Page 42 of Love is a Dance Step
Drew
“Eat something.” Noah slid a plate of fruit toward Drew.
Drew sighed and popped a strawberry in his mouth. They sat on the balcony of the Beach Club resort with plates of food in front of them. Jo chowed on a giant stack of pancakes. She caught the others staring at her. “My alien wanted them.” She shrugged. “Are you guys judging a baby? That’s wrong, dudes.”
Drew laughed. At least she found humor in her pregnancy now.
Ben and Dax had left early that morning to head back to L.A.
This afternoon was supposed to be callbacks for the dancers, and Drew dreaded it. He wished he could just tell Piper to pick someone.
“Do you know why she said no?” Jo asked, sticking a forkful of pancakes in her mouth.
“No! That’s the issue. When we danced…” He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I don’t know if you two can really understand. You’re not dancers, but… the only woman I’ve ever had a connection with while dancing is Leah. I never expected to find that again. I thought I’d just have to work with a random dancer who knew the steps. But Lola…” Man, Lola. He couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the way her lips curved into a secretive smile as she danced, how perfectly her steps aligned with his. They hadn’t even needed choreography to be in sync with each other.
Jo swallowed and shrugged. “Then, how do we make her say yes?”
“We can’t.”
She pointed her fork at him, syrup dripping off the end. “Drew Stone, I’ll be leaving you in two months. I won’t do it if I think you’re just going to be going through the motions the rest of this tour.”
“You’re not dying, Joey.”
“No,” she huffed. “Worse. I’m growing an alien inside me right now, and the least you can do is grow some balls.”
Noah laughed before hiding it behind his coffee mug. “Listen to her, bro.”
“You guys don’t get it. I promised her I’d leave her alone.”
“Ah, I see. Drew Stone doesn’t break his promises.”
The guys made fun of him for it, but he held promises as sacred. If he said he was going to do something, be somewhere, he meant it. Sometimes, it was as simple as showing up on time. Others, it meant hiding his sister’s secrets.
There was one promise in his life that haunted him, one he couldn’t have foreseen breaking.
Asher.
The day he’d left for his first tour, Asher was only eight. Drew promised him no matter what happened, nothing would ever change between them. Fame wouldn’t come between them. He hadn’t known then it was an impossible promise to keep. For years, he managed to remain close to Asher, returning home whenever he could.
And then, all of that was gone, Asher deciding it no longer mattered without telling Drew why.
It wasn’t Drew’s fault the promise now lay in shambles, but the guilt ate away at him all the same.
He shook his head. “I need to find someone else.” The words hurt to say. Only a couple days ago, Lola Ramirez was no one to him except a tiny memory, a childhood friend of Asher’s he barely remembered.
Now, she was all he thought about.
Noah patted his arm. “You didn’t pull out the rock star charm, did you?”
Jo snorted. “Drew has no charm.”
They all knew that was a lie. One of the reasons Drew had become a tabloid darling was because of said charm and the Hollywood elites he surrounded himself with because of it. But none of the glitz made him feel the way a single dance had.
His dad walked toward their table with Piper at his side. They wore matching smiles.
“Brunch?” Piper laughed.
Noah shrugged. “What can we say, we’re brunch people.”
