Chapter 18
Nick
I was a man on fire.
I had walked out of the draft party in Nashville with nothing but the suit on my back, my passport, and a plastic keychain of a dog. I had no phone. I had no credit cards—my father had cut them off within minutes of my defection, I was sure of it.
But I had Jax.
"You realize this is insane, right?" Jax yelled over the roar of the engines.
We were in a rental car—a beat-up Ford Fiesta that smelled like stale cigarettes—hurtling down I-65 North.
"We are driving a car I rented with my debit card, which has a limit of five hundred dollars, to New York City. That's a twelve-hour drive, Nick."
"Drive faster," I said, staring out the windshield at the black highway.
"I can't drive faster! This thing shakes if I go over seventy! And you still haven't told me the plan. What happens when we get to New York? It's a city of eight million people. How do we find one redhead?"
"We check the studios," I said. "She needs to dance. She'll find a studio that lets her trade work for floor time. It's what she does."
"Do you know how many dance studios are in New York?"
"I don't care. We check them all."
Jax shook his head, gripping the wheel. "You've lost it. You've completely snapped. The Number One pick is currently a fugitive in a Ford Fiesta."
"I'm not a fugitive," I said. "I'm a man correcting a data error."
"A data error? She's a girl, Nick! She's a human being you dumped via press conference!"
"I didn't dump her via press conference," I argued, though the guilt tasted like acid in my throat. "I protected her via press conference."
"To her, it looked the same," Jax pointed out brutally. "She thinks you erased her."
I looked down at the plastic dog in my hand.
Don't forget me.
"I'm going to fix it," I whispered. "I have to fix it."
New York was a labyrinth. It was hot, loud, and indifferent to my desperation.
We arrived at 10:00 AM the next day. We hadn't slept. We looked like wrecks—rumpled suits, bloodshot eyes, stubble darkening our jaws.
We started in Manhattan. We walked into Broadway Dance Center, Steps on Broadway, Peridance. I showed the photo of Jess on Jax's phone to every receptionist.
"Have you seen her? Red hair. Green eyes. Dances like... like chaos."
Most of them looked at me like I was crazy. Some recognized me—"Hey, aren't you Nick Vance?"—and asked for selfies. I took the selfies in exchange for information.
Nothing.
By 8:00 PM, we were exhausted. We were in Queens.
"This is hopeless," Jax groaned, leaning against a brick wall outside a bodega. "Nick, we need a better plan. Maybe we hire a private investigator?"
"No time," I said. "Every minute she thinks I hate her is a minute the damage hardens."
I looked down the street. It was a gritty neighborhood. Warehouses converted into lofts. Graffiti.
There was a light on in a building at the end of the block. A sign above the door read Queens Movement Collective.
"One more," I said.
"Nick..."
"One more, Jax. Then we sleep in the car."
I walked toward the building.
The front door was locked. I peered through the glass. It was a lobby. Empty.
I knocked. Hard.
No answer.
I walked around the side of the building. There was an alleyway. A fire escape.
And a window.
It was ground level, barred, but the window behind the bars was open a crack to let in the night air.
I crouched down. I listened.
I heard music.
It wasn't pop music. It wasn't classical. It was something heavy, industrial, with a beat that sounded like a heart in distress.
And then I heard the sound of feet hitting the floor. The distinct thud-squeak of a dancer landing a jump.
I pressed my face to the bars.
I saw her.
She was alone in the studio. She was wearing black leggings and a torn t-shirt. Her hair was wild, plastered to her neck with sweat.
She was dancing.
But it wasn't the beautiful, fluid dancing I remembered. It was violent. She threw herself into the air, spinning with a reckless velocity, and landed hard, immediately dropping into a floor roll that looked painful. She was attacking the air. She was fighting an invisible enemy.
"Jess," I breathed.
She looked thinner. Her ribs were visible through the shirt when she stretched. There were dark circles under her eyes.
She looked broken.
And it was my fault.
I stood up. I ran back to the front door. I pounded on it with both fists.
"Jess! Jess, open the door!"
The music stopped.
I saw her silhouette appear in the hallway through the frosted glass. She stood there, frozen.
"Jess, it's me! It's Nick!"
She didn't open the door. She backed away.
"Go away!" she shouted. Her voice was hoarse. "We're closed!"
"I'm not leaving!" I yelled back. "Open the door, Jessica!"
"I said go away!"
I looked at the door. It was an old metal security door.
"Jax," I said, turning to my winger who had just jogged up. "Help me."
