Chapter 21
FELIX
“How’re you feeling?” Cooper asked as he fell in beside me. Our kids were lined up beside the stage with all the others, numbers pinned to their little leotards. They were conferring amongst themselves, ignoring everything else going on.
They didn’t seem nervous at all. I assumed that was because they’d found a way to psychically transfer all of it to me.
“I want to throw up,” I admitted. “But I want the kids to see that I’m here for them.”
What I really wanted was for Cooper to pull me into his arms and promise me it was all going to be okay.
He didn’t.
I didn’t ask, either.
I’d seen him talking to another dancer. Younger than me. Pretty.
Not walking away with a limp.
They’d clearly been hitting it off. Cooper was the kind of man who made friends wherever he went, but…
It wasn’t that I thought he’d hurt me, or… cheat on me, if that was even possible. What were we?
Two people who’d had sex twice—well, three times, but only on two occasions—been on one kind-of date, and were probably friends? He was my friend. He treated me like I was his. Probably friends.
Anyway, it wasn’t as though we were together. That’d never been part of the plan. I’d be moving on eventually, I’d always known that. He’d always known it, too.
He wasn’t doing anything wrong by flirting with someone else. I didn’t have any claim on him.
Of course he’d want someone perfect. Someone who could still go through the basic positions without wincing, without worrying they were going to collapse under their own weight.
I’d watched the other man warming up with his group. He moved like I used to, perfect form and control. I didn’t recognize his face, but I was willing to bet I would, in a few years. If I kept up with ballet.
I couldn’t imagine not keeping up with ballet. I couldn’t walk—or even limp—away from it.
“—anything?”
I started as I caught the tail end of Cooper’s sentence. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts that I’d tuned him out.
“I missed that,” I admitted, glancing at him without meeting his eyes.
“I was asking if I could get you anything,” Cooper said. “Water, coffee… we brought juice boxes? They’ve got dinosaurs on ‘em.”
Despite everything, I laughed. “I’m okay.”
I wasn’t, but I would be. Once all this was over.
“You ever get stage fright?” Cooper asked.
In front of us, the first group of kids started their routine. We were the last of six groups, since we’d arrived with just a few minutes to spare.
“Never,” I said.
Cooper turned to me, brows raised in surprise. “Really?”
“Really.” I shrugged. “Not because I love being on stage, exactly, but… I couldn’t see the audience. I mean, usually literally, those lights are bright. But I didn’t… care? I wasn’t doing it for them.”
“You were doing it for you.” Cooper nodded, looking back to the group currently performing. “Makes sense.”
“Have you ever been on stage?”
Cooper scoffed, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I did the lighting for a school musical once. Not Phantom of the Opera. Fiddler on the Roof, actually. But no. My dad tried to make me get up and give a speech at my twenty-first birthday and I nearly passed out. I do not do well on stage.”
That didn’t surprise me. Shy was one of the top five words I’d use to describe Cooper. I liked that about him. I’d spent so much time with so many people who’d never brushed up against the concept of humility.
Cooper was different. He was different from anyone I’d ever known.
Which should have been all the clue I needed that I wouldn’t get to keep him.
Polite applause broke out as the first group finished, Cooper joining in with everyone else.
Silence fell again as the second group took to the little stage at the front of the room. This was exactly what my own company’s studio had looked like except for the color of the curtains framing the high windows above the mirrors—we’d had a deep oxblood red, these were a French navy.
They were good, and their choreography had taken their age into account, simple enough for under-8s but intricate enough to look impressive.
I started to doubt the choice I’d made to push my kids into something more complex.
They’d risen to the challenge, as far as I was concerned, but they still wobbled here and there.
I was relying on them executing a difficult performance perfectly when it counted, rather than giving them something well within their abilities.
When the third group took the stage, I realized I might’ve been the only one who’d done that. What I’d put together was much more demanding. I’d treated my kids like they were already on a professional track. Had I expected too much of them?
I glanced down at Cooper’s hand. I wanted, more than I ever had, to reach out and take it. Feel the familiar calluses against my fingers, the gentle squeeze I knew he’d give me.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the dancer I’d seen Cooper talking to earlier wave as the fourth group came on stage. Cooper must’ve seen it, too, because he looked over as well. The two of them exchanged nods.
