Page 34 of Barre Fight
For a moment they stood in silence a meter apart, the polished metal door reflecting their faces back at them. Even the warp of the metal couldn’t hide their matching expressions ofmortification. In the small lift, made smaller by their bulky suitcases, the air felt tight and thick with awkward tension.
“I thought they’d—” he started to say, just as she spoke.
“For a second I was worried that—” she started.
They both stopped abruptly, and the silence stretched for another few seconds. She looked just as horrified as he felt by the idea of them staying in the same room, just as grateful for the two sets of keycards. And he was grateful. Because he might need Ivy Page, and he might respect her stubborn commitment to her work, and he might not mind the sound of her giggle, but he did not want to sleep with her. He did not. The adjoining door wasn’t a big deal. All they were actually sharing was a wall and a hotel floor. Oh, and every second of the day when they weren’t in their rooms.
“But they’re separate,” he finished.
“Thank god,” she said, with a weak smile, not quite meeting his eyes.
“Uh, yeah. Thank god.” His thoughts exactly.
After a moment, Justin noticed the lift wasn’t moving, and he glanced down at the buttons. Ivy looked down, as well, and seemed to realize in the same moment he did that none of the buttons was lit up. Neither of them had pressed the button for the sixth floor.
He reached out to press it just as Ivy lunged forward, and his hand landed on top of hers. She froze with her finger pressed to the 6 button and his hand covering hers, skin on skin for a brief second that felt like an hour. Her skin was cool and smooth, a welcome contrast to the close, stuffy air in the lift, and as he pulled his hand away, he felt the cloud-soft fabric of her coat brush beneath his fingertips. Ivy stepped back into her spot on the other side of the lift, and he glanced at the shiny door to try to get a look at her expression, but her head was down, her eyes fixed on determinedly on the place where the door metthe floor. He shoved his hand into his coat pocket, ignoring the suddenly erratic pounding of his heart as the lift finally sped towards the sixth floor.
When the bell dinged and the doors slid open, he gestured for her to go first. “I’m following you, remember?”
She looked up at him then, her wide eyes a little bloodshot with fatigue. She seemed a little dazed, and in the light of the lift, the round apples of her cheeks appeared slightly pink, the colour only making the green of her eyes glow brighter. Only when the door started to slide shut again did she pull her gaze from his and scuttle out of the lift.
He followed her down the hallway, carpeted in a blue so dark it almost looked black, watching the gold numbers on the doors go past: 655, 657, 659. And there they were, 661 and 663. Two doors, two rooms. And an adjoining door that probably didn’t even open anyway.
“This is you,” he said, and she nodded, fumbling in her pocket for a moment until she pulled out her keycard. She held it up to the reader, and he heard a beep and a whirr.
“This is me,” she echoed curtly, and she pushed the door open, shouldering it wide to make room for her suitcase.
Justin kept walking and unlocked his own door. She had almost disappeared into her room when he spoke. “Hey, Ivy?”
She poked her head out of her door. God, she really was pretty. Not that it mattered.
“Yeah?” she asked quietly, again not quite meeting his eyes.
“Thanks for doing this for me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, a little stiffly.
“I’ll see you in the morning?”
“That’s the deal.”
“Right. That’s the deal. Good night.”
“Night,” she nodded, and then she slipped back into her room and let the door snap shut behind her.
Chapter Eight
When Ivy woke up the next morning, it was to an unholy combination of sounds. A car horn bellowing, a jackhammer yammering, and her phone alarm screeching on her bedside table. She flipped over and fumbled with the phone, silencing it and knocking it onto the floor. She lay on her back, heart racing, slightly shell shocked by the abrupt, ungodly wakeup call. For a second, she couldn’t fathom where she was, or what day it was. Then she remembered, and bounded out of bed. Her hotel bed. InNew York City.
She rushed to the window, ready to see the city in daylight after only catching glimpses of it lit up from the bus and the plane last night. She yanked the curtains open, already smiling, and?—
And her room had a sweeping view of a shaftway. Nothing but grey-brown bricks on three sides, with a sliver of open air visible if she craned her neck hard to the right. The morning light was dim, or perhaps it just couldn’t penetrate this cloistered little well they’d stuck her in. Ivy sighed and looked upwards. Nope, she couldn’t see the sky from here either.
Well, at least she could hear the city. It sounded… awake. And kind of angry about it. Ivy yawned and picked her phone up off the floor, checking the time. It was 8 o’clock in New York, and god knew what time in Sydney and in her body. Peter had told the dancers to catch up on sleep and had pushed morning class until 1pm, so she had plenty of time to explore a little before heading down to the theater with Justin.
Justin. She glanced at the adjoining door and bit her lip. They’d spent most of their day in transit apart, seeing as they weren’t seated together, but when they had been together he’d been courteous and obliging, always staying in her line of sight but not crowding her. He’d made sure she got a window seat on the bus and hadn’t tried to distract her when she was busy looking out the window at the city.
But then they’d arrived at the hotel, and there had been that short, embarrassing moment when she’d thought they’d be forced to share a room. And then—even more horrifying—her next thought had been that sharing a room with Justin Winters wouldn’t be so terrible. His relief when they’d heard the words “adjoining door” had been palpable, rolling off him in waves that only made her feel more foolish.
