Chapter Sixteen Allegra
Sixteen
Allegra
Cord doesn’t text that night.
I wake up the following morning with a pit in my stomach and it takes me a second to remember why.
The texting, and the flirting. The ghosting.
I know there are a million practical reasons why he might not have been able to text me last night like he said he would, but there’s only one that keeps playing on repeat in my brain.
He doesn’t find me all that attractive after all.
Or, maybe worse, he does find me attractive, but just not attractive enough.
He probably went and did his show, saw the crowd full of perfect women, and decided to take one of them home instead. Why would he settle for a few slightly suggestive texts with me when he could have a real live woman in his bed, one who’s had confidence in herself for more than a few days?
I get in my head during the show that day and I hate myself for letting him affect my performance. I vow never to let that happen again.
When I arrive at the Six Pact studio on Monday, the night before my big audition, I’m a few minutes late, which for me might as well be hours late.
I almost didn’t come. But I owe it to Cord to see my end of the bargain through.
And with my audition tomorrow, I know I can’t turn down the chance for this final lesson.
“Hey,” Cord says when I enter the studio. He’s standing near the sound system, in the far corner of the room. Like he wants to keep the distance between us.
“Hi.” I toss my bag on one of the chairs, sinking to the floor to change my shoes and stretch.
“How were your shows this weekend?”
“Fine.” If he wants to play the avoidance game, I certainly am not going to be the one to make things awkward and ask what happened. “Yours?”
“Good.” He fiddles with his phone for a minute, not bothering to even look in my direction.
“Did you pick a song?” I finish my final stretch and hop to my feet. The stilted silence is killing me, and I long for him to hit play and fill the studio with the sound of literally anything.
“Yeah.” He punches something on his phone screen and the sound of Alicia Keys’s “If I Ain’t Got You” blares from the speakers.
He adjusts the volume, and I take a minute to really listen to the song.
I’ve heard it before, of course, but I focus on the beats and the lyrics as more than a casual listener.
It’s a love song, about how what’s on the outside, the superficial things in life, don’t really matter if you don’t have someone to share it all with.
“I, uh, thought the beat was good.” Cord abandons the corner of the room and crosses to the center of the studio.
I nod. “I like it. Is the plan for today to run everything with the music?”
We’ve yet to put the entire piece together, with full choreography and lifts.
“Yeah. I thought we could run it a couple of times and then I have one final thing for you, a sort of test if you will.”
I arch an eyebrow, not that he can see it because he still hasn’t looked at me. “A test? What kind of test?”
“You’ll see when we get there.” Finally, he deigns to look my way. He’s far enough away from me that I can’t get a good read on his expression, but not so far that I can’t see that there’s something brimming in the depths of those stupid blue eyes of his.
“Okay. Shall we get started then?” The sooner we do, the sooner I can be out of here. The sooner I can turn my attention to the biggest audition of my life instead of thinking about Cord Donovan’s eyes and the emotions they may or may not hold.
We move to our opening positions.
“Let’s mark it once without the music, just to get the flow of things,” he suggests.
I nod, waiting for his counts before beginning the slow walk to meet him at the center of the stage.
There are maybe three beats in the whole piece where our bodies aren’t touching in some manner, and I’m dreading it, that first physical contact with him. But we’re marking the moves, not doing everything full out, and it allows us to get close without being fully intertwined with each other.
I appreciate the chance to reacclimate myself to him, to being in his space. Now he has no choice but to look at me, and I forget every time what it feels like to be caught in his gaze.
We make it through the first run-through, and I know that was as easy as tonight is going to get.
“With music?” Cord asks.
I nod, moving back to my starting point.
Cord hits play on his phone, then slides it across the floor.
We meet in the middle and his hand reaches up to cup the nape of my neck.
It’s the first move of the dance, but it feels like something else entirely.
I don’t know if it’s the addition of the music, or the combination of the choreographed moves all coming together, but I fall into him.
Our eyes stay locked throughout the entire dance, our bodies connecting, each touch more electrifying than the last. In the few moments when we separate, our hands reach for each other, like even the tiniest distance between us is too great.
