Zoë
ZO?
I’M PREOCCUPIED AND out of it all day. My dance teacher reprimands me for being distracted, I leave my bag on the bus and a woman has to chase me down to return it to me, and I’m so tuned out at the club that I make half as much in tips as I usually do.
My stomach is in knots over last night. I have both knots… and butterflies.
Tate’s indiscretion couldn’t have been uglier. Maybe I should have run downstairs screaming and pulled that girl out of our bed. Maybe, after my confession at the club, that’s what Tate wanted—to see that I was upset, to get a reaction out of me. Maybe that’s why he did it. But I couldn’t do anything except sit there and take stock of my life.
But then there was Nick, a brilliant, burning bright spot in what should have been a horrible night. Nick riding in like a knight in shining armor to support me through the shock and shame of Tate’s betrayal. Nick’s skin against my cheek as I fell asleep. The deep feeling of calm I felt when I was cocooned against him.
Being in Nick’s arms was reassuring in a way I’ve never experienced before. I can’t remember the last time I slept that deeply. It’s not just that I’m unbelievably attracted to Nick. There’s something else, too. A feeling of being in the right place when I’m with him. A feeling of being home.
My head is a cacophony of noise. On the one hand, there’s my anger at Tate, and the stressful prospect of moving just weeks before my audition, when everything in my life should be focused on dancing. And on the other hand, I’m in an absolute fever about Nick. When I think about him, my heart leaps up in my chest. My breathing is high and shallow. I can’t relax.
There’s no heartbreak over Tate, just anger, because I’m completely besotted with someone else—his father.
For as long as I can remember, my entire purpose has been a straight arrow pointing in one direction: Corps de ballet dancer at eighteen, prima ballerina by twenty. Since the moment she enrolled me in dance lessons at three years old, my mother had my whole life mapped out for me.
And then I grew up and it got complicated.
When my mom died of cancer when I was eighteen, followed immediately by my father, who had a heart attack two weeks later, I had to put my mother’s dreams on hold while I settled my parents’ debts and started supporting myself as a waitress. It ended up being three years before I got accepted to the Regency Ballet School and moved to the city. I was supposed to get back on track, but somehow, it’s not that straightforward anymore. My focus is shattered now, a kaleidoscope of concerns and hopes and dreams instead of that clear path that was always laid out at my feet.
So when I got home last night and was stopped in my tracks by the sounds coming out of our bedroom, the full weight of my choices hit me with a profound existential reckoning.
This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.
I was supposed to be a prima ballerina by now, but instead, I was a woman scorned. I was disappointed in Tate, but more than anything, I was disappointed in myself.
My life plan had never factored in the distractions of adult life. I didn’t know that after puberty, desire would snake through me—a relentless thread of heat, always there, pulsing under my skin. It’s the reason my focus got pulled by Tate in the first place. He was sweet when we met, yes—but he was hot, too. Tall and brawny, with that beautiful toasted-marshmallow skin and sleepy brown eyes. It wasn’t the promise of love that drew me to him, but lust. I thought a boy like that could slake the insatiable thirst inside of me, ride it right out of me, yet he gave me everything except what I most wanted from him. Without this constant desire, this weakness, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with him in the first place. I wouldn’t have been drawn to stripping, either, with its promise of sex right below the surface.
I wouldn’t have spent the night in Tate’s father’s bed.
* * *
When the Uber drops me off at the house, my stomach tightens with anxiety. I don’t want to see Tate and I do want to see Nick. The truth is that neither of the Rivera men are good for me, and I have no choice except to go home to both of them.
“In and out,” I whisper to myself as I approach the door and hesitate.
Do I use my key?
Do I knock?
Finally I decide that, as long as all my stuff is still in the house, I have the right to let myself in. Besides, it’s two in the morning. Too late to knock. I square my shoulders and use my key.
I expect Tate to be awake at this hour, but I’m surprised—shocked, delighted, excited, anxious—to see Nick instead, sitting on the couch with his computer on his lap. His thick hair is disheveled, as though he’s been running his hands through it, and he’s wearing glasses, which look sexy as fuck on him. He glances up at me and smiles, the same broad smile that Tate has, but it’s so much more electric on Nick, so warm and genuine I could melt. A flutter of nerves erupts in my stomach. I smile back and try not to notice how good he looks as he stands up and walks towards me, in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and bare feet. The sight of him fills me with an aching longing.
“Hey,” he says.
Nick hesitates for only a split second and then opens his arms and enfolds me into a hug, and I completely let myself go in the cocoon of his warmth. I rest my temple on his chest and inhale his scent.
It’s heaven.
