Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
COLLETTE
Three days later and…let’s face it. I was a wreck.
Olivia pried out every detail about me and Ethan on Monday night, but she was no help. She thought I was crazy to be so angry about what Ethan had done and even crazier to listen to anything Bianca had said. The only thing she’d agreed on was that Ethan wanted me…as more than a friend.
On Thursday Olivia came to our house after school so we could get ready for the Morrison hosted fundraiser. My mom had insisted that I come along and no amount of pleading and badgering could get me out of it. And from her stressed expression, I didn’t want to add more to her plate.
She had, at least, let me invite Olivia along as well. At least I’d have moral support.
“Come on, wuss, let’s go in there so you can tell Ethan how sorry you are.”
I frowned over at her as she shoved me toward the front doors of the fancypants country club where the fundraiser was being held. “I’m not a wuss,” I said.
“Whatever you say, chicken.”
My moral support was a big believer in tough love. Especially these last few days when she’d become Ethan’s biggest champion.
I paused just inside the doors, my gaze sweeping across the room for any sign of him as my mother went on ahead, calling out to Mr. Lewis, a friend of hers from the academy’s board of trustees. I eyed them, wondering if there had been any progress on the ‘closing the academy’ front.
“Eww,” Olivia said.
I glanced over at her. “What?”
“Please don’t tell me you’re moving on with him.” She pointed to Mr. Lewis.
My cheeks heated. “What? No. That’s just…I’m…” Nothing I could say could keep my mom’s secret so I just shrugged and began to scan the crowd. “I don’t see Ethan,” I said.
Olivia sighed. She seemed to have moved on from the idea of me and Mr. Lewis and our May/December romance. “Are you going to run away when you do?” She arched her brows. “Tell me now so I’m prepared to tackle you before you hit the door.”
I frowned over at her. “Very funny.”
She shrugged. “I’m just sayin’…”
I knew what she was ‘just sayin’’ she’d been saying it for days now. I didn’t want to go down this road again—not here, and not now when I’d run into him at any moment. And yet, despite my intentions, I found myself arguing with her for the millionth time.
“He had no right to make that decision for me!”
Olivia sighed. I imagined she was just as tired of this conversation as I was.
She thought I was nuts to still be so angry, but she just didn’t get it. He should have understood better than anyone how hard it was to take a chance on a dream. And he should have taken my word for it when I said I wouldn’t be a dancer—that I couldn’t.
You’re not cut out for it.
I winced. Days later and I was still wincing over some of the things Bianca had said.
Maybe because they were the truth. Maybe I should have fought harder, or dieted more, or opted for surgery to make my body into the kind that would fit my mother’s ideal.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Now was not the time to rehash all that. This wasn’t about me, or my mother, it was about Ethan and his heavy-handed interfering.
“Why would he do that?” I asked, as if this time Olivia might have the magic answer.
She gave me a droll look. “I don’t know, Collette. Maybe if you’d given him a chance to explain, you’d have your answers.”
I bit my lip, thoroughly chastised. Again. She was right. I knew she was right. I needed to talk to him. I at least needed to hear what he had to say for himself.
I took a deep breath and summoned my courage. “Where is Ethan?”
I’d asked it under my breath so I was more than a little startled when a child’s voice beside me answered.
“You’re a friend of Ethan’s?”
I turned to find a cute little girl with a huge welcoming smile.
“Uh, yeah, you could say that.”
“I’m Chrissy, his sister.”
Before I could say ‘nice to meet you’ she was leaning into me, her voice the loudest whisper I’d ever heard. “Ethan’s not here because he’s playing with a band!”
I blinked at her as Olivia smothered a laugh. “Well, look who grew a pair,” she said under her breath.
I was too busy blinking like an idiot to respond.
He’d done it. Ethan Morrison had actually done it. “He’s…he’s playing at The Tailgate tonight?”
Chrissy nodded eagerly, but before she could reply, her father came over. “Christina, have you seen your brother?”
I blinked at the older man in shock. I’d seen him before—I’d stood a few feet away from him the other night at the stadium—but I’d never stood face to face with him like this. I’d never really looked at him.
He looked just like Ethan. You know, if Ethan were a couple decades older and walked around like he owned the world.
“Dad, this is Ethan’s friend,” Chrissy started the introductions.
