Page 81 of Barre Fight
Ivy’s smile was kind but cautious. “No, I mean, have you ever talked to a professional about it? A therapist, a counselor?”
Justin stared at her. “That’s your follow-up question? Notwhat the hell is wrong with you?orDo you have any idea how fucked up that is?”
She paused, as if she was reconsidering. Shit, she was reconsidering. Justin’s stomach, which had halted its freefall at the sight of her slight smile, resumed its plummeting. But then she shook her head.
“Well, I have other questions. But don’t think I realized quite how deeply the bullying had affected you. And maybe I should have, given what happened in that pub, but god, Justin, I…” She took in a breath, clearly searching for her next words and coming up empty. Instead, she leaned forward and before he could move, she’d wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled herself closer to him. She pressed her face into his neck. Held him tightly, and with determination and focus, the same way she did everything else.
Justin sat, his own arms frozen at his side as she clung to him and breathed against his skin. Her perfume, that spicy floral something he’d become so accustomed to in New York, swirledaround him, and it made him think of stepping into a ray of sunlight on a bitterly cold day. Carefully, as though moving too quickly would make her pull away, he lifted his arms and wrapped them around her waist, pressing his cheek against her hair. He held on to her, because god, he wanted so badly to hold on to this.
“So you don’t think I’m fucked up?” he asked after a moment, attempting a light tone as he blinked away the moisture in his eyes.
She lifted her head and pulled away from him then, and looked at him, face serious. “No, I do,” she said matter of factly. “But you’ve earned it. And I think it’s the kind of fucked up you can fix, with some help.”
“I think I’d like that. I don’t want to feel like this ever again, about anyone. And I know you said some people deserve to be punched in the face, but I don’t want to be the one doing the punching.”
“I don’t want that either. There are people you can talk to. I know the company has some people on staff, but this is probably beyond their expertise. We’ll find you someone who’s a good fit, okay?”
He nodded. His throat was too tight to speak.
“I’m sorry for what you went through. For what that town did to you.”
“Me too,” he managed. But it was time to let it go now. Hillstone had driven him all these years, had given him this life in a fucked-up kind of way, but it had taken too much from him. And now its people had lost everything. He didn’t deserve what happened to him, but neither did they.
Ivy cupped his face in her hands. “You’re a good man, Justin Winters.”
He swallowed hard and closed his eyes, pressing a cheek into her palm. The words were a balm to the raw, ragged partsof him that the last few days had exposed. To all the fear and doubt and uncertainty. And he knew she meant it, too. Ivy Page always picked her words wisely, and he knew better than most that she didn’t hand out praise unless she thought it had been earned.
“I should tell you,” she said after a moment, and he opened his eyes warily. “I’m going to start looking for other jobs soon. I don’t think PR is for me. I’m not leaving ANB right away, but this isn’t what I want to do with my life. No offense,” she added quickly.
“Was I that difficult a babysitting client?” he joked.
“At the beginning, you were impossible,” she said drily. “And then you were irresistible. And now, you’ve ruined all other clients for me, and I have no choice but to leave the profession entirely.”
She was making a valiant effort at lightheartedness, but he didn’t miss the wistfulness in her smile.
“What do you want to do next?” he said. He reached out and took her hand, twining their fingers together.
“I don’t know yet. I’m taking some time to figure it out. I’m going to try not to rush into anything this time. What do you want to do next?”
Justin thought for a long moment. The truest, most immediate answer was that he wanted to take Ivy to bed and kiss her for hours. But—he looked down at their joined hands, relief and anticipation filling him in equal measure—he knew there would be time for that. Lots of time. Right now, he wanted to do something to help. Something to heal.
“I want to rebuild that church hall,” he said. With the hand that wasn’t holding Ivy’s, he gestured down at his silent phone. “I want to make sure that when those kids go home, there’s a place for them to dance.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
A week-and-a-half later, the lobby of the Opera House was full to bursting, the queues at the concession stand stretching all the way back to the floor to ceiling glass windows that looked out over the harbour. The smoke that had hung in the air in the immediate aftermath of the fires had largely been swept out to sea, and the sky was a clear forget-me-not blue over the sparkling water that surrounded the building on three sides. All around Ivy, audience members chatted and snapped photos of themselves, or else browsed the silent auction tables, jotting down their bids in hopes of winning backstage tours or a private ballet class with an ANB principal.
Ivy looked down at the long list on her clipboard, making sure she hadn’t missed anything. Yes, she’d chatted with the freelancer who was reporting on the benefit concert for theMorning Sun. Yes, she’d met up with the fashion influencers who had agreed to post about the show and escorted them backstage to film their videos about today’s costumes. Then she’d found the fitness influencers and made sure they had space to film their posts about ballet-inspired workout exercises. All their posts would include links to the donation site so that hopefullytheir hundreds of thousands of followers would contribute to Rebuild Hillstone.
The last week had been a flurry of activity to rival their ten days in New York City. Once Justin had decided that he wanted to raise money to help his hometown and that he wanted a good chunk of it to go towards building a new church hall for Miss Mary’s classes, he and Ivy had sprung into action. But they’d quickly been overwhelmed by how much work it would take to throw together a full-length ballet performance, and advertise it properly, in the space of barely a week. They’d hardly slept the last few nights, and despite the excitement buzzing around her, Ivy had been suppressing yawns all afternoon.
Still, they’d done it. In a few hours, the Opera House curtains would rise on ninety minutes of ballet performed by Justin and his colleagues at ANB, as well as some guest artists from other companies. They’d begin with a Welcome to Country by dancers from the indigenous dance company that also had rehearsal studios and offices on the wharf that housed ANB, and then Justin would say a few words about the devastation of his hometown and so many neighbouring communities. They’d written and rehearsed his remarks a few nights ago, Ivy tapping away on her computer as he tried to find the right words to express some of his complicated feelings about Hillstone. And then, even though every person in the audience had paid a hundred dollars to be there, Justin would ask them to open their wallets again. If her calculations were correct, by the end of the night they’d have raised several hundred thousand dollars, more than enough to build Miss Mary a new place to teach, this one made of something sturdier than timber. The rest would be distributed throughout the town to rebuild parks, playgrounds, and the local pool.
It had been easy enough to attract corporate sponsors onceEm and Missy had gotten their firms on board. The fires had been all over the news, and companies were keen to be seen doing something to help, especially if it involved a one-off contribution and not an ongoing commitment. Ivy had played up this angle when she talked to them, and had been shocked by how effective it was.
Promoting the performance itself had been easy, too. Ivy had clipped the news footage of Miss Mary teaching those kids at the evacuation center and spliced it with footage of Justin performing in New York City. Justin had recorded some audio about how Miss Mary had insisted he try ballet, and about how much meaning the art form had brought to his life. Ivy had sent the video out to all the usual press suspects, and they’d all been eager to tell a positive story after almost two weeks of round the clock footage of leaping flames and burned-out homes. The papers wanted a feel-good story, so Ivy handed them one.
And once they’d announced that Heather Hays, the company’s beloved American star, would be using this benefit performance to return to the stage after her maternity leave, the tickets basically sold themselves. With Alice still away, Heather had agreed to dance “If Love” with Justin to open the show, and they’d been rehearsing for half an hour or so every day this week, heeding Shaz’s instructions for Heather to take it easy. Ivy had loved watching Justin dance the piece with Alice, but Alice was still in Las Vegas with Izzy, and she never passed up a chance to watch the great Heather Hays.