I looked at his hand once more, then curled my own around my other arm.
“You okay?” Cooper asked, low enough that I might’ve missed it if I wasn’t so used to the sound of his voice. “Do you need to sit?”
Why did he have to ask that?
I knew why, obviously. It was even sweet of him to think of me.
I just wished he hadn’t. Not like that, not right now.
“I’m fine,” I said, keeping my voice equally low. Even then, one of the mothers standing near us shot me a glare so sharp it made me flinch.
Cooper’s fingers brushed against my hip, fleeting warmth.
It really wasn’t that I didn’t think Cooper liked me. I knew he did, I didn’t doubt his sincerity.
I just also knew he’d get tired of me. Tired of my pain, tired of my limitations.
I knew that because I was tired of them. Exhausted.
He hadn’t done anything to deserve to feel that way. He deserved someone whole.
A nudge from Cooper brought me back to the room just in time to see my kids walking onto the stage. I’d missed the fifth group entirely.
Cooper’s enthusiastic wave and Benji’s answering grin made me smile, despite everything.
They were adorable. I was so glad I’d met them both.
The other kids, too, but I could admit privately that Benji was my favorite.
My experience had been that boys in ballet were more likely to claw each other’s eyes out than stick together, but that shouldn’t have been true.
I’d meant it when I told Cooper I’d never been prone to stage fright—not after my first competition, anyway—but I was really learning what it felt like right now.
The kids got into position like I’d taught them, despite the unfamiliar layout of the stage. The music swelled, and I had to bite down on my lip as my stomach lurched.
As the kids swept into motion, I mouthed the sequence under my breath, naming every move with the beat.
My heart rocketed into my throat as Kayla launched into the pirouette she’d made fantastic progress on, but didn’t nail every time.
Time seemed to move in slow motion as she turned—it wasn’t the turn, it was the landing.
She didn’t quite have the hang of picking a fixed spot to focus her eyes on and not letting the motion make her dizzy.
When she finished her turn, her eyes locked with mine.
Me. I was her fixed spot.
The smile that spread over my face was so wide it hurt. A wave of proud excitement replaced the nerves crawling up my throat, welling up so hard and fast I had to slap a hand over my mouth—quietly—to stop myself laughing aloud.
They were doing it. They were doing it.
They were hitting every single move. Every one.
Was their control perfect? No, it wasn’t. But they were five to seven years old. They were amazing. They’d worked so hard.
I glanced at Cooper and saw the hint of tears shining along his lashline, his teeth digging hard into his lower lip.
He broke into the most incredible smile as the music finished. I hadn’t meant to look at him for that long, but seeing him so full of pride in Benji had been enchanting. He’d finally squared his shoulders, standing at his full height with his head held high. His eyes sparkled.
Beautiful.
I looked back at the kids taking their tiny bows and then running off the stage. That wasn’t quite the etiquette of this kind of thing, and maybe it’d affect their score, but I didn’t care.
Yes, this mattered. It mattered to Amelia, and it potentially mattered to the kids’ futures, and it mattered to me.
But they’d done everything I asked of them, and they’d done it with all their hearts, as well as they possibly could. I was proud of them.
They ran over in a stampeding herd once they were told they could. Benji made it first, grinning so wide he’d run out of room on his face. Cooper crouched down, holding his hand up for a high five then catching Benji in his arms as he flung himself into them.
The other kids all gathered around my knees, adorable faces turned up at me.
“You were amazing,” I said, voice catching. They had been. These were my kids, and they’d been amazing. Better than I could’ve imagined.
“Did you see my pirouette?”
“I almost tripped, but I didn’t!”
“Felix, did you see us?”
“We did good?”
I could barely hear them over the excited chatter of the whole room, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
“I think you guys have earned your juice,” Cooper said, drawing their attention. They followed him like the pied piper back to the area we’d been designated, where there was, as promised, a cooler bag packed with juice boxes and an assortment of snacks their parents had sent.
Cooper’s mom had baked oatmeal raisin cookies.
My experience of kids was that they’d normally feel betrayed when they realized the raisins weren’t chocolate chips, but Benji’s enthusiasm for them turned out to be infectious.
They disappeared like a field of grain under siege by a swarm of locusts. As did most of the other snacks.