He flashed me a smile that was as fake as they come, not bothering to ask my name. “How do you do?” He turned back to Chrissy. “Where’s Ethan?”
She shrugged.
I’ll just come right out and say it. I wouldn’t want to be on Chrissy’s bad side. She lied like a professional poker player and her voice was sickeningly sweet as she said, “I don’t know, Daddy. I haven’t seen him.”
I stared at her in shock. Olivia’s expression was one of awe. I was pretty sure Olivia had just found her new spirit animal and its name was Chrissy.
Ethan’s mother joined them a second later. “He’s not coming.”
It was eerie the way she managed to hiss this so Ethan’s dad could hear while never faltering with that creepy plastic smile.
“What do you mean he’s not coming?” Again with the creepy fake smiling.
Ethan’s mother held up her phone. “The recruiter’s secretary left me a voicemail confirming Ethan’s meeting.” Her botoxed forehead didn’t budge, but I saw the confusion in her eyes as she added, “Some place called The Tailgate?”
Olivia and I turned to one another.
“What is going on?” she whispered.
I shrugged and shook my head. I had no idea, but I was excited. I had no other word for it. My heart was racing at the thought of Ethan performing live.
My head was still saying ‘we’re mad at him’ but my heart was tripping over itself in anticipation. “I have to be there.”
It was like a universal law or something. There was no debate, just a fact. If Ethan Morrison was going to play live, I had to be there.
The need to be there—now—was overwhelming. My eyes widened and Olivia grabbed my arm, clearly seeing my desperation. “Come on, we’ll find a ride.”
My mom was lost in the crowd. She wouldn’t leave to go drop me off at a club, anyway. We looked for anyone else we knew, and then…
“Oh no,” I sighed.
“Oh yes.” Olivia took me over to the bar area where a bored-looking Bianca was standing, tapping at her phone while some guy who looked just as bored looked on, holding two glasses of club soda, by the looks of it.
“Bianca,” Olivia said. “We need you.”
She lifted her head slowly. “Since when do they allow just anyone at these events?”
Olivia opened her mouth to reply, but I beat her to it. “Please.”
They both turned to look at me. Slowly. Like maybe they’d misheard. “What did you say?”
I huffed. “Come on, Bianca. I know you don’t like me and I don’t like you and you don’t like Olivia and Olivia doesn’t like anyone and blah blah blah…
” I paused to inhale. “But I need your help and despite what you’d have everyone believe, I am almost twenty percent positive that somewhere within that skeletor ribcage, you have a heart. ”
The silence that followed was deafening.
“Whoa.” The bored blond guy broke it with that eloquent rejoinder.
“Wow,” Olivia muttered.
Bianca slipped her phone in her clutch. “Fine. It beats standing around with bozo here.”
And that was how the three of us—blond guy opted to stay behind—ended up at The Tailgate just in time to see Ryan’s band go onstage.
“Ew, this is his band?” Bianca whined as we made our way through the crowd to the edge of the stage.
“I told you we were coming here to see Ethan,” I snapped.
“That’s not what I—” She sighed. “Forget it.”
Already forgotten. I was tugging both her and Olivia along behind me in my eagerness to get close. I didn’t want to miss anything. Not. A. Thing.
The guys were tuning their guitars, Ryan was doing a mic check.
It was so freakin’ legit. I wondered if Ethan’s heart was beating just as hard as mine was.
“This is incredible,” Olivia squealed beside me as she shook my arm.
Bianca did not squeal but her lack of whining spoke for itself. She was impressed—just a little.
“Hey look, it’s the prom queen and her court!” Some drunken buffoon pointed to us and laughed. Olivia sneered but I was looking up at the stage and saw Ethan’s head lift. I ducked down behind Olivia and just as he scanned the crowd.
“What are you doing?” Olivia asked as she moved in a circle to get away from me.
I shot her a pleading look but it was too late. My gaze shifted over to Ethan and I watched as his eyes darkened the moment they landed on me.
And just like that, the last three days flew out the window. We might as well have been there—back in our studio. He might as well still have been holding me in his arms. I was just as breathless, my head just as fuzzy, my heartbeat just as frantic.
Ethan’s brow furrowed as he studied me. He parted his lips but before he could ask whatever he wanted to ask, his gaze shifted to Ryan who was strumming a few chords.
