Beverly

Chapter 55

55

BLAKE, 2001

20 years old

Beverly walked ahead of me, her hair bouncing with every step, shorter than I remembered but still unmistakably her.

I’d dreamed of this—of her walking beside me again, like no time had passed. But this wasn’t a dream. She was real. And here. For the first time in two years, I wasn’t staring at her through the rearview of a memory.

We stepped out into the parking lot, the afternoon sun casting long shadows across the pavement. As we approached my car, I swallowed hard, the weight of the past and present colliding in a way I wasn’t prepared for.

Beverly stared at it, blinking. “This is yours?”

“Yeah.” I glanced at her, unlocking the door with the old key that always stuck halfway in. “Why?”

She lifted a brow. “A Chevy Impala? It’s from the sixties.”

“It’s a ’66,” I corrected.

She blinked again, eyes narrowed. “Well, I… I just figured, CEO of some shiny new company?—”

“—I’d be rolling up in a black Benz with tinted windows?”

“Exactly.”

“If I wasted my money on unnecessary shit,” I said, opening the passenger door for her, “I wouldn’t be able to pay my staff. Or rent. Or, you know, food. I’m not a millionaire. Not yet, anyway.”

She rolled her eyes but climbed in,tucking her bag between her feet. “I’m not saying it’s a bad car. Actually, it’s pretty nice. But still,” she huffed, shifting in her seat. “I expected at least something with cup holders. You really don’t want a fancy car?”

“No,” I said, circling around to the driver’s side. “Not unless it comes with a button that can undo the worst year of my life.”

The playful smile she had been wearing faded.

I got in beside her, started the engine, and let the purr of it cover the silence for a few seconds.

“So,” she started, glancing at me from the corner of her eye. “Where are we going?”

I turned left, my fingers tapping against the steering wheel. “It’s a place I bought for my wife.”

I didn’t need to look at her to know what face she was making—the slightly strangled one that screamed she was seconds away from either laughing or freaking out. I could feel her stiffen in the seat, see her hand gripping the side of the door like she was preparing to open it and throw herself out. Not that she was actually going to jump out, but she was definitely thinking about it.

I smothered a laugh. “Relax.”

“I swear to God, Blake?—”

I risked a glance at her. Big mistake. “Relax,” I repeated softly.

The streets blurred past, block by block. San Francisco was always too loud, but today, it was just background noise. We passed a row of shops—laundromats, a bodega, a pet grooming place with a broken neon sign—before I pulled into a small lot beside a building with blacked-out windows and a single sign above the door that read B’s Dance Studio in pink script.

I put the car in park. “This,” I said, nodding toward the studio, “is what I bought.”

Her mouth parted. Her brow furrowed. “What?”

“I’m not married,” I said before she could spiral further. “But if I ever were...it’d be you. And this would be yours.”

Beverly blinked at me, silent.

I reached into the glove compartment, pulled out the keys to the studio, and held them out to her. “I bought it a year ago, right after ChimeIn made its first decent profit.I was on my way to a meeting when I passed by and saw the For Lease sign hanging in the window. I didn’t even think. Just pulled over and signed the paperwork the next morning.”

She stared at the keys, unmoving.

I kept talking, lifting the keys a little higher, trying to make her see. “You said once that dancing was the only thing that made you feel alive. You used to dance in the living room when you thought nobody was watching. Well, I was always watching. But you know that already.”

Her eyes glistened, but her expression remained unreadable. She drew in a shaky breath, her shoulders tensing. “You bought this...what? Hoping I’d just show up someday?”Her voice was soft but filled with a pain I could hear in every syllable.

“I didn’t think you’d show up. I hoped that you would. I wasn’t stupid enough to believe I deserved it. But I thought…if you ever came back, if I was lucky enough for that, I’d hand you something that didn’t ask anything from you. No conditions. Just yours.”

“I don’t know what to say,” she whispered.

