Chapter 6Ingrid. Early September, Five years ago #2
She focused on her ribbons, looping them around her ankle with the mechanical precision of someone pretending very hard that an annoying man was not currently breathing the same air as her.
Wordlessly, she extended her hand, palm open, a clear demand for him to surrender her hostage pointe shoe.
Instead of placing it in her waiting palm like a normal human being, Beck grabbed her ankle. Her ankle.
A squeak escaped her as he effortlessly lifted her leg until her foot hovered at his bent knees. The position was almost graceful, like a pas de deux except she was very much not a willing participant, and he was very much an insufferable asshole.
Heat flared up her neck as she registered the absolute horror of the situation. Her foot. His hands. His face, dangerously close to her foot.
Panic flared in her chest. She had spent her entire life avoiding situations exactly like this.
Ballet had given her many things: an iron will, an ever-present sense of impending doom, and hideous feet.
Crooked toes, battered nails, calluses so thick they could probably be classified as armor.
The idea of anyone seeing them up close made her want to crawl into a hole and disappear.
Thank Tchaikovsky for her toe pads.
Beck, totally unaware of the internal meltdown happening right in front of him, slid the shoe onto her foot.
His fingers skimmed over her tights, settling the shoe against her heel like he’d done it a hundred times.
He handled her foot like he did everything else, like he owned it, like it was just another extension of his own capable hands.
She was definitely not thinking about what else those hands could do. Nope. Not at all.
Still, the warmth of his palm seeped through her tights, sending a shiver up her leg. Her stomach certainly wasn't fluttering with butterflies–those were bats, wicked and malevolent, summoned by Satan himself.
And then, as if she weren’t already halfway to losing it, Beck’s gaze drifted up her leg, slow and deliberate, before landing on hers. A wicked glint sparked in his eyes, the kind that promised nothing but trouble.
Ingrid forgot how to breathe.
Every rational thought in her brain started glitching, short-circuiting like a corrupted file.
She despised him. She knew she despised him.
But her body? Oh, her body was a traitor of the highest order.
Heat curled in her stomach, the kind she wanted to stomp out with sheer force of will.
Because no. There would be no tension here. No dangerous, unspeakable thoughts.
This man was the enemy.
He had tried to sabotage Eden. He was ruthless. Cocky. An absolute threat to her peace of mind. She had to snap out of this.
So, in an act of bold, decisive self-preservation, she did the only logical thing. She kicked him. Well, she tried to.
Her brilliant escape plan backfired instantly. The moment she jerked her leg, his grip tightened, turning into an unyielding vise around her ankle.
Beck’s smirk deepened, something darker flashing behind his amusement. He leaned in ever so slightly, his grip still firm, and murmured, "Careful, kitten."
His voice was low. Rough. The kind of tone that set off alarm bells, but in a way that made her more flustered rather than less. His breath ghosted over her skin. Her heart slammed against her ribs.
Beck gently placed her foot back on the floor, but his fingers lingered just a fraction too long. Long enough to remind her that he could have let go earlier but chose not to.
She yanked her leg back like he’d burned her.
Beck just grinned, all lazy satisfaction. Ingrid clenched her jaw so hard it could’ve cracked a walnut. Yes. She definitely had to be careful around him. This man was dangerous in more ways than one.
For someone she wanted to strangle daily, Beck was annoyingly good at keeping up with her.
Ingrid wasn’t sure if that made her want to respect him or punch him harder.
His drum arrangements were brilliant. Honestly, if he could just be terrible at something, just one thing, it would make her life so much easier.
But no. Beck had to be equally talented and unbearable.
It was like the universe had handed him all the good genes, a drum kit, and an unlimited supply of cocky swagger, then told him to go forth and be a problem.
Beck, of course, seemed to get some twisted kick out of pushing her buttons. Like an overgrown toddler with access to nuclear launch codes, he was constantly teasing her, his smug smirk permanently glued to his face like a sticker you can't peel off no matter how hard you try.
The only time he wasn’t insufferable? When she danced.
His usual smirk disappeared, replaced by something that almost looked like genuine awe.
His eyes tracked every movement she made, and his compliments were shockingly sincere.
As in, "Wow, Ingrid, that was amazing!"–and she hated it.
