship drama. They’d only had a glass of wine each so far. Digging into her complicated romantic situation required at least a bottle.
Or maybe a round of tequila shots.
“I hate you,” Alima deadpanned.
The other five women at the table laughed with Jasmine. Alima grinned.
“You seriously met Archer?” another dancer, Miriam, asked. “The Archer?”
“Yep.” Though she still had a little trouble believing that herself.
“What was he like?” asked the youngest one in their group, Chelsea.
“He was really nice.”
“And hot.” Alima stated it like it was a fact.
“So hot,” Jasmine admitted, having the other females sighing and laughing.
Alima tapped her phone and scrolled the video back to its beginning to replay it. “I’ve watched this at least ten times. It’s already one of my all-time faves.”
Apparently tens of millions of other people felt the same way. The video had only been live for about three days and it had already broken records for the number of views.
Jasmine worried how this might impact Katie and Will. Within the first hour of the video’s posting, viewers mentioned Will’s name in the comments. She knew he had a strong fan base as a professional athlete, but the speed of the identification still amazed her. How easy would it be for people to find out where he lived? What if those people went to their house? Could this potentially cause Katie to regress?
“You’ve got to tell us how this all came about,” Wendy said. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”
Not the time, she told herself when her brain tried to snark that Will wasn’t her boyfriend.
“Will Campbell.”
“How’d you two meet?” Chelsea wanted to know.
Jasmine indulged them with a few minutes of talking about how she and Will met and how he later asked her about teaching Katie ballet. She related how they had gone to the charity event together as friends and things had clicked from there.
She didn’t say how quickly and fiercely the passion had ignited between them.
She didn’t mention how strong the bond had formed between her and Katie from the moment their gazes first met in the mirror, nor how deeply she’d come to care for the little girl with the sweet temperament and courageous spirit.
She didn’t tell them how Will, Katie, and Frank had become like a second family to her since they entered her life five months ago.
She didn’t admit how attached she’d become to all of them, and how empty a future without them felt to her now.
And she most certainly didn’t reveal how devastated she’d been to know Will didn’t believe she’d achieve her dancing dreams either.
Although she glossed over the details, her new friends hung onto her every word.
“That’s so romantic,” Wendy breathed.
“Did you teach Katie the routine in the video?” Miriam asked.
“Yep,” Jasmine replied. “We haven’t practiced it in weeks though. She picked it up quickly and retained it. That dance with Archer wasn’t rehearsed at all.”
Alima’s eyebrows winged up. “Wow. That girl has some mad skills.”
“She sure does.” Jasmine sipped her wine. “Now enough about me for now. Diana, what happened on your date with Cory?”
Taking the hint, the other dancers were polite enough to change the subject. She appreciated them doing so, especially because it had to be hard to resist plying her with questions. She was sure if their positions were reversed, she’d feel the same way. It wasn’t every day one met a person who knew and hung out with actual celebrities.
It had been such a blessing meeting Alima at that audition. Jasmine had struck up conversations with her at