"Help you what? Break in?"
"Yes."
"Nick, that's a felony."
"I don't care. Help me."
Jax looked at me. He saw the desperation in my eyes. He sighed.
"Fine. But if we get arrested, you're buying my bail."
We shoulder-checked the door together. Once. Twice.
On the third hit, the lock gave way with a screech of tearing metal. The door flew open.
We stumbled into the lobby.
Jess was standing at the door to the studio. She was holding a broom like a weapon. Her eyes were wide with terror.
When she saw me—disheveled, frantic, breathing hard—the terror shifted to shock. Then to anger.
"You," she whispered.
"Me," I panted.
"Get out," she said. She raised the broom. "Get out before I call the police."
"Call them," I said, taking a step toward her. "Call the National Guard. I'm not leaving."
"You broke the door!"
"I'll buy you a new one. I'll buy the building."
"I don't want your money!" she screamed, throwing the broom at me. It clattered against my shins. "I don't want anything from you! Go back to Chicago! Go back to your dad!"
"I'm not going back!" I shouted, stepping over the broom. "I quit!"
She froze. "What?"
"I quit," I repeated, walking toward her. "I walked out of the draft. I walked out on my father. I threw my phone in his drink."
She stared at me, her chest heaving. "You... you walked out?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because you left," I said. "And I realized that being Number One doesn't mean anything if I'm alone."
She shook her head, backing away into the studio. "No. No, don't say that. Don't put that on me. I left to save you, Nick! I left so you could have the dream!"
"It wasn't a dream!" I followed her into the room. The mirrors reflected us—two wrecked people circling each other. "It was a nightmare! It was a cage! And you were the only one who had the key!"
"I gave you an out!" she cried, tears streaming down her face now. "I wrote the note! It was fun. I made you hate me so you could let go!"
"I tried!" I admitted, my voice breaking. "I tried to hate you, Jess. For ten days, I tried. I told myself you were a liar. I told myself you took the money."
I stopped five feet from her.
"But then I saw the dog," I whispered. "Jax gave me the keychain."
I pulled the plastic dog out of my pocket. I held it up.
"You didn't take the money," I said. "You saved me. You sacrificed everything—your scholarship, your home, your reputation—just so I wouldn't get hurt."
I dropped to my knees. The impact jarred my hip, sending a spike of pain through me, but I welcomed it. It was penance.
"How could I hate someone who loves me that much?" I asked, looking up at her.
Jess dropped her hands. She looked at me—kneeling on the floor in a ruined suit, holding a plastic toy.
"You're an idiot," she sobbed. "You ruined everything. You blew up your career."
"I didn't ruin it," I said. "I pivoted. I changed the play."
"To what? What is the play, Nick? You're unemployed. You're cut off. You're in Queens."
"The play is us," I said. "I have five million dollars in a signing bonus that hasn't cleared yet, but the contract is signed. Even if I retire tomorrow, I have enough. We buy the brownstone. We get the dog. We start over."
"It's not that simple!" she yelled. "Your dad..."
"My dad is done," I said firmly. "I told him. I told him he has no power anymore. Because he can't threaten to take you away if I've already chosen you over him."
I reached out a hand.
"Jess," I pleaded. "Please. I'm scared. I've never done this without a script. I don't know who I am without hockey. But I know I can figure it out if you're there. If you're my ally."
She stared at my hand. She was trembling.
"You really quit?" she whispered. "For me?"
"I'd do it again," I swore. "I'd do it a thousand times."
She let out a choked sound—half laugh, half sob.
She ran to me.
She crashed into me, knocking me back onto my heels. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder.
"You are the most dramatic, stubborn, infuriating man I have ever met," she cried into my jacket.
"I know," I said, wrapping my arms around her waist, holding her so tight I thought I might crush her. "I know."
We stayed like that on the floor for a long time. Just holding on. Breathing each other in.
"You look terrible," she mumbled against my neck.
"You look beautiful."
"I smell like sweat."
"My favorite smell."
She pulled back, looking at my face. She traced the dark circles under my eyes.
"So," she sniffed. "We're unemployed?"
"Technically, I'm a holdout," I corrected. "And you... you're a freelance artist."
"We're homeless."
"We have a rental car."
"We have a dog keychain."
"We have each other," I said.
She smiled then. It was watery and broken, but it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"Okay," she whispered. "Okay, partner. What now?"
"Now," I said, leaning in to kiss her, "we get the hell out of Queens."
I kissed her. And for the first time in two weeks, the ice in my chest finally melted.