CHAPTER 19
I was Googling ‘how to deliver a beat down’ but couldn’t find what I needed, so I just keyed in ‘street fighting’.
Yeah.
I was going to bust some ass today.
The office door opened and Dante walked in.
“Gloria said you wanted to see me.” He came over and pulled a chair in front our desk.
“What’s up?”
I minimized the internet page and leaned back in my chair.
“How is the choreography going?”
Dante shrugged.
“Would be better if you were on the floor with me.” He pointed to my right foot, currently encased in one of those ugly surgical boots, and elevated on top my desk.
“Everyone is in the dumps, sweet cheeks.”
I nodded, understanding exactly what he meant.
I was experiencing it too.
The come down from our 18 days of bliss on the big stage.
After such a major production, the biggest my dance company had ever done; where did we go from there?
Back to the grind.
“We’ll get our mojo back, D. I’ve decided on a name for our next production.”
Dante arched an inquisitive eyebrow at me.
“Sinners and Saints.” I advised with flourish.
He took a moment to mull it over, rubbing his chin while doing so.
“I think it might be better as Saints and Sinners,” he suggested.
“Nope, the saints usually comes first. I want the emphasis on sinners. We’re all sinners.”
On hearing the underlying vehemence in my tone, Dante’s face twisted into an unsure frown.
“What’s up with you?”
“Got a call from Matt’s lawyer this morning.” I said casually.
Dante groaned.
“What does he want now? I still can’t believe you haven’t gotten yourself a lawyer as yet. What are you waiting for?”
I shrugged, getting a little distracted.
“Legally our hands are tied until next January. Once the year is up and a divorce can be applied for, I’ll get a lawyer. Plus Matt re-assigned my bodyguard, his solicitor mentioned it before he ended the call. I’m no longer deemed important enough to warrant a shadow.”
The divorce was a formality.
Matt had cut me out of his life like a surgeon uses a scalpel to excise a tumour.
And the icing on the cake came in the additional exclusion by his friends and family.
Not one of them, not Hannah nor Bella, I didn’t expect his mom to speak to me; but none of them had reached out to me, to ask if I was ok, or what my side of the story was.
Only the twins had initially contacted me, two separate texts asking what was going on to which I had replied they should speak to their uncle.
That was the first and last interaction I had with anyone from Matt’s side.
Yeah.
I had ceased to exist to them.
Shoving those upsetting thoughts aside I refocused, it was time to deal with the problem at hand.
“Can Christine fight?”
Dante choked on something, I don’t know, air or spit maybe.
“W-what?”
“Can she handle herself?” I asked.
“On a scale of one to ten, ten being a total bad-ass who no-one should mess with, and one being a wuss who won’t press charges.”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Dante peered at me.
“She’s got the crazy vibes thing going on. Why are you asking me this?”
I nodded to myself.
Hmm.
Crazy vibes?
I had my own crazy vibes.
Was mine more bad-ass than hers?
“Do you think I can fight?” I asked.
Dante burst into laughter.
“What has gotten into you? Why are you talking about fighting anyway?”
“Well? Do you think I can?”
“No, Madi.” Dante said firmly.
“You definitely can not fight. Remember when Jenny beat your ass for playing with her dolls house. She was six, you were nine-”
“I let her win.” My protestation was met with further chuckles.
“And the time she whupped your butt for tattling on her to Aunt Cleo. What was it she’d done? I can’t remember.” He laughed again.
“But I do remember her thumping you. You were twelve, she was only-”
“I know the age difference between us, Dante,” I huffed.
“And I-”
“Let her win that time too?” he teased.
“You didn’t even defend yourself! Just curled up in a ball and cried.” He rolled his eyes.
“Punk.”
Ok.
So I lacked certain skills back then, but I was grown now.
I could walk on my toes, literally put my entire body weight on my freaking big toes.
I could leap six-seven feet up in the air, and make it look easy.
I was capable of contorting my body into all sorts of shapes.
I had muscle strength, goddamn it, one kick from my legs…
huh.
I was a ballerina and we were lean, mean, killing machines.
“I’m going to kick your girlfriend’s ass,” I warned.
“And I just thought you should know that. I might need you to post bail because when I’m done with her,” I snorted, cracking my knuckles to get my point across.
“She’s going down.”
Dante straightened up at once as alarm spread across his handsome dark features.
“What? What the hell are you talking about?”
“I got a call from Matt’s lawyer.”
