a hard look.
“They end up in ditches, those bitches!”
He didn’t laugh. “What are you in the mood for, Ballerina Girl? Food,” he amended when he caught the look on my face. That was a loaded question and he knew it.
“Coffee sounds good. And being with you. Being with you sounds even better. Let me change my shoes, gather my things, close up, and then we go.”
Before he set me down, his hands roved to my behind and he squeezed my cheeks. I had to stand in place for a moment or two before I could move. He walked to the sound system, studying it. “Jimmy Durante,” he murmured. “He’s a bit old for you.”
Suspicion, his, not mine, prickled the hair on my neck. “Err…I like him?”
“You’re nervous.”
“I’m not!”
“You are. You get flustered. You err, or hmm, or huff, and then make a statement sound like a question.”
It was best to ignore him and his truth. I didn’t need him digging and finding out what Maggie Beautiful and I were up to. She had told me, inadvertently, how he had people watching me, so we came up with a system to fool them. She picked me up behind the studio after whoever dropped me off.
She wasn’t supposed to drive, but she did. Of course. Maggie Beautiful could never be put into any shaped box. Her depth was too complex for bars. Violet also assisted us in this scheme.
Mick didn’t care much about me when she came around and drug him in another direction— assuring him that his charge was safe in the dance studio.
I took a seat on the floor, pointing out that the stereo played songs from numerous genres and times. He watched as the ribbons around my ankles unraveled and my pointe shoes revealed the ugliness of a dancer’s foot. Packaged in beauty, what lied beneath showed the truth—how grueling it could be.
He inhaled a shocked breath and his face turned into a hard mask. “Your feet.” The words were a threat.
I smiled at his chivalry. The pivot in conversation worked too. “Dance. Dance happens to my feet. It’s a normal part of the process. My feet are the tools of my trade. They work hard.”
He stepped forward with cautious intent, as if moving too fast would hurt me even more. He knelt down beside me, taking my foot in his hand. His soft touch over bruised and bloodied skin made me tremble.
“I didn’t realize.”
“Most people don’t. See?” I used his back to lift myself from the floor. He stood with me. Then I stood on my toes (en pointe), one pointe shoe off, one on. “That’s all anyone sees—the end result, not the reality.”
I gasped, taken by surprise when he swept me off my feet. He just as swiftly set me back on the floor. “Take the other one off. Tell me what I have to do around here to close up.”
I directed him, just like he had asked. He refused to let me move despite my protests. He kept eyeing my feet with both fear and intrigue. My feet were not my prettiest feature. That’s what made the irony so thick. The beautiful slipper hid the hard work it took to wear them.
He seemed uncomfortable, a bit unnerved, angry even. He kept questioning me as he cleaned—You’re bleeding. You have bruises. Your toes are taped. Blood is coming through the tape. Are those bandages?
After I continued to assure him that all was normal with my feet, and he was finished closing up, he swept me off my feet, or the floor, once again, refusing to let me walk to his truck.
I threw my head back and laughed, moving my legs despite him telling me not to. “You are insane, you beastly man!”
“You’re not allowed to walk. Stop moving your legs.”
I sighed, keeping my head back, looking up at the stars as he carried me. The back of the leotard scooped into a deep U, and the leather jacket pressed against bare skin. “Where are we going then?” I asked. “It better be a place that has zero gravity or your arms are going to get tired.”
“Never. I could carry you forever. Even if your toes didn’t resemble shredded meat.”
My body bobbed with his movements. “That was the tape—” bob “—not my toes, mon ange.”
The endearment came out softer than intended. His thoughtfulness had gotten to me, turning me into a floating creature, his love my helium.
He stopped walking. His heart picked up speed against my ear. “Angel.”
I