Page 58 of On Dancer
“I missed you too.” Rudy hadn’t smiled, but I exhaled anyway. He’d missed me. We could build from there.
“Good.” I gave an uncertain chuckle. “I mean notgood. But misery loves company and all that.”
“Misery is a good word.” Rudy shuffled his cards around in his hand. “I knew I would miss you, and goodbye was still so much worse than I expected.”
“Same.” I gave a helpless shake of my too-pale hand. “I’m not sleeping. Food tastes wrong. I go to class. I walk the city because my apartment isn’t yours. It’s too damn quiet, and my head is so loud.”
“I see reminders of you everywhere.” Rudy matched my confessional tone. “I’m not entirely sure you’re actually here.” Finally, finally, I got the smallest of smiles from him. “I might be dreaming.”
“You’re not dreaming.” I reached for his free hand and squeezed his fingers. “I’m here.”
“Yes, you are.” Rudy squeezed back. “But what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be in rehearsals for the Valentine’s weekend show?”
“I took a personal day.”
“Alexander Dasher took a personal day.” Rudy sounded understandably skeptical. “Alexander Dasher, the legendary workaholic who once danced a critically acclaimed performance with a one hundred and two-degree fever, is playing hooky for me?”
“Yep.” I nodded. “I needed to see you more than I needed Friday’s class. We need to talk.”
“We do.” Rudy dropped my hand as Irma arrived with a plate piled high with food for me. Rudy’s gaze swept around the room at all the curious eyeballs pretending not to watch us. “Maybe not here. You eat. I’ll pack up my stuff.”
He’d ordered me to eat, so eat I did. He’d agreed to talk, and my chest already felt lighter than it had all week. Simply sharing the same air as Rudy was as restorative as a two-hour massage.
“I can’t believe you came back,” Rudy said once we were alone and on the walk back to his place. I hadn’t asked yet, but I was hoping he’d let me sleep over and save me from sneaking into my parents’ pool house late at night. I shivered at the thought, and Rudy stopped under a streetlight to adjust his bags so he could take my hand. “I was going to come to you.”
“You were?” I blinked. Thank goodness he hadn’t given in to that impulse, or our flights might have passed in the sky like some bad rom-com scene.
“I was.” Rudy offered a self-conscious laugh. “I’d arrived at that decision literally seconds earlier, and then there you were behind me like I’d summoned you.”
“Pretty nifty power.” I swung his hand. A few fat flakes of snow fell onto his knit beanie. Thank goodness the weather hadcooperated enough to get me here. Let it snow. Getting back to Seattle could be a problem for Sunday night me.
“I promise to only use my superpowers for good.” Dimples on full display, Rudy resumed walking only to stop again in front of the ballet school. “Why did you come, Alexander?”
“I told you. I missed you.” We were so close to his couch, yet so far away. And apparently, Rudy needed more explanation than that because he stayed rooted to the spot. I drew my shoulders up and back, elongated my neck into perfect posture, much as I did before a command performance to quiet my nerves. I certainly had enough nerves here, but I pushed the flock of butterflies aside. “I don’t like who I am without you. I want to make this thing between us work. I love you.”
“Oh wow.” Rudy exhaled hard, breath hanging between us in the frosty air in the longest pause known to humankind. I’d added theI love youso he couldn’t stop me from saying it, but my hands shook with each word. My heart hammered right up until he added, “I love you too.”
“Thank goodness.” I slumped against the building, as spent as if I’d danced an entire performance.
“I want to make this work as well.” He pulled me back to upright, wrapping an arm around my waist as if to steady me. “Turns out the only thing worse than contemplating long distance is trying to do life without you.”
“I want to do life with you.” My lips pursed. I should have added that to my speech. I leaned into Rudy and let him steer us around the building to the back entrance.
“I was too quick to send you away.” He broke away long enough to unlock the door and kept his attention on the lock, not meeting my gaze. “I was scared.”
“I was terrified.” I gathered him to me from behind, inhaling his familiar minty, woolly, all-Rudy scent. “Still am.”
“Me too.” Rudy spun in my embrace to give me a swift kiss. “I don’t have all the answers, but I’m willing to do what it takes to make our love go the distance.”
“I want forever.” I cupped his face in my hands, cold air be damned. I’d stand out here all night if that was what it took.
“Me too.” Rudy offered me another kiss before tugging me into the building and locking the door behind us. “And forever doesn’t have to mean years and years of long distance. My mom is doing really well. She says she wants me to be happy. I could telecommute or move.”
“So could I.” I frowned because I’d practiced my big offer the entire flight here, and he’d beaten me to it.
“No.” Rudy whirled on the stairs, momentarily taller than me, expression fierce as he wagged a finger at me. For a moment, he looked ready to whop me with his game bag. “Tell me you didn’t quit, Alexander. I want your dreams to come true. All of them. I want to see you on stage in February.”
I was insanely glad I hadn’t given in to my initial urge to quit on the spot because Rudy looked willing to drag me back to Seattle with his own two hands if so required.