“You said that already,” Dante waved an impatient hand through the air.
“I’m getting slapped with a non-disclosure contract because it has come to Matt’s attention your girlfriend has been leaking info to the media about us. So now I can’t say anything about him to anyone, not that I planned to anyway, but it’s the principles of it.”
“What?” Dante had sprung up from the chair.
It was so sudden I jerked backwards and almost fell out of mine.
He slammed his hands over the desk.
“What sort of bullshit are you talking about?”
“Bullshit?” I yelled back and removed my foot off the desk so I could stand.
“Matt had an investigator looking into it. His lawyer said this P.I found proof Christine is selling stories to those gossip magazines. Do you talk about me with her?” I slammed my hand over the desk now.
“Of course you do. How else would she get the information? Did you know about this? Are you a part of this too?”
The last question hurt me to ask.
If Dante’s facial expression was anything to go off, it hurt him to hear it too.
Opening then closing his mouth, he sank back into the chair.
The shock he obviously felt wasn’t feigned.
“Are you certain?” Dante finally asked.
“I mean, are you sure they got it right? Because they got it wrong about those pictures of you. I don’t – this is crazy.”
Sitting back down myself, and maintaining his stare, I said, “I think they have, D. It kind of makes sense, when you look at it.”
“Fuck.” Dante whispered, then he exploded.
“FUCK! I swear-” He inhaled and exhaled violently before rubbing his face.
“I only ever told her little things, never the important things. Well, she’s my girlfriend and we talk about things…I-”
“Like when Matt and I got engaged?” I asked softly.
“That came out before we had even returned to England, and I did call and tell you the night he proposed.”
Dante looked ill.
“Shit. I told her.” He rapped his fingers over the desk, agitated.
He looked less ill and more pissed.
“And I told her when you got married too. And when Aunt Cleo was sick – that little witch. If she’s done this,” Dante stood up.
“I have to go. I’m going to get to the bottom of this right now.”
“Wait.” I called, frantic at the anger pouring off him.
Yes, I wanted to beat her ass, but I had never seen Dante so incensed.
What if he beat her ass?
He vehemently opposed any form of violence against women.
Being raised by a single mom had made him extremely protective of the female sex, but he looked like he was about to put his hands on somebody.
“What?” he ground out, halfway to the door.
“Ah, what are you going to do?”
“Do?” Dante stalked back towards the desk.
“I’m going to find out if there’s any truth to these allegations! I trusted her and if she’s been selling things I told her in confidence to the media,” He made a terrible sound at the back of his throat.
“You’re not going to, um,” I scratched my scalp nervously.
“You know, hit her?”
“What?” Dante’s dark brown eyes popped wide open.
“Are you crazy? Hit her- look, I don’t have time for this, Madi. I have to go. The guys should be finished with their warm-up by now. You can show the artistic director what we want in the choreography.”
And with that he stormed out our office.
I didn’t know how I’d expected him to react, but hunting down Christine like a madman was not what I had planned for.
Maybe I should have spoken to Christine first, confronted her on my own, try to put a little beat down on her for selling me out.
There was a 50-50 chance of her thumping me, I mean, models were fierce.
Secretly relieved the potential punch up had been averted, Dante’s previous amusement at my claim to bad-assness was an embarrassing reminder I had no fight skills; I rose from behind the desk, glared at the ugly boot on my right foot and exited the office.
This time last year my biggest worry was whether I needed to re-do the flooring in the fish bowl and Aunt Cleo’s tax bill.
I dreaded to think what next year would bring…
“Top me up.” Dante held his glass out.
I grunted and stretched over to grab the bottle of chilled vodka on my coffee table.
It was right there in front of him.
He could’ve gotten it just as easily.
I topped myself up too and settled back into the comfy cushions.
We were drowning our sorrows.
Both staring morosely at the tv screen but not really paying attention to the movie.
Our respective relationships were screwed beyond repair.
Dante hadn’t returned to the studio today.
I had arrived home to find him muttering to himself and pacing the living room of my terrace.
He had looked at me, ashamed and remorseful; he had looked at me and all I could do was drop my stuff and hold my arms open.
His first words had been: ‘I’m sorry, Madi, I’m so sorry.
’
Poor thing.
How could he have known his ex was capable of such betrayal?
I always knew there was a reason Christine and I didn’t click.
But I had pushed away my anger.
She saw an opportunity and took advantage of it, a trait that would normally be admired except the fact she’d screwed us over in her pursuit of the almighty dollar…
um, pound.