Because it was completely disarming. And usually left her speechless. Which she really hated.
And now, here he was again, watching her like she was the only thing on the planet worth paying attention to.
"We could pick up the tempo here," Beck suggested, punctuating his words with a staccato beat on his portable electric drum set. He had dragged that thing into the dance studio like it was his emotional support instrument.
Ingrid tried so hard not to be impressed by how easily he slipped between styles. Gone was the punk rock drummer from Battle of the Bands, and in his place? A smooth, bluesy jazz rhythm that oozed through his fingers with the ease of a man who had clearly never been bad at anything in his life.
"Yeah, that could work," she muttered, her voice nearly drowned out by the music.
She executed a quick bourrée to match the rhythm, her feet flickering across the floor in quick, shimmering movements. Beck kept playing, utterly absorbed, eyes closed as his fingers ghosted over the drum pad like he was born to do this.
And then, she made the biggest mistake of her life, she looked at him. Huge mistake.
His biceps flexed with every strike. His forearms moved with an almost hypnotic rhythm. The rotation of his fingers around the drumsticks was so fluid, so... unnecessary, and for some inexplicable reason, it caught her attention in a way that was absolutely not okay.
Then, her brain made the worst possible leap.
Those fingers. Those hands. She immediately envisioned them trailing up her legs, over her waist, gripping– Her ankle wobbled.
Her step stuttered. And just like that, the elegant, carefully executed bourrée turned into an awkward plop back onto flat feet.
Beck’s playing halted abruptly. Silence stretched between them like a very awkward pause at a family dinner. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at her, his lips twitching like he was trying not to laugh.
"Something on your mind, kitten?"
Her entire soul packed its bags and fled.
This was exactly why she didn’t date. She had a life plan. A plan that was carefully structured, meticulously organized, and had zero room for a six-foot-something, rhythm-oozing complication who could scramble her brain so badly that she actually stumbled doing a bourrée.
A bourrée . A step she could do in her sleep. A step so ingrained in her muscle memory that her body should’ve done it flawlessly even if she was surrounded by an army of distractions.
And one stupid glance at Beck, and she had all the grace of a giraffe on roller skates.
She needed to get a grip before she started falling out of pirouettes next.
Ingrid forced herself to regroup. To ignore him. To stop feeling that ridiculous, magnetic pull he seemed to radiate without even trying.
But every time she so much as glanced his way, she lost ground. Beck wasn’t just watching her, he was eating her alive with his eyes, and it made her skin buzz in the worst possible way.
When she looked back, the raw intensity of his gaze caught her off guard. Their eyes locked, and for several long, suffocating seconds, neither of them moved. The silence stretched, thickened, turned molten. What the hell was even happening?
She needed to break it, now, before she did something humiliating.
"So, are you a rockstar or a jazz musician?" she blurted, the words tumbling from her mouth.. Oh, perfect. Real smooth, Ingrid.
Beck’s lips curled, as if he knew exactly how flustered she was. "I’m whatever I need to be," he replied. Then, just when she thought he might let it go, his smirk softened into something almost nostalgic. "But jazz is my real passion."
Ingrid blinked. That was…unexpected.
"I used to sneak into this jazz club as a kid in Philadelphia," he continued. "I’d hide behind the barstools and just listen. There was something about the music. It was so alive, so unpredictable. My hands would try to mimic the drum beats."
For once, Beck wasn’t smirking. He wasn’t teasing. He was lost in the memory, his face lit with genuine affection.
"Eventually, I got caught by a patron after I sneezed on her foot while she was sitting at the bar."
Ingrid’s lips parted. "You what?"
"Full force. No warning. Just–achoo, right on her open-toed heels." His expression remained completely serious, though amusement flickered in his eyes. "I got kicked out of that club at least ten times before the owner finally took pity on me and let me stay in exchange for polishing silverware."
"You sneezed on a woman’s foot?" she repeated.
"It was allergy season," he said, as if that excused everything.
She shook her head, biting back a grin. "That might be the least cool origin story I’ve ever heard."
"Wow. And here I was, baring my soul."
Ingrid rolled her eyes, but she couldn't deny the story had caught her off guard, in a good way. Because, in some strange way, she understood what he meant.