Whatever it was between us, whether the silence from the other night, or the realization it can never work, it melts away with the notes of the song, until there is nothing left separating us.
The moves are choreographed, and yes, we each know what step comes next, but there’s also an underlying understanding, a connection between us that makes it feel like we’ve been dancing together long enough to anticipate each other’s every move, every twitch.
Cord picks me up for the final lift, our final pose, my legs wrapped around his waist, my face buried in the crook of his neck. One of his arms wraps around my lower back, keeping me steady. The other plunges into my hair.
The song ends.
I’m breathing heavily, because of the exertion of the number. The hand of mine splayed across Cord’s chest rises and falls with his own heaving breaths.
We hold the pose for so long that by the time Cord sets me back on my feet, my breathing has regulated.
He keeps his arms locked in place around me. Our faces are so close together, all I would have to do is tilt my head and my lips would graze his. I wonder if they feel as soft as they look. My fingers tighten in the fabric of his shirt without me realizing what I’m doing.
Cord drops his hand from my hair, then from my back. He takes a step away from me. “Should we run it a couple more times, just to be sure?”
I nod, unable to open my mouth and make anything resembling words come out.
If I was looking for a sign that I am way more affected by Cord than he is by me, I guess this is it.
Every inch of my body feels like it’s been licked by flames, but to look at him, you would think this was just any other rehearsal.
We run the number three more times.
By the time we hit the final pose on the last run-through, I’m exhausted, emotionally as well as physically.
I guess Cord is a much better performer than I ever would have thought because when we’re dancing together, he looks like he’s seconds away from ripping my clothes off and bending me over the nearest couch.
Then the music stops and he can’t get away from me fast enough.
When the music ends on our fourth run-through, my body goes limp in his arms. He doesn’t let me fall.
When he sets me back on the ground, I head for my bag, chugging half a bottle of water in the hopes it will douse the fire burning through my veins.
“Are you heading out?” They’re the first words he’s said to me since asking if I wanted to run through the number a few more times.
“Are we done?” I don’t mean it in the final sense, but I watch Cord’s shoulders tense up when I ask the question.
“I still had one more thing for you, but only if you feel up to it.”
I tighten the lid on my water bottle. “My test. Right.”
Cord’s eyes rove over me, like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on in my head.
Good fucking luck, because I don’t even know what’s going on in my head.
“We can skip it, if you want. I think you’re ready for your audition.”
My audition. The real reason I’m here, putting myself through this back-and-forth and up-and-down cycle of torture that is being in Cord Donovan’s presence. The reminder is a bucket of ice water dumped over my head.
“Let’s do it.” I toss my water bottle back in my bag and pull on the joggers I shucked when I got here. Even though I know whatever test Cord has cooked up will probably require the ability to see my body and how it moves, I also pull on an oversized sweatshirt, needing all the armor I can get.
Cord grabs a folding chair from the corner of the studio and places it in the center of the room.
My breath catches, because he can’t be serious. “I don’t think me sitting through another lap dance is going to prove anything at this point, and it’s certainly not going to help me prepare for my audition.”
Also, if I have to watch him dance for me again, watch him touch himself like he did that first night, I might spontaneously combust.
“You’re not getting a lap dance.” He sits down in the chair. “You’re giving one.”
My whole body tenses, my steps freezing me in motion. “You can’t be serious.”
He looks at me, looks through me. “I’m dead serious, Slippers. Think of it as the final boss. You nail this, and your audition tomorrow will be a walk in the park.”
There are few things in this world I want less in this moment than to writhe my body all over his, but he doesn’t drop his eyes from mine, like he knows I need the challenge.
“Fine.” I stride purposefully to the center of the room, planting myself right in front of him.
Reaching up, I pull the pins from my bun and let my hair fall down.
Luckily, I was only in rehearsals today and not in a show so I used half as much hair product and my locks aren’t stiff.
I take a few seconds to rake my fingers through my long waves before tossing my hair over my shoulder.
If Chloe taught me anything, it’s the power of a good hair toss. “Give me your phone.”