Crazy Eights (Stacked Deck #8) - Emilia Finn Page 0,124

here.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re in studio one, working on something they’ve been choreographing for the better part of a year.”

“With the kids?”

He shakes his head and grins. “Just the two of them. Have you ever seen them dance together? I swear, it’s the highlight of my day.”

“Perv.”

He scoffs and turns to lead me into the hall. “I perv on one of them, for sure. But she knows it. The other one, she’s like my kid and my sister at the same time. I don’t perv, but I sure as shit watch them. It’s like…” He sighs. “Together, they have this magic.”

“I know what you mean,” I murmur. “I think the same. I’ve spent four years watching them host classes together online, and I log in every damn day purely because their chemistry while dancing is insane.”

“In here,” he whispers as we approach a door, and the sound of heavy bass pounds against the covered windows.

I peek at the windows, at the sliver of space at the bottom of the door, and all the while, my heart yearns to see them.

“You can go in,” Jay reads my mind. “They won’t get mad or anything.”

“I would get mad about people interrupting my flow.”

He cracks the door open and smiles boyishly. “You already said it; their chemistry means nothing can screw with their flow. Once they start, they don’t stop until the music stops, and even then, they get pissed at the song for ending too soon. Go in.” He presses a hand to the small of my back and pushes me forward. “It’s okay.”

“Can you come in with me?” I turn back and fight his prodding push. “That way, if we get in trouble, I can blame it on you.”

He snorts and shakes his head. But he strides through the door like he’s not afraid of dying.

Turning back while the women dance on the opposite side of the room, he waves me in, and waits for Giselle to strut forward – I’m surprised she doesn’t wear diamond-encrusted heels at this point. Once I’m in, he closes the door with a silent snick, and leads me along the wall until he simply lowers down and pulls me down beside him.

I watch Soph and Lucy more than I watch my own step. I sit clumsily, and bite off my hiss when I bump my shoulder by accident.

“You okay?” Jay whispers.

I hear his words, I even feel his hand on my arm, but my eyes are glued to Lucy’s back as she lifts Soph and tosses her like this was a cheer routine and not ballet.

“Quinn?” Jay presses. “You good?”

“Yeah. Shh.”

I sit forward and study the girls as Soph transitions into a leap with her legs wide, and her arms high. She drops to her feet and pops straight back up to her toes. A mere second later, Lucy switches places with her. They lift, Sophia throws, and Lucy flies.

“It’s like gravity doesn’t apply to them,” I murmur, accepting Giselle’s heavy head when she lays down and plops her chin on my lap. “Like,” I spare a glance for the man beside me. “They toss like they have no clue the ground is right there, dragging them down.”

“I don’t think the ground is dragging them down,” he whispers back. “Like you said, gravity doesn’t apply to them.”

“I wish I could do that.”

I nibble on my bottom lip when Lucy turns once, twice, three times. Each time, she checks the wall to her left where they’ve taped a picture of a smiling Mac holding a belt high above his head. I didn’t notice it at first, or the other pictures taped around the room, but as Lucy’s smile grows, I see what they’ve done. Mac – a victorious Mac – is Lucy’s checkpoint. On the opposite wall, a picture of two little girls in their very own tutus leads me to believe that’s Soph’s checkpoint.

Her daughters.

There’s nothing on the mirrors behind them, but on a hunch, I lean forward and turn to check the wall at my back, only to startle and frown at the very same image I found on Jamie’s bed yesterday afternoon.

Jamie’s arm wrapped around my shoulders. His lips on my temple, and despite my words just moments later telling him that I was scared, in this picture, for that one single snapshot in time, I’m smiling.

Confused with my discovery, I turn back to the women and watch as they move into something else – I still don’t