Chapter 7
SEVEN
ETHAN
I was standing in the same studio as last night, but it couldn’t have felt more different. Rather than just me and Collette standing here in relative silence, the room was now filled with unhappy football players on one end and miserable-looking ballerinas at the other.
We were all doing leg stretches on the floor as we waited for Collette’s mom to show up and lead this class. Well, everyone else was waiting for Ms. Boucher.
I was waiting for Collette.
I knew she wasn’t in this class, but that didn’t keep me from looking for her.
Every time the door opened, my head snapped up to see who it was.
It was stupid, but I kept expecting her to walk in the door and give me crap for how inflexible I was or how I ought to be stretching more in my off hours.
But mainly, I was waiting for her to tell me yes or no.
“Dude, are you even listening to me?”
I looked over to see Ryan watching me oddly and I realized he’d been talking for a while and I hadn’t heard a single word. “Sorry,” I said. “What did you say?”
“Man, you’ve been out of it all day, what’s with you?”
I looked away because I knew he was right but I didn’t want to explain that all day all I’d been able to think about was Collette. I couldn’t stop thinking about last night and this potential deal I’d proposed to have access to some studio space.
I hadn’t even realized how much I wanted it until I’d put it out there. And now—now it was everything I wanted. Just a place where I could go and…do my thing, as Collette put it.
Last night with Collette had been…well, it had been intense. But it had also been real. This might sound a tad pathetic but last night I’d felt like myself for the first time that I could remember.
For years now I’d been going through the motions—being the teammate and leader I was supposed to be, the son I’d been raised to be, and the student my teachers expected me to be.
It was killing me. I didn’t realize how much I’d been creating the life my father wanted me to create until last night when I’d stopped. And I’d talked. And I’d told someone what actually made me happy.
Not someone—Collette.
And the crazy part? She hadn’t laughed.
But she hadn’t said yes to this crazy plan either, so…I was stuck in limbo, I supposed. And until I saw her, until I talked to her—I was pretty much useless.
“Does your weirdness have to do with your meeting with the coach?” Ryan asked.
“Nah, man, it’s just a bad day, that’s all.”
He didn’t say anything, and I was glad he hadn’t tried to cheer me up.
The whole team had heard the coach ream me out about my lack of focus on the field today.
When he was done publicly humiliating me, he’d called me into his office.
I would’ve preferred more red-faced hollering instead of the talk we’d had.
I’d seen actual pity in his eyes when he told me how he’d gotten a call from my dad.
Seemed my father hadn’t taken my word for it that I’d handle the whole ballerina situation and he’d gone ahead and taken matters into his own hands.
“So, you’re going to pull me from the ballet classes?” I’d asked.
Coach had snorted with amusement. “Heck, no. I explained to that hothead father of yours that college scouts would love the fact that you were going above and beyond to improve.” Coach had waved a dismissive hand. “He came around eventually.”
I’d been oddly grateful. I still was as I sat here hoping to catch a glimpse of Collette.
I mean, I still didn’t love the idea of putting my body through the torture that was ballet class, but I did love the idea that classes could be the perfect excuse to escape my house and take a little time to do something for myself.
“So, what do you think, man?” Ryan asked.
“What do I think…” I repeated stupidly.
He groaned. “You’re not listening at all, are you?”
I didn’t try to deny it as I dropped my head, forcing myself to stop staring at the door.
She wasn’t coming. I tried not to be too disappointed.
I mean, she hadn’t said when she’d let me know, right?
But even so, I’d snuck my guitar out to my car this morning before I’d left the house.
Tonight would be the perfect night to start our practice sessions since my parents would be out until late.
I’d hoped she’d have given me an answer by now, but then again I was the idiot who hadn’t given her my number so she could text me, or—
Ryan smacked my arm. “I said, we need you.”
I looked over at him and blinked. “Um…need me for what, exactly?”
