Page 134 of Lovers' Dance

“Hey,” Matt said with worry creeping into his voice. “What’s bothering you, poppet? I can hear something in your voice, and I want you to tell me right now what’s wrong or I will drive straight over there.”

How did he do it?Seriously. Did he have a crystal ball? Was he clairvoyant?

“I’m tired, hon. Just really tired and I really love you.”

Matt didn’t say anything for a moment, then his voice gentled as he said, “Go to bed and get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow. I love you, too.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Go home and get some rest yourself. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” I hung up the call and let out a loud, frustrated groan. This was going to be hard. The right thing to do, but so frigging hard.

The movie was about to start. I tossed my cell on the couch and ran upstairs to wash my face. When I came back down, I was too depressed to enjoy the usual thrill I got from scary movies. I missed my Matt, my knight.

“No, no, no,” Dante said in a fit of temper as the pianist stopped churning his fingers over the keys. “What is that? What the hell is that? ’Cos it sure ain’t afouettes pirouette.”

I sent a sympathetic look at the girl, her name was Ellen, and she looked like she was about to burst into tears in the middle of the stage. Me and my dancers were used to Dante’s temper if you didn’t perform exactly the way he expected. The temporary dancers weren’t. Dante lived the ballet, and his passion for it obliterated any sense of niceness. You danced the way he wanted on the stage, or you didn’t dance at all.

But I couldn’t let him scare the poor girl. “D, it’s an extremely hard move and—”

“Bri, come show them how it’s done,” Dante cut me off tersely and I rolled my eyes, wiping the sweat off my face. He sent me a hard brown stare and beckoned me over. “You too, Madi. Centre stage. Now.”

Bri and I exchanged a jaded look as we walked to centre stage. Ellen slunk back to the side and hid behind the other dancers.

Fouettes pirouette, also known as thirty-twofouettes turns on pointe. It was a difficult move to execute, and Dante wanted quite a few of the female dancers to do it for the upcoming production. I told him we didn’t need them to. Bri and I were technically proficient and we were the two female leads in the show. Bri was cast as the sweet, innocent princess, and me as the complex, conflicted ice queen. I was the baddie, yay.

We took our positions centre stage and, after a curt nod from Dante, we began to execute ourfouettes pirouette. The only sounds on stage were coming from Bri and myself as our low laboured breaths seemed to echo in the large auditorium.

“That’s how you do a damnfouettes pirouette,” Dante said when we finished. He glared over at the other dancers, looking like a belligerent dark lord in his black leotard, and though he was a man wearing ballet shoes, no one would call him a prancing sissy. Not unless you wanted a fist in your jaw.

Eddie caught my glance and we smirked at each other. We were all exhausted. The past few days had been intense, and the way my toes were burning, indicated the need for bandages when I got home later.

Dante continued to chastise the other dancers and Liam waved to get my attention, then tapped his bare wrist. It was the signal.

I took a deep breath before saying firmly, “Let’s call it a night. We’ll pick up tomorrow. Ten am start people, don’t be late.”

Dante’s face had a building thunderstorm on it. He wasn’t ready to end tonight’s practice. The look he sent my way was one that spelt trouble. I arched my eyebrow at him in challenge. My seventy percent to his thirty percent, he’d better not make me remind him of it.

“Fine,” he groused, throwing his hands into the air. “We start afresh from tomorrow.”

There was a tangible feeling of relief from everyone as we called out goodnight to each other and started filing off the stage. Dante stalked towards me and I legged it.

“You can run,” Dante yelled.

Gerrard laughed as I dashed past him and Lisa.

“And I can hide,” I yelled back, darting through the other dancers down the aisles between the rows of seats. Some of them tittered in amusement. Some of them frowned. Dante and I tried to run our dance company informally, like a cohesive family unit. Happy dancers made for happy dancing.

I managed to get to the office without being collared by my best friend. Forget using the showers tonight, I needed to grab my stuff and go. The flashing light from my cell perched atop paperwork made me pause. When I unlocked the screen, there were six missed calls. Without even checking the call log, I knew who they were from. I dialled the last number I’d called.

“Where are you?” Matt forwent a greeting. Uh oh.

“About to leave the studio, Matt.”

“I’ve been waiting for you, Madison. I told you what time I’d be here.”

I exhaled loudly. “And I told you tonight wasn’t a good night to go on a date, Matthew.”

“It’s Thursday,” he shot back. “I decided we would go out tonight. You had ample opportunity to choose a night and you failed to do so. I’ve made arrangements and, if you’re not here in the next half an hour, we’ll be late for what I have planned. I’ve made numerous pots of tea for Nathan and Bella, was forced to order food seeing as we’ve missed our dinner reservations and I’ve actually loaded your dishwasher. How can you use so many dishes? It’s just you living here, poppet. And the Chinese take-away has increased their prices for their mediocre food. I don’t want you using them anymore.”

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