Chapter 35
LAUREL
There was no outward reaction from Jason when I declared him as mine. Maybe it seemed trivial, given all that had happened. It wasn’t like he could argue against it right in front of Albina.
But I hadn’t asked him to give up his life and follow me. He’d volunteered to do that on his own.
He believed we belonged together. And then, for just one tiny moment, I saw the hint of a smile on his lips. He agreed with me labeling our relationship this way. It made the performance butterflies already in my stomach compete with the butterflies he created in me.
Albina glanced at him. “I should change elsewhere?”
“If you don’t mind,” he said. “I can’t leave her.”
I couldn’t tell if it carried any meaning beyond the obvious, but it only made the butterflies worse.
She collected her things while I finished putting my hair up. Once she left, I moved the vase out of my way and began to layer on my foundation. The fading bruises from my encounters with Frey shouldn’t be too difficult to cover with my stage makeup. It was powerful stuff.
Jason was quiet as I applied concealer, and the sweet perfume from the roses his brother had sent invaded every breath I took.
“This must have been expensive,” I said. People spending money on me made me uncomfortable.
“He can afford it.” He moved to drop into Albina’s vacant chair. “Think they’d mind if you wore a Kevlar vest over your costume?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I think they would.”
When the stage manager announced over the backstage speakers it was fifteen minutes to curtain, Albina reappeared in her costume. She gave Jason a pointed look and took her seat a half-second after he vacated it, so she could get started on her hair and makeup.
It was surreal to put on my pointe shoes. Last time I’d been in this room and in this costume, I’d laced them on, believing it was the true start to my career.
Now it was the end.
His hand was cold on my bare shoulder. “What is it?”
“I’m just trying to take it all in, so I can remember it.”
His hand was gone and dug into his pocket to produce his phone. “Stand up for a minute.”
He wanted to take my picture? I came to my feet, and a wide smile spread across my face. I liked the idea of my picture in his phone, especially if we were going to be separated soon.
He tapped the screen a few times, and when he started to put it away, an even better idea struck me. I stepped forward and took the phone from him, holding it out to my friend.
“Albina, do you mind?”
He didn’t understand until I moved beside him. I held down the side of my tutu so I could get close, so I could press into him and use my body to demand he put his arm around me.
He hesitated only for a moment, perhaps deciding whether he should, and then the choice was made. His vest was scratchy, but his strong arm was solid and comforting as it draped around my shoulder, holding me tightly.
She didn’t have time to consider if the request was weird. She snapped the pictures and passed the phone back quickly so she could return to her prep.
He showed me the resulting picture, and it stole my breath. He was all Kevlar, badge, and menacing gun, while I was in delicate lace, tulle, and glittering rhinestones.
What a pair we made.
All too soon, it was time to make our way to the stage. He ascended the steps in the dark, and I came up just behind him with my heart in my throat. We stood beside each other in the wings, nestled between endless layers and folds of thick, red fabric.
There was another marshal across the way who nodded an acknowledgment to Jason. The last few minutes before leaving, he’d been focused on whatever discussion was going on in his earpiece, and it continued now as I tried to prepare myself for the curtain’s rise.
The strings in the orchestra sounded haunting, the brass section loud and foreboding. Perhaps it had always sounded like that, and tonight I was hyperaware. The curtain went up on its cue, bathing the stage in front of us in glowing light, and the corps began its movement.
Once again, I rolled my ankles and tested the ribbons, my breath held tightly in my lungs.
He leaned in and whispered it, although no one in the audience would hear him over the orchestra. “How long until you go on?”
“Two minutes,” I said. My eyelids fell closed as I visualized my routine.
“Am I supposed to tell you to break a leg or something?”
“No.” He interrupted my concentration and I opened my eyes. He looked . . . weird. Nervous. Maybe even scared. My stomach bottomed out, seeing him like that.
“Before you go out there, you need to know,” he said, his breath uneven, “. . . that I might love you.”
My heart ground to a stop.
Then it lurched forward at twice the speed as I gazed at him with disbelief. He’d said it softer than a whisper, so surely I hadn’t heard him right.
“I love you,” he repeated, this time steady. Louder.
I’d hoped it was true, but hearing him confirm it shattered everything.
All I wanted to do was throw my arms around him, but . . . I couldn’t. The marshal on the other side of the stage was watching us. Watching me, really, and if Frey didn’t come, we’d have to keep up the guise that there was nothing between us.
“I love you, too.” My voice was strong and sure. “And I’ll be back in three and a half minutes.”
The corps filed past me. Martin and Albina’s pas de deux was coming to an end. My heart continued to hammer in my chest. No matter what happened, no one could take this moment from me.
Martin and Albina made their exit, floating past me and Jason, but it was the roar of the audience’s applause that brought me back to Earth. My gaze left his rich brown eyes and settled on center stage.
Like last time, the audience grew quiet as I glided across the floor and took my position under the heat of the stage lights.
The solo flute was eerie and hypnotic. Had it always sounded like that?
My body took control, and I surrendered to it completely, giving myself over to the work as the orchestra swelled.
I danced as if possessed.
The focus in my mind wasn’t on the choreography, or the concern for my life, it was on the man waiting in the wings for me.
Each completed turn and leap brought my routine’s end closer.
Closer to returning to him. Then, the final jeté, the one where last time Frey’s bullet had changed the course of my life.
But there was nothing tonight.
I finished the pirouette into fourth position, my legs burning from the activity, my heart still pounding. The nearly full audience broke out into thunderous applause, filling my ears so loudly it drowned out thought.
The dark line of worry between Jason’s eyebrows was no longer there, but concern still lingered in his expression when I returned to him.
“I have to hurry and change before the next ensemble number,” I said.
He led the way down the stairs, back behind the stage to the closet-like room I shared with Albina. He faced the wall as I changed into the green costume that had been left on a hook on the front of my dressing room door by the costuming department.
I stared at the hulking shoulders of his back.
“You can turn around,” I said. I’d crept impossibly close so when he did. We were just inches away, my hands tucking the tutu down flat, so it lifted high in the back.
“Kiss me,” I pleaded.
How many moments did we have left together?
His lips were soft, his tongue softer as it caressed mine, asking for more. He shifted the angle of my body against his so we were as close as we could get. Over the speaker system, I could hear the movement was in coda and knew I’d have to get going.
It was all happening much too fast.
Then, I was in my last costume, finishing the final movement in Santiago’s arms. He'd been a great partner, and I would miss him terribly. Had I ever told him how excited I’d been when I found out we had been paired together? Was there still time for it?
During final bows, I spotted Shawn through the glare of the lights, sitting three rows back from the front, a pleased smile on his face. I’d be seeing him again soon, wouldn’t I?
Two women waited for us beside the door to my dressing room. There was a frown fixed on Caroline’s face, but I couldn’t tell if the cause was our situation, or Beth Garrity’s presence. Jason didn’t seem too happy about it either.
“So much for that idea.” Caroline couldn’t have sounded more disappointed if she’d tried. “Fucker didn’t show.” Her gaze drilled into him. “What’s the plan now?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
When both women scowled, he ignored them.
He stuck his head in my dressing room, was satisfied it was empty, and ushered me inside.
But he didn’t lead me in or follow, because he couldn’t.
Bill’s death seemed to have put Caroline in charge, and he wouldn’t want anyone to become suspicious of his feelings about the woman he’d been tasked with protecting.
“You’re safe,” he said to me through the open doorway. “Get changed, and then we’ve got to go.”