“Say yes,” I replied. “Or just...say you’ll dance again. Or teach. Run this place. Or just exist here.”

For a long second, the car was completely silent.

Then she reached out slowly, her fingers brushing the keys.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just held the keys like they might burn through her palm if she held them too long.

Wordlessly, Beverly stepped out of the car, her movements unhurried. I followed, walking in her shadow like a ghost, unable to tear my gaze away from her. She walked to the front door of the studio and pressed her palm against the glass. After a long moment of silence, she unlocked it with a soft click and disappeared inside.

“I’ll wait here,” I said quietly.

Beverly gave the faintest nod.

The moment she was gone, my chest caved in.

God, what was I doing?

I dragged a hand down my face and dropped back into the driver’s seat, the door still open, feet planted on the concrete like I needed something solid to hold me there. I couldn’t follow her. Not yet. I couldn’t ruin it.

But then my body moved on instinct.

I stood and walked to the door.

The studio was wide and open, the hardwood floor gleaming under the thin stream of sunlight slicing through the back windows. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors stretched across the far side of the room. It was empty except for one tall black stool in the middle of the room and the sound system in the corner.

Beverly paused in the center of the room and just stood there, looking around like the walls might start talking. “This is insane,” she finally said, half under her breath.

“I wanted it to be,” I said softly from behind her.

She turned to face me, the space between us stretching and shrinking all at once. We stood there—maybe six feet between us, too close for strangers, too far for what we used to be.

Then she took a slow turn through the room, trailing her hand along the mirror, her eyes scanning every inch like she was trying to memorize it. “Kind of weird, huh?”

“Weird how?” I asked.

“That you bought this for me. That you kept it for two years. That you never told me.”

I sat down on the stool, the wood creaking under my weight. “We’re pretty good at weird, B.”

She smiled at that, even though she tried not to. Then silence—the kind of silence that says talk to me but also don’t you dare.

She folded her arms, her gaze drifting back to the mirrors. “So, what now?” Her voice was quiet. Careful.

“Now you say something. Yell. Throw something at me.”

Her mouth twitched—barely. “Are we really going to do this?”

“Do what?”

“Tiptoe around it,” she said. She didn’t sound angry. Just tired. “This is the part where we tiptoe around what happened, right?”

I blinked. “You mean the part where I walked out like an idiot, or the part where you didn’t come out of the storage room while they dragged me out in cuffs?”

Her jaw tensed. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Make it sound like I wanted that to happen.”

I exhaled slowly. “I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.”

“Okay,” I admitted. “Maybe I did. Maybe I was a little pissed you let them take me without saying a single word.”

“I couldn’t move, Blake,” she said, voice low. “I was frozen. You don’t get to punish me for how I handled that moment.”

“I didn’t mean to punish you. But…you didn’t say anything. Not once. Not a text. Not a letter. Not a—” I stopped myself.

Her eyes locked on mine. “You left me first.”

I ran a hand through my hair, feeling the weight of her words settle like a stone in my chest.

“I know,” I sighed. “I know, B.” I looked down at my hands. “But I was stupid and grieving and convinced that I was poison. And you—” I stopped, the words catching. “You were the only thing I ever wanted that felt good . And I was terrified I’d ruin you, too. I didn’t expect you to come out or?—”

“You shouted my name like you did.”

I let out a breath that felt like it’d been stuck in my lungs for years. “Yeah, well. Hope’s a hell of a thing.”

“You left. You always leave , Blake.”

I met her blue eyes across the room, bitterness creeping in. “And you hid . When I needed you to come out, you didn’t.”

Beverly glared, then walked over to the stereo system I’d set up a few weeks ago. She fiddled with the knobs, and the opening beat of If You Had My Love by Jennifer Lopez filled the room.

Then she started to move.

I swallowed, suddenly aware of every sound in the room. Her tank top clung to her in all the ways that made my throat close up. Her legs moved with too much confidence, like she hadn’t been hiding behind a café counter for two years.

