Page 19 of Barre Fight
I bet you do, he wanted to say, but he just nodded.
“And you have to promise to actually answer them, not just grunt and shrug.”
She made him sound like a caveman. He supposed he had been a little monosyllabic in his attempts to keep her from learning anything about him.
“I promise. I’ll do it. I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it.”
“Well, the knowledge that you’ll be miserable is certainly some comfort,” Ivy shot back.
Justin paused in the middle of pulling on his right leg warmer and looked up at her. Her cheeks were a little flushed, and her eyes were bright. For a long moment, she held his gaze, chin raised in challenge, and Justin could have sworn he felt the air prickle between them. Something hot and electric buzzed under his skin as she stared him down, just as it had when she’d cornered him outside of the men’s locker room last week. It was guilt, probably. Guilt and regret for how badly he’d behaved.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I know I’ve been a bit of a dick.”
Ivy opened her mouth, probably to agree, then seemed to think better of it. Instead she gave him a sharp, wide-eyed nod that clearly said,more than a bit.
“I know you’re just trying to help,” he said, grateful she hadn’t given him the retort he probably deserved.
Her face softened slightly and she gave him another nod, this one more gentle. “Thank you.” It sounded sincere this time. And a little surprised. “And maybe I can interview your family, too? Dr. Murphy mentioned an aunt, and a cousin?”
“No,” he said firmly. No way was she talking to his mum or Shane, or Missy or Steen. They’d be all too happy to tell her anything she wanted to know, and he didn’t want Ivy Page learning his life story. He just needed to give her enough to distract the papers and keep the company happy. “Just me.”
She opened her mouth, probably to argue, but then she closed it again. “Fine. Just you. What changed your mind?”
Justin grunted, then remembered his promise, and forcedhimself to speak. “You don’t seem like the kind to give up that easily. Something had to give eventually.”
“Irresistible force, immovable object, etcetera?” she said, a satisfied smile playing around her mouth.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she muttered, with a little shake of her head. “Note to self: Justin Winters does not appreciate musical theater references.”
“Note to self: Ivy Page never stops taking notes.”
“A good journalist is always reporting,” she shrugged. “Even when the subject doesn’t want to be reported on.”
“Well, I don’t want to be reported on, but it doesn’t look like I have much of a choice. So let’s just get this over with, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, and the satisfied smile widened into a triumphant grin. “Let’s do it over lunch today. We can make it quick, and if we need to, we’ll find a little more time later in the week. I know you have rehearsal at 1:30, and you like to lie down in the lounge for a few minutes after you eat.”
He felt his eyebrows shoot up—had she actually memorized his entire schedule?—and he was about to say something when, to his surprise, she picked up her pad and pen, brushed her hands down her dress, and stood. As always, she was wearing astronomical high heels, the kind of footwear that made pointe shoes look as comfy as bedroom slippers.
“You’re not staying for class?” Justin asked, before he could stop himself. He didn’t want her to—he hadn’t done a single plié without her watching in the last week—but, well, he’d kind of become accustomed to glancing in the mirror and seeing her in his peripheral vision.
She paused halfway to the door and looked over her shoulder at him, eyebrows raised in surprise. “Do you… want me to stay for class?”
“No,” he said hastily, and her eyebrows fell. She pursed her lips again.
“I’ll see you at lunch. I’ll meet you in the cafe, early, before they run out of the broccolini pasta.”
Justin blinked in surprise, but before he could reply, she was gone. Unease simmered under his skin as he stared at the open door and listened to the fading click-click-click of her shoes down the hallway. Ivy Page already knew his schedule, his family tree, and his favorite lunch order. What else would she find out about him before this was over?
One thing Ivy had found out about Justin Winters in the last hour was that he didn’t exactly keep his promises. He’d promised to give her more than one-word answers to her questions, but so far, the most she’d gotten out of him was seven words at a time. No, eight. “I started ballet because my cousin did it.”
“Your cousin whose name is…?”
“Not relevant to our conversation.”
Ivy heaved a sigh and resisted the urge to drop her forehead onto the metal cafe table. It had been like this for the last thirty minutes. She’d ask him something, and he’d give her the shortest, least informative answer possible. She’d learned long ago that the best way to get someone to talk was to ask them open-ended questions and then sit quietly while their responses took shape. Once, she’d read an interview with a famous journalist who said that when he was tempted to fill the silence himself, he’d scrawl “shut up, shut up” on his notepad, to remind him that staying quiet was one of his most useful reporting tools. People didn’t like silence. They talked just to fill it, and when they did, they often said some very interestingthings.
