Page 26 of Pas de Don't
Itwasgreat, Marcus thought. So why didn’t it feel great? He’d spent months hoping for permission to go back to class, pushing himself through all the exercises Shaz assigned him, even when they were painful and difficult or repetitive and boring. He should have been delighted by his progress. But after what had just happened, the thought of being in the same studio as Heather for forty-five minutes every morning suddenly had him feeling something close to dread.
Sitting across from her on the half-empty bus, Marcus was careful to keep his knee from touching hers and tried not to stare at her mouth as she gazed out the window at the North Sydney skyline, chewing on her bottom lip.
It was fine, he thought. Well, it would be fine. His first few classes back might be a little weird, but this was for the best. They’d be friendly colleagues, just like they’d been a few hours ago. She’d no doubt be pulled into rehearsals soon, and he could get back to concentrating on his recovery, and—his heart gave an anxious little flip—on his mum. And he would forget, or at least pretendto forget, the way goosebumps had risen on Heather’s neck and shoulders when he’d bent down to unclasp the tutu.
Heather spent the bus ride in anxious silence. When they’d boarded, she’d blocked the seat next to her with the tutu and the shopping bag. It seemed wise, given what had just happened, to put some space between them. The tutu bag sat hot pink and huge next to her, and she resisted the urge to scowl at it. None of this would have happened if the damn skirt hadn’t gotten stuck. She’d be at the zoo petting a koala bear right now. She wouldn’t know what it felt like when Marcus’s tongue swept across her lower lip. But now he sat opposite her, and she worked hard to keep her eyes from wandering toward him.
Kissing him had been a mistake. A stupid, spur of the moment mistake, and she was proud of herself for apologizing quickly and making it clear it wouldn’t happen again.
But you want it to, a sly, Carly-ish voice whispered, and Heather bit her lip.Maybe you should try breaking the rules for once. She remembered the sight of her own flushed cheeks in the fitting room mirror and the feeling of the soft fabric brushing against her suddenly rigid nipples, and she bit down a little harder.
She wished the last hour had never happened. Wished she didn’t know what Marcus’s mouth tasted like. Wished she hadn’t made things so weird and awkward with the one friend she had in Sydney so far.
Besides, she was here to dance, she reminded herself yet again. To prove what she could do on her own. To show the gossips of the ballet world she’d earned her place at the top. She was not here to fool around in fitting rooms with the first hot guy she met. She definitely wasn’t here to get that man fired and herself humiliated—again.
They would be friends and nothing more.
Friends and nothing more.She repeated it a few times, the way she had learned to do when trying to memorize a particularlychallenging piece of new choreography. Usually, the message would sink into her body after a while, and she’d commit it to muscle memory. The same thing would happen with Marcus, she thought.
Her mental mantra was interrupted when Marcus reached for the railing next to his seat and pressed the stop button. The bus pulled into Milsons Point station, and they clambered off, making their way down along the Kirribilli main drag, past a butcher, a gelato shop, and a quaint little church. Marcus really was moving better, she noticed. She wasn’t walking at her usual out-of-my-way-I-have-somewhere-to-be New York City pace, but she was striding fairly normally, and with help from his cane, he was keeping up just fine.
They turned onto her shady, quiet street, and she breathed an almost unconscious sigh of relief. It had only been a few days, but this place already felt like a refuge, if not like home. She had looked up the name of the parrots that nested noisily in the tree outside her house and learned they were called rainbow lorikeets, which was apt, given their blue heads, green wings, and yellow-orange chests. They were in the tree now, screeching and fluttering from branch to branch, feeding out of the fluffy red flowers that she had learned, also from her research, were called bottlebrushes. The ground under the tree was scattered with fine red filaments, as though someone had shredded crimson fabric and sprinkled it on the grass.
“I love these birds,” she said, grinning up at the tree. “They’re so unapologetically bright.”
“Yeah, but don’t ever park a white car under one of those trees,” Marcus replied as another tuft of red fell to the grass. “My brother and I used to wash the neighbors’ cars when we were kids, and I can tell you, it’s a nightmare getting that stuff off.”
One of the lorikeets screeched loudly, as if in response to Marcus, and she giggled. This didn’t have to be awkward, she thought, relieved. They would be friends, and it would be fine. As they walked up the short pathway to the house, she repeated it a few more times.We will be friends. It will be fine.
For the best, really.
“Do you mind if I come in for a sec?” Marcus asked.
Heather felt her eyebrows shoot up her forehead. He wanted to come inside? After they’d just agreed what happened in the dancewear store could never happen again?
As if he’d realized too late how his question sounded, Marcus added quickly, “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Oh, of course,” she said, fumbling with the keys for what felt like several minutes.Of course, she repeated as he followed her inside.Friends, and nothing more.
Inside, she dropped the keys on the front table and slung the tutu bag over the banister.
“Wow, this place is swish,” Marcus said. He stood in the hallway and peered into the living room, taking in the plump pale-yellow couch and the sleek glass coffee table topped with an orchid in a gold pot. Heather was already looking forward to spending tomorrow morning lounging on that couch, drinking coffee and prepping her pointe shoes for the next week.
“I don’t know what I was expecting company housing to be, but it wasn’t this. I love it here,” she said, realizing she really meant it. “The bathroom’s down there,” she added, gesturing down the hallway to the back of the house, where there was a bathroom so tiny she thought it might once have been a closet.
Marcus disappeared, and she took her packages upstairs and tossed them on her bed. She had just put away the last leotard when she heard the toilet flush, followed by Marcus’s footsteps. For a long, nervous moment, Heather listened to the sound of his feet on her floorboards, wondering if his heart was hammering like hers was.Of course it’s not, Stage Face.Checking her hair in the mirror, she slid the drawer shut and hurried downstairs.
Marcus was in the living room, taking in the molded ceiling and the plush off-white carpet. Heather watched as he reached down and touched the orchid, rubbing one of the velvety petals gently between his fingers. She considered clearing her throat, but she wanted to keep watching him. Gripped by curiosity, she wondered again whatkind of a dancer he was. Or had been. Was he an attentive pas de deux partner? Did he make his partners feel steady, or did he always keep them slightly off balance? A few more seconds ticked by, and she realized with a jolt that if she watched him any longer, she would have officially crossed over into creepiness.
“Thanks again for taking me shopping,” she said, a little louder than intended, and Marcus whirled around, whipping his hand away from the flower as if it had burned him. “And thanks for being my tour guide. I’ll make sure Peter knows how good you were.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise, and her mouth dropped open in horror.
“Not like that, oh my God. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, not that you weren’t goo—oh my God.” This was a mess. She was a mess. “I won’t tell anyone about...about what happened. I promise. I’m sorry.”
“I get it, okay?” he snapped. “You’ve made yourself extremely clear.”
Heather flinched, and he ran his hand through his hair, looking frustrated.