The couple on screen were getting hot and heavy, foolishly might I add.
That lurking mutant was about to pounce on their unsuspecting forms.
“I want to have sex.” I mused out loud.
Dante froze next to me on the sofa.
Slowly, he turned his head in my direction.
“Listen,” he said while very, very, slowly inching away.
What the hell?
Did I smell bad all of a sudden?
“I love you, Madi.” He licked his lips, nervous it seemed.
“And you’re sexy as hell, and as of today I’m a free agent,” Still in that cautious, slow manner, he moved a bit further.
“And it’s not like I never thought about it, I mean, hell. You are fine and your ass is,” He smacked his lips together and made an appreciative sound.
“I thought about it once or twice when we were younger, not now,” he hastened to clarify.
“Uh, but younger, like late teens. I’ll admit it crossed my mind, your small boobs back then were an issue but,” He gave an awkward shrug of his shoulders, not finishing the rest of that sentence.
My eyebrows shot up high as I listened to his nervous babble.
“And the best way to get over a break up is to get some,” Again he slid further away, almost to the other side of the sofa.
“But, uh, and don’t take this the wrong way,” He clasped his glass of vodka tightly as he peered at me like I was the devil incarnate about to painfully rip his soul out, while his other hand curled protectively over his junk.
“I don’t think I could get it up for you, maybe from behind, if I didn’t have to see your face,”
My mouth was hanging open, wide open.
“It would still be weird,” Dante stopped shielding his man bits and scratched his head, now unable to meet my gaze.
“Because it’s you,” He took a deep breath, closed his eyes then said in a jumbled rush of words, “But you’re my best friend and if you need this,” He gagged right there, almost as if he was about to hurl.
“I’ll help you out, but you can’t talk and it has to be from behind because it’ll freak me out watching your face, I could probably do it if I’m watching your ass, and – OW! Careful with my drink.”
I was punching him, hard, very hard.
“Not with you. ”
“Oh thank God.” His whole body slumped in relief as he tried to simultaneously block my blows and protect his drink from spilling.
“I got to tell you, I was scared shitless there for a minute.”
“Idiot.” I clouted him across his braided head one more time before scowling at the tv.
I was insulted.
Only from behind?
He might as well said he’d put a paper bag over my head.
“And I’ll have you know I am kick ass between the sheets.”
Dante tried to cover his derisive snort, failed, then simply let his guffaws out shamelessly.
I fumed in silence, hunched over and sipping my vodka.
I was…
wasn’t I?
“Whoo,” he exhaled after his laughing fit.
“I needed that, sweet cheeks. You always know how to cheer me up.”
“Shut up.” I groused.
“We’re missing the good parts of the movie.”
Dante gulped his drink down and slid back into his previous position next to me.
I huffed at his cheek.
“So,” He lightly elbowed me in the side.
“You’ve got the itch?”
“Not talking to you now.” I replied, petulant, yes; but why did he have to act like doing me was the worst thing ever ?
“Come on,” he cajoled.
“Don’t pout. We never really talk about this. Mainly because you’ve been a virgin most of your – OW! Damn it. I’ve spilt my drink now.”
Shaking a fist at him and feeling the blush heat the blessedly dark skin from my face down my neck, I slurped the remaining vodka in my glass before reaching for the bottle.
Dante held his glass out, blinking prettily at me.
I laughed and refilled his glass once more.
Five minutes later, I asked, “Are you bummed out? Out of all your relationships, the one with Christine was one of the longest.”
My best friend stared at the colourless liquid in his glass, his jaw and shoulders suddenly tensed.
“I’m mad as hell she sold stories about you to the papers. When I think of how upset it used to make you whenever you read something,” Dante leaned back against the sofa.
“I would probably have ended it anyway. She wasn’t the one.”
“She never liked me,” I reminded him.
“That should’ve been your first warning sign she had bunny boiler potential. Oh shit. She’s not going to blame me for your break-up, is she? I’ll-”
“What?” Dante cut me off with a smirk.
“Kick her ass?”
I shook my fist at him again and he mouthed ‘punk’ at me.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me.
“You’ll never see her again.”
“Good.” I muttered.
“She never liked me.”
Dante cleared his throat before stretching his legs out, nonchalant as he advised, “Most of my girlfriends don’t like you.”
Say what?
I spun around to face him.
“That’s not true. Most of them do.”
Dante arched an eyebrow and shook his head.
