17. Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Seventeen
Pasha
I hated the way she wouldn’t look at me. Not a glance, not a nod of acknowledgment. Nothing.
At first, after the talk with Mia, after I’d reread the contract I signed with the HR firm, I’d decided some distance would make me feel better, put the risks and rewards in perspective.
I didn’t want to be fired, and Alyssa couldn’t afford it, quite literally.
Mia had asked me to cool it, and so I had, but every time I saw Alyssa, it was like being kicked in the nuts.
She’d been mine, and now she wasn’t. After the hospital, she’d been so cool—icy, even—that I’d taken the hint. We didn’t need to talk—we were just done. Maybe Mia had spoken to her too.
When she’d stumbled on her first step off the stool at the bar, I’d lurched forward, just catching myself in time before I’d charged over. My movement had drawn Mia’s eye to Alyssa before she’d had a chance to search the room for the other dancers. Of course she’d dragged us all over to her.
Had I been honest with Mia at the hospital, she’d know the proximity to Alyssa was like giving an alcoholic a drink to hold and telling them not to take a sip.
At this point, I didn’t just want a sip.
I wanted the whole damn bottle. It seemed impossible to miss someone so much who was only a few feet away .
Shift change arrived at two in the morning, and I was tempted to tell my replacement to go back to the buses, take the night off.
Alyssa was still drinking and flirting with the same guy who’d been sitting beside her most of the night.
Staying here was torture, but leaving, not knowing if she’d leave alone or with him, would be worse.
If she went home with him, then whatever we’d had between us couldn’t be salvaged. Maybe she was already back with Ricky.
After filling in my replacement and checking in with Gerald at the door, I sidled up to the bar and found a stool that let me get drunk and keep half an eye on Alyssa.
Obsessive and inappropriate, but I was past the point of caring.
Physical confrontations I could do, no problem.
Emotional ones were hard, even with therapy, even with English lessons.
As soon as my mind was overloaded, I wanted to speak in Russian.
Drinking wasn’t going to help that instinct.
If I drank enough, maybe I’d stop wishing for things with her that weren’t going to happen.
I’d made a promise to Mia that I’d let Alyssa be until after the tour, and the notion that maybe I should leave Alyssa alone, period, had crossed my mind.
There were only two weeks left, but Alyssa didn’t want me, didn’t care.
After speaking to me once in a hallway, where I’d tried to explain that we needed to keep focused on the important things—the dance performance, her getting better—she’d iced me out.
We were back to strangers, and I fucking hated it.
Now that I knew what it was like to be with her, this strain between us was worse than never knowing.
The more I drank, the more my thoughts spiraled.
When she rose from her seat in the booth and steadied herself, and the guy she’d been talking to seemed to be offering to take her somewhere, she shook her head.
She tapped her watch, pointed at her ankle, and smiled.
She was probably using her physio as an excuse for leaving.
Amy rose in the booth, but Alyssa waved her down too.
A chorus of goodbyes sounded, and then she hobbled toward the exit.
I had two options. Follow her or stay here and get drunker.
When the guy in the booth got up and ran after her, my decision was made.
Whether it was wise or not, I was following.
I threw some money on the bar to pay for my drinks and tailed Alyssa and the guy to the crowded front entrance.
There, the guy had Alyssa’s phone in his hands.
Jealousy, hot and fierce, bubbled inside me.
Was he giving her his number? Did she want his number?
She hadn’t seen me yet, and the smart thing was to leave through a side entrance, go back to the buses, and sober up.
She glanced up, over the other guy’s shoulder, and our gazes locked.
My gut clenched at the anger sparking from her eyes, but then she shook her head and gave the other man her full attention.
They hugged, and then she limped toward the exit, not bothering to acknowledge me a second time.
Anger and frustration spilled over. Going outside was a bad idea. We’d cause a scene. My anger had been reflected in her eyes when she’d looked at me. My feet were moving me out through the exit, even though the rest of me wanted to throw on the brakes.
At the curb, she stood scanning the street. She either ordered a taxi or was hoping to catch one sailing by. Her back was to me, and there was still a chance to avoid a confrontation. My heart wouldn’t let me leave—it strained in my chest, aching for a closeness I couldn’t have.
“Alyssa.” Her name was a rasp of frustration, of desire, of heartache.
She turned, arms crossed, lips pursed, jaw clenched. “Why are you following me? ”
The hardest question to answer. Long, complicated explanations sat on my tongue but wouldn’t come out in English. “I couldn’t help it.”
