Page 41 of Barre Fight
He nodded and she pushed the stage door open. Once again, a blast of freezing air greeted them, and Justin tugged his hat down over his ears. He replayed her answer in his head as they walked across the plaza in silence, heads bowed against the cold. He looked… good. He didn’t know what he’d expected from her, or why he’d hoped for more.
They made their way back uptown the way they’d come this morning, and Ivy was quiet. He glanced over at her and noted her raised shoulders and creased forehead.
“So where are you dragging me tonight?” he asked, trying to keep the conversation light and away from the inevitable.
“I’m not sure,” she said vaguely.
“Come on, I know you’ve got half a dozen places on that big long list of yours.”
The creases deepened. Ah, shit.
They stopped at another light, and he leaned down so his mouth was a little closer to her ear, and she could hear him over the traffic. “Kurt,” he said coaxingly, and she jumped a little. He pulled back slightly but kept his head low so he could see her expression. It was unreadable. “What’s the plan?”
She said nothing for a beat, and he watched as she chewed her lip, clearly thinking hard, and he had an awful feeling he knew exactly what about. Finally, she turned her face up to him, looking apprehensive.
“I need to ask you something, and I need you to be honest with me.”
Shit, shit, shit.Justin shrugged in response, knowing that if he spoke, all that levity and teasing would have vanished from his voice.
“The night of the fight,” she started, and his stomach tightened.
“Mmhm,” he replied noncommittally. The light changed and they crossed.
“What happened? Before you punched him, I mean. What happened to make you want to punch him?”
Usually when they walked, Justin kept his strides short so she wouldn’t have to scurry to keep up, but right now he felt the urge to increase his pace. He tried to stay calm, but it already felt like a losing battle.
“You know what happened. He was talking shit and I snapped. We’ve been over this.”
“Okay, but what shit specifically? What did he say?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Justin’s heart was racing, and his palms were starting to sweat in his gloves.
“Well, I do. I won’t tell anyone, I promise, but I can’t do my job properly if I don’t know,” Ivy insisted. He must have sped up without meaning to, because she was scuttling along beside him in her shiny black boots. She dodged around an oncoming pedestrian but didn’t break her stride.
“I don’t see why not,” he shrugged, slowing, and trying to sound nonchalant when he felt anything but.
“Justin, please. I’m trying to understand what happened that got you so upset that you’d do that. I’m trying to help you.”
“And I’m trying to tell you that it’s none of your business, okay?” he cut in angrily. “You don’t need to know everything in order to help me. You don’tgetto know everything. Just do your job, and I’ll do mine.”
He’d walked a few more paces when he realized that she was no longer beside him, and he stopped and turned around. She was standing five meters behind him in the middle of the footpath, looking stung. Her cheeks were pink from the chill, and he hoped the glassiness in her eyes was from the cold, too.
He started to walk back to her, already regretting how he’d handled this. “Kurt,” he said, but she gave her head a tight little shake. “Ivy,” he tried again.
“Forget it,” she said, her voice thin and wobbly, and he wanted to kick himself. “I’m going to walk around a bit on my own. I’m sure you can make it back to the hotel without my supervision.”
ChapterTen
It took a half hour of wandering around the streets near their hotel for Ivy to stop feeling like she wanted to cry. She was grateful Em had made her pack a pair of flat boots, because stalking down the street in a mood, dodging people and subway grates and garbage, would have been far too difficult in heels.
The streets were lined with shops and restaurants, but for the first little while, Ivy didn’t really see them. She just walked, whipping up rants in her head, things she wished she’d said to Justin instead of simply standing there, mouth open, hurt and almost speechless.I’m here watching you like a nanny and protecting you from prying questions, at least do me the respect of telling me why. If you’re going to cost the company this much money and trouble, and be such a dick to me, maybe you don’t deserve a second chance.
Two hours later, she’d calmed down enough to head back to the hotel, thanks in part to a hot toddy she’d ordered when, on a whim, she ducked into a cozy-looking bar near the Natural History Museum. She’d tucked herself into a dark-wood booth, bouncing a little on the plump leather seat. Crappy as she felt—frozen solid, and still angry at Justin—there was somethingundeniably glamorous about slipping into a bar in New York City for a steaming hot drink in the middle of the afternoon. She sipped it slowly, letting herself imagine for a few minutes that this was her real life. She snapped a selfie and texted it to Em, who was probably fast asleep, then took the walk home slowly. The drink kept her warm as she took the time to peer into the storefronts and stop in to buy a pair of earrings that were going to make a perfect birthday present for her mum.
Ivy scanned the hotel lobby as she walked through it. No sign of Justin. Good. She’d have to see him soon—and for almost every minute of the rest of this trip—but she wanted a few more minutes on her own.
You don’t get to know everything. Just do your job.He’d been so dismissive, so unwilling to even consider answering her questions, and it felt like he’d shoved them right back to square one, on that first day in Peter’s office, where he didn’t like or trust her. Well, right now the feeling was extremely mutual.
