Page 51 of Barre Fight
Chapter Thirteen
Ivy was waiting for him just inside the stage door when company class ended, her soft navy blue coat cinched tight at her waist. The waist he’d splayed his hands over this morning as he’d pulled her to him, as she’d kissed him like she’d been wanting it for weeks. He pushed the thought away as he approached the door. She’d made it clear she didn’t want to do that again, and he had to respect that. He’d never forgive Alice, though. If she hadn’t interrupted them this morning, he and Ivy wouldn’t have had to stop. If Alice hadn’t arrived, he’d have stripped off his clothes, and hopefully hers, and then?—
He pushed that thought away, too. It wasn’t going to happen.
“How was class?” she asked with a smile. She sounded a little nervous, though less stilted and awkward than she had on their walk down here this morning. The smile was a nice improvement, too. Better than nice. Ivy Page had a hell of a smile, even when it was small and a little anxious.
“It was fine. Hip feels good, Peter’s clearly over the moon about the reviews. And we’re almost sold out for the rest of the run.”
“I heard,” she smiled again. “When Alice, um…”
“Right,” he said quickly. When Alice had shouted it in his room and the sound had carried straight through the adjoining door. He tried not to picture Ivy standing on the other side of that door, cheeks flushed from that kiss, regretting it and trying to figure out how to let him down gently.
She swallowed, then pushed her shoulders back a little. “I changed my mind,” she said firmly.
Justin shifted his bag on his shoulder, a little irritated. Did she really think he needed to be rejected twice in one morning? She’d made herself pretty clear, and he respected it, but he didn’t need constant reminders of it. “I know, you told me. It won’t happen again.”
Ivy fidgeted with the knot in her coat belt. “No, I mean, I changed my mind about that. Let’s go out tonight.”
“We go out every night.” He’d never eaten better on a tour than he had on this one, with Ivy doing her restaurant research and calling the shots. It would be hard to sit across from her tonight without wanting to reach under the table and run his hand over her leg, but he’d handle it. He’d mostly managed to behave himself around Ivy Page when he didn’t like her, so he could manage to behave himself now that he knew how good her waist felt in his hands.
“Yes, but that’s just you following me wherever I want to go. I want to go somewhere… together,” she said.
Justin stared at her for a long moment, perplexed. Why did she look so nervous about this?
Oh.Oh.
“Like on a date?” he feigned confusion, even though he fully understood. “Are you asking me out? Are you asking me to ask you out?”
“Yes,” she said, sounding exasperated. “You don’t have a show tomorrow, so we can probably stay out a bit later tonight.If you want to, I mean,” she added hastily. “If you’ve changed your mind, too, that’s fine, and we can just do what we usually do, or?—”
“ I want to, Kurt,” he interrupted her rambling, and smiled slyly, and he could have sworn she blushed.
“Okay. You pick a place, and we’ll go together.”
“Alright. It’s a date.” A date with Ivy Page. The woman he’d mistrusted for years, and now couldn’t stop thinking about.
“Good,” she smiled, eyes sparkling, and she pushed open the stage door, throwing what looked like a lot of relief into the motion. “And I’m not going to call you Liesl anymore.”
“What? Why not?” The nickname had been growing on him. “Is it because I don’t actually need a governess?”
She chuckled. “No, it’s because Liesl and Kurt are brother and sister. And that’s not what we are.”
True enough. Justin had no idea what they were. But he had every intention of finding out.
Ivy and Justin climbed the steps up from the subway platform and found themselves on the street in the heart of the theater district. Around them, cars idled and honked, and steam and exhaust billowed in the cold late-night air. Crowds swarmed, the footpaths swollen with people as all the Broadway shows let out at once, releasing thousands of smiling, chattering audience members out into the streets and toward the subways. Ivy and Justin walked against the crowd, Justin leading the way and occasionally placing his hand at the small of Ivy’s back to guide her through the throng or pull her out of the way of a distracted oncoming tourist.
He and Alice had danced better tonight than she’d ever seen them. The whole company seemed to perform with a newconfidence, a precision and energy that hadn’t been there on opening night. Justin and Alice were perfectly in tune with each other and with the music, and at one moment they’d stood facing downstage, each with an arm extended, reaching for each other, and Ivy had watched as their chests rose and fell in perfect sync as though even their breaths had been choreographed and flawlessly executed. It wasn’t just the remarkable feet, either—Justin really was a beautiful dancer, and he really did have a beautiful body. Ivy was grateful for the darkness of the theater as she sat there, staring and slightly sweating, watching the man she’d kissed this morning—and was going on a date with tonight—moving his lean, impossibly muscular shirtless body around the stage.
When the pas de deux was over and the audience erupted into applause, the two of them stood at the front of the stage and took their bows, and Justin’s grin was dazzling. She clapped hard enough that it stung her palms, and she’d tried to catch his eye before remembering that with the stage lights shining in his eyes and the house lights down, he couldn’t see her or anyone else.
“Here we are,” Justin said, and Ivy followed his gaze up to a black-and-white fabric sign that was fluttering slightly over the door.
“Birdland? You’re taking me to a jazz club?”
“Thejazz club, I’m told,” Justin said, removing his hand from her lower back to pull open the door. They stepped inside and through a pair of thick burgundy velvet curtains, and were met by a hostess stand, behind which sat a glass cabinet full of records and CDs.
Justin gave his name to the hostess, and she picked up two menus and escorted them into the restaurant, where tables were arranged in two semi-circles, one on an upper level raised a few feet above the lower one, both wrapped around a barely-raisedstage. The stage was empty for now, and the hostess led them to a table in the middle of the upper level, where they had a clear view of the waiting piano and drum set.