“Well,” Alyssa said, “I’ll make it really easy for you. I am fine . You can go back into the club and forget I’m out here. You’ve been exceptional at forgetting about me for the last week, so this should be a breeze.”
“Did you get back together with Ricky?” The question burned my soul.
“What?” She frowned and scanned the area around us before meeting my gaze. “Why would you ask me that?”
“In the car, on the way to the hospital, you said he wanted you back.” I ran a frustrated hand through my hair and then buried both hands in my pockets. I wanted to touch her, so badly.
Her face morphed from confused to surprised. “Oh my God. You’re jealous? You gave me the silent treatment for a week because you’re jealous?” She covered her face with her hands and bent at the waist.
“No, no, no.” I’d stepped away from our relationship because Mia had asked me to. The little voice in the back of my head chided me for not being honest. Her comment about Ricky had sent me spiraling, and I’d rotated away from her without fully examining why.
“Yes, yes, yes.” She glared. “Go back to the club. I’m not doing this. I don’t have the energy to do this.”
“To do what? Talk to me?”
She pointed her finger at my chest. “We’re not talking. We’re fighting. I’m so unbelievably angry at you for making me feel like shit this week because you thought there was a chance, a pretty fucking slim one, I might add, that I’d take Ricky back.”
“A slim chance?” I’d been right. She had considered his offer .
“Yeah, slim. Because at the time, I thought things were going pretty well with us. But you keep talking, and his chances keep rising.” With her hand, she sliced into the air as if creating rungs on an invisible ladder.
“You ordered a ride?” A preppy-looking white guy hung out the window of a black sedan, eyeing Alyssa.
“Yeah,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder. “Just a sec.” She turned back to me. “Go back inside. We’re done.”
“Alyssa.” I took a step toward the car as she opened the rear door.
“Don’t.” She had the door open, and she rotated to face me, tears in her eyes. “Don’t say my name like I’m the one breaking your heart. That’s not what happened. I didn’t do this. You did.”
Before I could say anything else, she was in the car, and they were speeding away.
I stared at the vehicle at a loss. She was right. I had done this. And I wasn’t completely sure why. Yes, Mia had asked, but it was my jealousy that kept me from talking to Alyssa, from explaining to her how I was feeling.
I ran a hand down my face. No woman had gotten this close, this deep under my skin.
Not since Zoya, and even then, our relationship had been so different.
I’d loved her, loved her so much, was certain I would have been happy with her for the rest of my life.
But she’d died, and I’d built a fortress around my heart.
One loss I could survive, but two? Nothing in my life would ever be fine again.
My preoccupation with Alyssa had been safe. I would never have acted on my feelings because she was a dancer. Each tour should have been a different cohort, without any risk of true attachment.
But she’d returned for a second tour and set a match to the gasoline of my obsession. How did you put out a fire that raged so hot ?
At the edge of my vision, a petite figure appeared near my shoulder. The fire-engine red hair gave her away. Amy.
“She’s gone?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“She’s miserable, too, you know. I liked it better when she was happy.
When the tour first started, she was so unhappy.
” She turned glassy eyes up to me. Drunk.
Probably going to be more honest than I’d like.
“I’d known her before from auditions and stuff and from the last tour, so I knew she wasn’t usually catty and kinda mean.
She was balanced on the edge—continue being kind and thoughtful and getting screwed over by men or become hard and jaded and not give a shit at all.
Then you two started dancing together, and it was like this light lit in her. ” She snapped her fingers.
The ache in my chest intensified at her words. “She’s a good swing dancer.”
Amy smirked. “Oh, I’m sure she is. An excellent choreographer too.
” She held my gaze. “I’m not going to tell anyone.
I know what our contract says. I know Mia is in a tough spot, having just fired Jazz because of our contract, and if she were to find out for sure about you and Alyssa, well, that’d be bad.
I had a boyfriend who did employment law. I get it.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Going on. Yeah.” Amy’s lips tipped into a partial smile.
“Alyssa said that too. Maybe that’s true now.
But I don’t think it was true before. Listen, I’m going back inside.
We’ll probably be away for at least another hour.
If you wanted to work your issues out with Alyssa, there won’t be many people around. ”
I nodded but didn’t respond. As her heels clicked back toward the entrance, I took out my phone and ordered a ride. The smart thing for our jobs, maybe even for Alyssa, was to let her go. I didn’t know what I was capable of giving her beyond the tour, beyond Mia’s wedding.
Go back, sleep it off, and hope tomorrow wasn’t too awkward at rehearsals.