Ryan rolled his eyes, leaning back against the wall, not even pretending to stretch. “You didn’t hear anything I just said, did you? I was saying that Keith had to bail on the gig at The Tailgate next month. We need a stand-in guitarist.” He arched his brows. “You in?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t have to. My heart had started pumping at the very idea of playing in front of people. And to play with Ryan and his crew? At The Tailgate? This would be epic. No way I’d miss it. “Of course, man. Absolutely.”
He grinned at my enthusiasm and I tried to focus on the details he started rattling off rather than what lies I’d have to come up with to get out of the house.
“Ms. Boucher can’t make it.” Bianca the uptight blonde stood over me and Ryan, her hands on her hips as she scowled down at us.
“Great,” Ryan said in his laziest, I-don’t-give-a-crap tone. “Does that mean we get to go home?”
Bianca kicked his foot. “No, moron. It means that I’ll be leading class.”
“Where’s Ms. Boucher?” Eve asked. She was hovering beside Cooper, who looked like he wasn’t even aware of her existence as he checked something on his phone.
During the first class, Collette’s mom had paired us up, assigning one of the ballerinas from her top class to each of us football players. They were supposed to help us, and none of the ballerinas tried to hide the fact that they viewed this as an extreme form of punishment.
Bianca had been the loudest of them all with her complaints so it must have been killing her to not only have to participate in this class, but lead it.
“Will she be coming later?” one of the other girls asked when Bianca ignored Eve.
“How should I know?” she snapped. “I ran into Collette in the hall and she passed along the message. She said her mom had a meeting with the board of trustees.”
“Is it about the Juilliard audition?” one of the girls asked.
I’d stopped listening the moment Bianca had said Collette’s name. I turned toward the door again. She was out there. Was she waiting for me?
Suddenly Bianca was right in front of my face, blocking my view of the door. “Are we keeping you from something, Mr. Morrison?”
Ryan gave a low whistle behind me. “Wow, Bee. Are you always this much fun or did we just catch you on a good day?”
One girl giggled behind me, and Bianca’s frown deepened. “Why are you even here, Ryan? It’s clear you don’t care about any of this.”
“News alert, Queen Bee.” He gestured around to the team. “None of us care about ballet, we’re just here because our coach is making us.”
“Oh, but we were just dying to get stuck teaching a bunch of meatheads remedial footwork,” she shot back, her tone dripping acid. “That’s not at all a waste of our precious rehearsal time.”
“Is your bun too tight, Bee? Is that why you walk around like you’ve got a stick up your butt?” Ryan sounded genuinely confused and I caught Eve trying valiantly not to grin.
Bianca’s scowl was terrifying as she leaned in until her nose nearly brushed his. “Just try to keep up.”
I heard Ryan’s soft laughter behind me as Bianca whipped around and headed toward the front of the room.
My body was in motion before I even totally knew what I was doing.
“Where are you going, man?” Cooper asked. His question drew Bianca’s attention but I was already at the door when she spoke.
“Ethan, where do you think you’re going? We’re about to start.” Bianca called after me in an irritated tone that gave me a sort of satisfied feeling. I hated the way Collette seemed to bow down to this girl. Like, somehow, Bianca was better than her.
“You guys start without me,” I said, one hand on the door handle. “I’ve, uh…there’s something I have to do real quick.”
“Eth—” Bianca started.
But I was already out the door, turning to head down the hall and—
Almost ran right into Collette.
I stopped short just in time, but the look she gave me while sitting cross-legged by the studio door was absurdly smug. “You need to look where you’re going.”
I crossed my arms and looked down at her. “And you need to stop sitting on the floor.”
She pursed her lips like she was thinking that over. “Touché.” She started to get to her feet and I reached a hand down to help her. She paused for a second, looking at my hand like she wasn’t sure what it was before continuing to her feet without my help.
It stung a bit, that she didn’t take my help, but I brushed it off. We were friends. “So, what are you doing out here?” I asked.