“One, two, three, four!” Ryan’s low voice boomed over the crowd and they were off. The music pulsing, pounding—so not at all like the beautiful, soft melodies Ethan played for me in our private sessions.
And the look on Ethan’s face as he played along was nothing like I’d ever seen before. He talked about me and how amazing I was when I danced. But watching Ethan play only solidified what I’d known all along.
He was born to play.
The music was primal and pulsing. It was bass-driven, the throbbing tempo, and thrumming chords filled the entire room.
It rocketed through me and I couldn’t not move along with the music.
It wasn’t even intentional, my muscles were working in time with the beat, the notes and the energy like a live wire in this room, making me and everyone around me dance like puppets.
This was dancing…and it wasn’t. It was everything I loved about the way the music filled you, spoke to you, was transformed by you, and then came back into the world in the form of liquid movement.
My mind went blank. Blissfully blank. I reveled in the feel that was at once totally familiar and utterly unique. It was the same sensation that I got while dancing in the studio but a million times more intense.
My movements felt frantic as my body kept pace with the bass, my arms moving over my head as my eyes—well my eyes never moved.
My body was at the mercy of this music, but my gaze was fixed on Ethan. I’d always loved to watch him play, but this…this was something else entirely.
He was beautiful.
Was that a weird thing to think about a guy? Maybe. But it was true. He was as handsome as ever but there was an intensity about him that few got to see. That few were ever lucky enough to witness.
I felt Olivia’s movements beside me and, yes, even Bianca was swept up in it. I couldn’t see them, but I felt them, and it was the craziest thing that after dancing together for years, this was the very first time I’d ever actually felt like I was dancing with them.
I heard Olivia’s laughter followed by a whoop, as she threw her hands up in the air after the first song ended. Even Bianca was clapping on my other side. Ethan grinned and his smile that I loved so much was aimed at me.
Only me.
My heart was lodged somewhere in my throat because there were so many things I wanted to say to him in that moment. So many things that were desperate to come out. I couldn’t hold them in any longer.
Olivia leaned forward. “Uh…is he staring at you?”
I jerked my eyes away from Ethan, oddly flustered that we’d been caught having an intimate moment in the middle of a crowded club. But she wasn’t looking at me, she was talking to Bianca.
Bianca who basically snarled in response. “Don’t be stupid.”
I looked to Olivia who was looking at the stage, where Ryan was, in fact, staring at Bianca.
I looked over at her too but now her chin was tilted high and she was pretending to ignore us.
Interesting.
The music started up again, and I forgot all about Bianca and Ryan and even Olivia, because Ethan was mesmerizing up there. He really was.
Olivia leaned over again. “When’s the last time you had this much fun dancing?” she shouted over the music.
I shook my head. I couldn’t remember.
“Never,” Bianca said on my other side. Her tone brooked no arguments. And maybe she was right. Maybe this was the first time any of us had danced just for fun.
I let the music sweep me away again, my limbs loose and my hips moving in a way that would have made the Juilliard people faint. This time I shut my eyes and I let myself go. I abandoned myself to the beauty of it all—the sweaty, frantic, glorious beauty of it all.
“Get ’em up there!” It was that same drunken moron again, and for a second I was confused when I felt arms around me and suddenly I was flat on my back and airborne.
And then it happened so fast. Hands were all over my body as the sea of people carried me to the stage.
I shot Olivia a panicked look, but she was just beaming as she cheered on the people who were touching us.
For a girl who always felt too heavy, I was freakin’ weightless in the air. One second, maybe two—to me it felt like an eternity before my feet were set on the ground and when I stood upright—I was on the stage.
In the spotlight.
“Yeah, girl!” Olivia screamed.
Bianca was shouting. Why was Bianca shouting? “Dance!” I read her lips more than heard it because the crowd was loud and the instruments behind me were deafening.
I whipped around to see Ethan grinning at me. “Ready?” he mouthed it the same way I had before I’d launched myself into his arms. The night I broke his heart.
My heart stopped beating at the memory. He wanted me to let go. Surrender. Trust that he and the other guys in the band had my back. They’d hold me up.
I shut my eyes. I took a deep breath. And I did it…I let go.
Here, on stage, I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I didn't have to worry about the studio or how my mother’s heart would be crushed if it closed.
For now, I could have fun. I’d deal with reality when the music stopped.
For now, I’d be a dancer.