“No, they pretend to because they know how tight we are,” Then he got real street and snapped his fingers mockingly.
“Ain’t no girl want another woman hanging round her man all the time.”
“But,” I spluttered.
“I’m likeable. What does how much we hang out have to do with anything? And if your mom heard you talking like that she’d scold you.”
“Madi, we don’t really have any boundaries,” Dante stated as if I were dense.
“I’m cool with it, we’ve always been freakishly close; but for a woman coming into our little circle…it’s daunting. We work together, spend most of our time together,” Here he rolled his eyes.
“Before you went to the other side, that is.” Then he got serious again.
“And from the moment they begin questioning our friendship,” Dante used air quotations.
“I always let them know, if they start trying to force me to make a choice, they won’t be happy with the results.”
I closed my mouth, it had fallen open when he spoke.
A moment later I asked tentatively, “So us being close friends has messed up your past relationships? Is that why you don’t usually do long-term?”
Dante saw the horrified expression on my face and grabbed my knee, before giving it a small squeeze.
“Don’t be silly.”
He turned his attention back to the movie but I couldn’t let it go.
What did this mean?
His past girlfriends saw me as a threat?
Or maybe a pest?
Christine no doubt had.
She used to make subtle barbed comments all the time.
Oh no.
How blind was I?
Had my closeness to Dante wrecked his chances of love?
What sort of best friend was that?
My mere presence was fucking with his ‘love’ chi!
No wonder karma liked dumping on me.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
Dante flexed his sock-clad feet and winced in pain.
“What for? It’s not going to change how we are, besides, if I’m seeing someone and she can’t accept our friendship then she’s not worth it.”
He was so calm about it, so blasé, and I felt horrible.
“I’ll be better,” I mumbled, ashamed over my selfishness.
How could I have not realized our closeness was a potential problem with any of his love interests?
Or maybe I had sub-consciously known and was elated over it, I had been crushing on him for years .
But my childhood crush on him was gone now.
I had fallen in love with someone who didn’t deserve it.
If I had a time machine-
Dante groaned out aloud.
“This is exactly why I never said anything before. Now you’re going to blame yourself and see a problem where there is none.”
“But it is a problem,” I countered.
“I don’t want you to become an angry black man. Old, bitter and eventually banging basic bitches because-”
Dante’s roar of laughter made me pause.
He laughed so hard, tears leaked out his eyes.
“Aw man! I love you, but you are so full of shit it’s unbelievable. Forget dance, you should be a comedian.”
Watching Dante roll about on the sofa then sliding to the floor made me think that maybe he was alright with the whole break-up thing.
He was certainly in a better mood than when we started watching the movie.
“Laugh it up,” I prodded him with my left foot.
“Your good looks won’t last forever and I want you to be happy.”
Wheezing for breath, he rose halfway off the floor and grinned at me while rubbing his eyes.
“Don’t worry about me. If all else fails and I’m still single by the time I hit forty; you, me, Sol and Bret can all have a committed polyamorous relationship.”
“Ewww,” That was gross.
Not the poly lifestyle, everyone should have a chance at happiness, whatever worked for them; but the thought of the four of us…
no, just no.
High ick factor.
Dante chuckled again.
“Yeah, that’s how I felt when you propositioned me.”
This time it wasn’t a prod from my foot but a full-fledged kick, which he easily avoided.
“Kiss my black ass,” I shot back.
“I wasn’t referring to you then.”
Dante winked before drawling out.
“Uh huh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? And I’m locking my bedroom door tonight. No telling what you’ll do now I know you’ve got the itch.”
Another failed kick in his direction and I was done for the night.
Rising off the sofa, I stretched the kinks out my body.
“I’m going to bed,” I said.
“Lock up, ok?”
Dante nodded before climbing back onto the sofa and promptly laying across it.
I chewed my lower lip, silently observing him.
“What?” he asked without looking at me.
“Nothing,” I hedged, still feeling guilty.
“Do you think we’ll ever find the one ?”
Dante turned to look at me then.
He really had a face that could grace magazines.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I’ll tell you one thing though, after seeing what you’re going through right now…I am never getting married.”
“Night, D,” was tossed over my shoulder as I headed for the stairs.
Great.
Not only had I messed up my best friend’s relationships over the years, I’d now put him off marriage.
Tonight I was going to get down on my knees and pray; pray for wisdom, strength, compassion, and for the sex itch to leave me the hell alone.