Page 46 of Kissing the Debutant
She flopped onto her back with a sigh. She was that tough ballerina he spoke of who’d dance with cracked and bleeding feet. The one who’d been told dancingen pointewas a necessary evil when she was six years old.
Jack lowered himself to the floor with a soft laugh. He leaned back beside her, his shoulder grazing hers. “What’s wrong?”
What was wrong?
She didn’t want to tell him she’d spent the hour before practice on the phone with her mom trying to convince her there was no way she would take Franklin Wellington to the debutant ball. Each day was the same. Her mom called with a new name, a new chance to remind her it would take a gigantic favor for her to have an escort.
And what had she done?“Mom, I found someone from here to take me.”
Her mom had paused like she wasn’t sure if she believed her own daughter.“From the academy, right? Not a townie?”
“Yes, Mom.”Most any boy from the academy would be a perfectly acceptable escort in her mom’s eyes. The problem? She didn’t want to take any of them, and now would show up at her ball in ten days with no one to walk her down the long staircase. Everyone would feel sorry for the poor ballerina. Her mom? She’d be humiliated and furious.
As if her daughter’s single status was a poor reflection on her.
Lillian turned her head to look at Jack. His messy hair curled over his ears, begging for someone to run their fingers through it. He returned her stare, and her gaze fell to his lips. She remembered every second they’d pressed against hers like the memory was burned into her.
Her first kiss.
Not that she’d tell him that little detail.
“Jack?”
He smiled. “Yeah, Lil?”
A laugh burst out of her before she could stop it as a stupid thought rolled through her mind.
“Care to share with the class?” His smile widened.
“I just realized… we’re Jack and Lil.”
He chuckled. “You surprise me, Lillian Preston.”
“How so?”
“You’re just so… human.”
She wasn’t quite sure what that meant, but she could guess. Throughout her life, she’d been called a robot in her single-minded pursuit of ballet. “I’ve always been human, Jack.” She sat up, unable to stand his scrutinizing gaze any longer. Pushing to her feet, she strode to the center of the room to prepare to run through the dance again.
“Did I say something wrong?”
She shook her head, willing the tears away. Lillian Preston didn’t cry.
“Lil.” Jack jumped to his feet and stepped in front of her. He put a finger under her chin and tilted her head up. “Talk to me.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She shifted her eyes away. “Because you’re you. Jack Butler has probably never met someone who didn’t like him. You don’t know what it’s like, Jack. The pressure…”
“I don’t know what it’s like?” He stepped back. “Let me ask, Lil, do you know anything about me at all?”
She knew he was kind, that his best friend adored him. That he was a heck of a dancer, but an even better choreographer. But something told her that wasn’t what he’d meant.
He scrubbed a hand over his face. “My family… I don’t have a hope of the opportunities that come so easy to you. Going to the academy, being from a wealthy family… you will get anywhere you want to go. Some of us don’t have the option of focusing on one thing, of letting it control our lives.” He approached her again, putting a hand on each of her shoulders. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t have everything, because you deserve it, but it’s good to see another side of you. Yes, a human side. You aren’t perfect, Lillian. I know that now, and it’s the most beautiful thing about you.”
“Did you…” Had he just called her beautiful? Her heart stuttered in her chest. She’d experienced so many changes in the last month. She finally had friends in Wylder and Devyn. She’d realized ballet wasn’t the only way to move, challenging herself and proving to herself she could do it.
