Page 155 of Lovers' Dance

Half an hour later, Dante was opening my front door with his keys. I chewed my lower lip, remembering Matt’s directive of reclaiming them.

“Sweet cheeks?” The front door slammed close.

“In the kitchen,” I yelled, hearing him coming further into my home. Seconds later, he sauntered into the kitchen.

“Got any food?” he asked with a wide grin. His dark skin glistening with moisture and his t-shirt had numerous damp spots. It must be starting to rain.

“No, but I can make you something if you want.” I was getting up from the table and moving towards the fridge.

“I want,” he said with a nod, and walked over to take the seat I had vacated.

“It’ll be good to see Marie-Sol and Bret.” I rifled around the fridge. “Chicken salad do you?”

“That sounds good, sweet cheeks, and, yeah, it’ll be good to see my boy, Bret. I’m ashamed to admit this, but I miss Sol’s craziness.”

I laughed and took out the necessary ingredients to make Dante something to eat. It was bad for your digestive system, eating this late. But, so far, our waistlines weren’t showing the ill-effects.

“Have you seen the hits on their website? It won’t be long before they’re proper rock stars.”

Dante nodded in agreement, getting up from the chair to lounge against the counter as I took out my frying pan.

“If our company goes bust, at least we have another route to fame and fortune,” Dante mused thoughtfully.

I arched my eyebrows with a shake of head. “D, it’s been a few years since I’ve sat behind drums, and I know you haven’t been stroking that guitar of yours. We’ll only drag them down.”

Dante shrugged, and we both exchanged a fond stare at the memories of our teen years. Dante and I were dancers, Bret and Marie-Sol were musicians. We were once all in a band though, rocking out our teenaged dramas, until it became too much for Dante and I. Dance was our first love and there wasn’t enough time in the world to do both. Plus, Uncle David hated noise. Never could understand why he threw my last kit out when he was the one who’d gotten me my first drum kit on my seventh birthday. I was an angry little girl, I needed to vent somewhere and ballet class was not the place. Ballet is about control: core control, limb control, mind-over-matter control. And it saved me.

But my anger at the drastic change my young life had taken was consuming me. The drums had helped. A lot. I couldn’t sing. Seriously, even humming sounded bad coming from me, but I could dance like a dream and play the drums mean.

“Well, I can still play. A bit rusty, but I can do it.” Dante sniffed the bowl of seasoned chicken and rubbed his stomach.

“Can you start on the salad?” I asked, wondering if I should broach the spare keys topic.

We worked effortlessly around each other. It was as easy as breathing. I started feeling more serene. Dante was my constant. My friend. My rock.

Before long, we were tucking into grub and eagerly anticipating the arrival of our friends. They would only be here for a few days, flying back to the States the day after my birthday. I loved my friends. The fact they were willing to take a long haul flight to be with me around the worst time of my life was humbling.

“Sweet cheeks.”

“Mhmm.”

“You’re going to be okay.”

“I know, Dante.”

We resumed eating, well, Dante resumed eating and I pushed the food around my plate. “It should be easier by now, D. It’ll be twenty-one years come Wednesday. Why can’t I let it go?”

Dante chewed slowly, scrutinizing my face as he swallowed. “I don’t know, Madi. Why should you let it go? You lost your parents in a bad way at a young age. You’ve never let it hold you back, you’ve never played the victim…so what if you have a meltdown once a year? That’s your way of dealing with it.”

I smiled at him. “What would I do without you?”

“Probably end up on the streets,” Dante teased with a fond grin. “Or shaking your fine ass on a table somewhere—” He broke off when my lettuce landed on his forehead.

I shook my head and fiddled with my utensils. Next year would be better. Next year I’d deal with it better, I’d be over it. Thing was, I had said the exact same thing last year and all the years before it. I was broken and couldn’t be fixed. Scarred. Damaged goods.

I was thankful Matt had agreed to stay away. The next few days would be messy. Painful and messy. Meltdowns were never fun.

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