She smirked as she shoved a notebook into her bag. “Waiting for you, obviously.” She glanced over at the studio door. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you. Obviously.”
She grinned and for a second I couldn’t quite remember how to breathe. Something about bringing air in and pushing it out. Her smile was unnervingly sweet, a distracting counterpoint to all her sarcasm and snark. It made me feel off balance.
“Bianca’s going to kill you if you skip class,” she said.
“I don’t care about Bianca.”
Her lips pressed together like she was trying not to laugh. “That won’t stop her from murdering you.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“Ooh, you’re a rebel,” she teased. “I like that.”
“So?” I said. “What did you decide? Are you gonna help a guy out?”
She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “This is just about me dancing and you playing, right?”
“Yeah, that’s the deal.”
“And you promise to show up? Make this a priority?”
“Of course.” Everything in me tensed as I waited for her answer. I had a feeling she knew it too, because the silence dragged on too long, and her expression was way too smug.
She was kind of adorable when she was smug.
Finally, with a sigh, she said, “Oh all right, we have a deal.”
My heart gave a weird jolt, like a kick to my ribs. I was doing this. I was defying my dad, I was playing guitar…and I was doing it with Collette.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said, her tone suspicious as she turned her head to give me an assessing sidelong look.
“Like what?”
“Like I just told you you’ve been accepted into Hogwarts.”
I arched my brows. “Really? That was a stretch, even for you.”
She threw her hands up. “You shouldn’t have called me out on my Harry Potter references. I warn you now, I was holding back before.”
“Oh no,” I groaned, going along with her teasing. “You’re going to be unbearable now, aren’t you?”
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug that said she wasn’t sorry at all.
“So, when can we start?”
“Tonight work for you?”
It was hard to play it cool, but I managed. Sort of. “Tonight works great,” I said just a little too quickly.
“After you run home to grab your guitar, you can meet me back here.”
“I have my guitar in my trunk,” I said, totally forgetting my plan to play it cool.
Her brows shot up. “How very optimistic of you.”
I mimicked her sorry-not-sorry shrug. “I just know I’m impossible to refuse.”
She let out a loud laugh that had me grinning and the door behind us bursting open. “Ethan Morrison, what do you think you’re doing out here?”
I turned to see Bianca scowling, her icy blue gaze shifting from me to Collette and then back again. “We’re waiting on you.”
“I’ll be right in.”
That was obviously not the answer she’d been hoping for and she turned her glare to Collette. “Why are you distracting him? Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Nope.” Collette’s voice sounded too cheery and her smile was way too bright.
Bianca’s sigh was weary as she turned to me. “Can we please just get this class over with?” She glanced over at Collette. “Some of us have an audition for Juilliard to prepare for after this.”
Collette’s smile never faded, but everything about her dimmed with that comment. The light in her eyes went out, and she seemed to lose an inch of height as her shoulders slumped.
I gave her a questioning look, but I knew better than to ask why she allowed Bianca to act like that with her. But I figured she didn’t want to get into the details, not with Bianca hovering nearby. I filed it away in something I would bring up later.
Collette ignored my stare. “That’s fine,” she said to Bianca. “We were just finishing up out here.”
Bianca seemed to take that as a win and she turned to head back into the classroom. “Come on, Ethan. They’re all waiting.”
I moved to follow, but I paused in the doorway and leaned back out to look at Collette. “Where should I meet you tonight?”
She opened her mouth, but I knew what she was going to say.
“And please don’t say platform nine and three quarters.”
“You are no fun at all.” She bit her lip, her eyes twinkling in mischief. “Okay, fine. Meet me here.” She pointed to the spot where she was standing.
I looked around the empty hallway dubiously. “Won’t this place be locked up by then?”
Her smile was slow and mysterious as she held her hands up and wiggled her fingers like she was performing a magic trick. “I have my ways.”