“You planning on killing me?” I asked, voice rough.

She didn’t respond. Just pivoted into another fluid movement, one arm arching overhead, the other trailing down her side.

Her eyes never left the mirror, but she knew I was watching. She wanted me to watch.

“Beverly,” I warned, but it came out more like a desperate plea. “I thought we weren’t doing this.”

“We’re not doing anything,” she said, her eyes catching mine in the reflection.

“Really? Because it feels a lot like you’re trying to kill me.”

“You said I could have this space, right?”

“Of course,” I managed.

“You better sit your ass down and watch me use it.”

“Already am,” I muttered. “Haven’t stopped.”I sat there, hands clenched around the edge of the stool, chest tight, mouth dry.

She danced like sin wrapped in softness.

Like a dare I hadn’t earned the right to take.

“I thought about you,” I said, voice hoarse.

She turned in one fluid movement, her gaze sliding toward me. “Yeah?” she asked, not missing a beat as her body moved with the rhythm of the music. “I thought about you too. Sometimes.”

“Every time I got a paycheck, I imagined your reaction. Every time I saw a girl in a ponytail, I checked if it was tied with a pink scrunchie. Every time I caught a whiff of cinnamon, it made me want to throw something.”

She paused, her feet slowing a fraction before she spun again. “You still look at me the same way,” she said, breathless.

“Like what?”

“Like you’ve never seen me before, but somehow also like you invented me. Like I’m something you made up just to stare at.”

My throat tightened with all the words I hadn’t said over the years. There were a thousand things I wanted to say, and none of them felt worthy. “I didn’t invent you,” I finally said with a sigh, “but I’ve never stopped being in awe of you.”

“Don’t say things like that.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I don’t know if I believe them anymore.” Beverly came to a stop in front of me, so close I could smell her again—Tommy Girl and something distinctly her.

Her hand brushed my knee as she circled me. Without thinking, I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into my lap. She let out a breath of surprise but didn’t stop me. I held her there, hands trembling as they slid along her back.

“Blake,” she whispered, my name barely more than a breath, yet it sent a ripple through me.

“I’ve missed you every second, B.”

Her face was right there, just inches from mine, with no space left to breathe. She leaned in, her eyes locked on mine, and her lips parted just enough to make my heart race. “You still love me?”

“Don’t ask questions you know the answer to.” I tilted forward, just enough to close the last bit of space between us.

“No kiss,” she said.

I swallowed hard. “No kiss?”

Her eyes lingered on my mouth. “Not even a little one.”

“Not even a little one,” I echoed, my voice wrecked.

And then she pulled back, a smirk playing on her lips. Just like that. She slid off my lap as if she hadn’t just set my blood on fire.

Before I could speak, she stepped back, tossed her hair over her shoulder, and grabbed her bag from the floor.

I blinked, stunned. “Where the hell are you going?”

She grinned over her shoulder, already halfway to the door. “You’re lucky I didn’t charge you for the performance.”

I stood up, dazed, desperate, pulse racing.

She paused in the doorway. “Pick me up tomorrow.”

“What?” I asked breathlessly.

She gestured toward the studio, her hand sweeping across the space. “I’ve got things to dream about tonight. I need to sleep on it. But tomorrow, you pick me up. First thing in the morning. We’re heading back to Los Angeles.”

My mouth parted. “We are?”

She nodded, walking with that same cocky tilt in her step I hadn’t seen since we were teenagers. “To visit Jamal and Tiffany,” she said, pulling the door open. “They deserve to see the fool who bought me a dance studio.”

And with that, she disappeared, leaving me alone in a room I’d bought for her and now couldn’t seem to breathe in without her there. I stared after her, stunned, aroused, and more in love than I had any right to be.

I sat back down on the stool, still catching my breath, every inch of me aching with the weight of not kissing her.

The door shut behind her.

And I just sat there, grinning like an idiot.

God, I was so gone for her.