Page 23 of On Dancer
“I am sure.” Tavio nodded, whipping out his phone to make a note. “Send me the details, and Irina and I will accommodate her visit.”
“Thank you.” Rudy turned back to me. He licked his lower lip, more a nervous gesture than anything seductive, yet the memory of the kiss slammed back into me. “And you? Will you help with the reporter?”
“Of course.” It was the only possible response, even if I’d rather agree to anything but. And Thanksgiving loomed, anotherforced interaction with the one person I was desperate to avoid. What a mess of my own making.
Twelve
Temps de flèche: step of the arrow.
Rudy
The Dasher house was large and stately and entirely lacking in places to escape. Thanksgiving was weird for reasons beyond the Alexander factor. He hadn’t talked to me much since our kiss, not that I’d expected otherwise. I missed our evening gaming time and how easily we’d chatted. One kiss had ruined everything.
One kiss I couldn’t stop thinking about as I crept through his parents’ house, seeking a moment of solitude. It was Thanksgiving, a day of gratitude, and while I was incredibly grateful for my mother’s recovery and Alexander’s mother’s hospitality, other forms of gratitude eluded me. As the afternoon progressed, I ran a gauntlet of questions over my future interspersed with familial achievements to celebrate. Helen announced a much-wanted pregnancy. Waylon had anew promotion at work. Shannon had closed a big real estate deal. The children had all made first-quarter honors at school. My father had picked a retirement date for the following year. All good news, and all a reminder of how little I’d personally accomplished.
Worse, I didn’t have the same sort of motivation as the rest of my family. I envied my siblings’ happy marriages, not their professional accolades. Further, joining Alexander’s successful family for the holiday only added to my inferiority issues. The large house hummed with activity: a football game on in the home theater, clumps of guests in the formal living and dining rooms, people in aprons bustling around the large kitchen, shooing the kids back to an expansive family room.
Usually, I’d simply join my nieces and nephews, but they were enjoying bossing around Alexander’s slightly younger niblings and had no time for Uncle Rudy. I slipped away from the family room to the quieter lower level, which featured a wine cellar along with a rec room with a large pool table.
Pool was hardly my game of choice, but I’d spent other gatherings in this house occupying myself down here. I took the stairs quietly, not wanting to call attention to my escape, but I’d barely reached the bottom step when a familiar voice sounded.
“Fancy meeting you here.” Alexander leaned against the pool table. He was otherwise alone in the dimly lit space.
“I’m not stalking you, promise.” I held up my hands, trying hard not to openly admire how good he looked in a baby-blue button-down shirt and gray dress pants. “I just needed a break from my siblings’ successes.”
“Don’t we all,” he drawled before lining up a predictably perfect shot that yielded him two balls in the corner pocket.
“You?” I scoffed. “Your sister might be a doctor, true, but you’re legitimately famous, especially within the global ballet community.”
“Yet I am woefully behind in providing grandkids.” Alexander offered a wry smile that didn’t reach his solemn eyes. “Also, Isabella will still be a doctor at ninety, whereas the clock on my fame ticks that much louder with each passing day.”
I groaned, completely out of patience with his theatrics. “I’m tired of hearing about how old you are.”
“Are you?” Alexander blinked like he was unused to pushback, probably with good reason. He could be rather intimidating. People were likely reluctant to stand up to someone of his stature. I, however, had no such issue, and I had a week’s worth of frustration to unleash.
“Yes. You’re only thirty-four. Boo-hoo, poor Alexander is in his prime.” I laid the fake sympathy on thick before glaring at him. “Do you know how lucky you are?”
“I am lucky. I know that.” Alexander huffed, gaze going to the recessed lights in the ceiling rather than my face. “And it’s precisely because I know how lucky I am that I’m scared of losing the life I love.”
Surprise over his willingness to admit to any sort of weakness went a long way to defusing my irritation. Voices filtered down from upstairs, the sound of my mother’s laugh as welcome as the pie we’d have later.
“Everyone should be so lucky as to get older.” I gentled my tone, but the point needed saying.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Alexander glanced toward the door at the top of the stairs, like his thoughts had followed mine. “I need to stop acting like retirement would be the end of the world.”
“Retirement doesn’t have to mean puttering around.” Perhaps if Alexander stopped thinking of getting older as some sort of prison sentence, he could relax on a personal level as well as professional.
The walls of the rec room were lined with family photos of Isabella and Alexander through the years, and I pointed at one of a younger Alexander flanked by Tavio and Irina. A beaming Tavio held a baby Kitty who had her trademark wild hair even then. “Look at Tavio and Irina. And plenty of other dancers who go on to have second acts as teachers, choreographers, directors, and many other careers.”
“True.” Alexander tilted his head, considering. “You’re rather fearless, you know? Not many people dare to get in my face even when I’m objectively in the wrong.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t scare me.” It was at least somewhat the truth. As an attractive man I’d had a crush on for years, Alexander was terrifying. However, despite my nerves around him, I also had no problem confronting him when he was being boneheaded. “You being dramatic about how ancient you are is more comical than scary. I had to face nearly losing my mother this past year. That’s scary.”
“I’m sorry.” Alexander’s expression softened. “I should choose my words more carefully.”
Perversely, I didn’t appreciate his sympathy one bit. “I don’t want your apologies.”
“No?” His eyes widened. It was readily apparent that he was unused to confrontation. One simply did not hand Alexander Dasher his pretty apologies back, but I wanted far more than his good manners.