For the first time all day, my mind blanks, and I get a break from thinking about Tate, about last night, about where I’m going to sleep, about where I’m going to live, about my audition. I don’t feel guilty about how good it feels to be pressed against Nick’s body. I wrap my arms around his back to hold him tighter and lose myself.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been picking myself up, sorting myself out, and looking after myself alone. When you’ve always had to fight your own battles, after a while you forget how to put down your armor. But Nick has a steadiness that makes me feel grounded and safe, a quiet strength that feels like the calm center in the middle of the storm.
He takes a deep breath, his chest rising and falling against my cheek, and speaks in his deep, rumbly voice, his breath brushing against my hair.
“Tate left.”
I frown, trying to process what he’s saying.
Tate left?
But Tate lives here. I pull away from his embrace and look up into brown eyes looking back at me softly.
“What do you mean, left?”
“He packed up his things and went to his mother’s house. He didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head, thoughts stuttering.
He packed up his things?
“He moved out?” I ask aloud.
“Yeah.”
Something unreadable flickers across his eyes.
Remorse?
Doubt?
“We had a fight.”
I’m speechless. I expected to be the one fighting with Tate today, but based on the intense way Nick’s looking at me right now, it seems I won’t have to. My battle’s already been fought for me.
“I’m sorry,” I start, and Nick shakes his head, pulling me back in towards him and holding me again.
“Don’t say that.”
Shit. Tate’s gone. I should be upset that he has nothing to say to me. No apology. Nothing.
But all I can think about is how I’ll be gone soon, too. This is goodbye for Nick and me, yet our story isn’t finished.
It’s barely even started.
I let myself breathe in his warmth once more, and then, with all the strength I can muster, I peel my face off the heaven that is his chest and look up at him one more time.
“I’ll go to a hotel,” I say in an oddly thick voice.
It’s what I was planning to do anyway, except that now letting go of Nick feels like jumping off a cliff into icy water.
“No,” he says quickly, furrowing his brow. “No.”
My stupid heart leaps into my throat again. I swallow as if that will push it back down.
“No,” he repeats, shaking his head. “You can stay. He brought you here. He made his choice. You don’t have to go.”
It’s so strange when you have those moments in life where everything works. When things turn out just as you want them to. I’m standing in Nick’s arms, blinking up at him like a lovesick girl, and there isn’t anything on the planet I want more than to stay here with him, alone. It’s almost too easy. And when I clock the heat in his eyes, the way they seem blacker than ever, it feels much too good to be true.
I become more aware of the points on my body where we connect and I can’t help but move into them a bit. I lift my chest just a small amount until my breasts are brushing against him. My hips tilt forward until my lower stomach is pressed against his. I know what I’m doing, and there’s a part of me that blazes with shame about it, but my body has a mind of its own. I’m taking my shot, even if he is the most inappropriate person for me to want as much as I do. My self-control goes out the window when I’m close to him. He is a drug.
His response is immediate. Heat flames in his eyes, a muscle in his jaw ticks, and he lifts one hand to my jaw, holding me tightly—too tightly—with an aggression that should be frightening. He steps forward, forcing me back, and suddenly, my back is against the wall. He’s pinning me to it, his thumb and forefinger digging into my jawbone. His nostrils flare, teeth grinding, and my heart is hammering with excitement. He’s a man possessed, control slipping, that cool exterior cracking to reveal something ruthless and dangerous within, but I’m not scared at all. I’m turned on as fuck.
I want him. I want him so bad, consequences be damned. I can’t lean forward to kiss him because he’s holding me against the wall, so I lift one hand, hoping to pull him towards me, but his free hand clasps my wrist with breathtaking speed and pulls my hand back down, pressing my palm against the wall behind me.
Then he frowns, thick, dark eyebrows knotting over those coal-black eyes, and presses his forehead against mine.
“,” he exhales, in a rough, pained voice.
And suddenly I know what’s coming next. Just like it always was with Tate.
That was the moment, and now it’s over.
“You can’t,” I say for him, and sigh.
He loosens his grip on my jaw, drops his hand, and hovers just like that for a second, with his forehead pressed to mine, his lips just an agonizing inch away, and then he pulls back. He stands straight and blows out a heavy breath, and then he’s completely transformed, the fire that was burning him up a second ago extinguished by cold, wet self-control.
“I’m sorry.”
Tate has pulled away from me a hundred times. I couldn’t be more used to it. And unlike Tate, Nick has good reason. But the rejection rips through me nonetheless, laced with humiliation.
I’m coming on to my boyfriend’s father the second my relationship hit a rocky patch, and I suddenly see myself as Nick must see me. More than just a foolish child: stripper, wanton slut… whore.
“I should go,” I say, lifting my chin and trying to summon the remaining shreds of my pride.
“No,” he says quickly. “It’s late. Please, let’s talk about it tomorrow.”
The urgency in his eyes gives me a flicker of foolish hope. He wants me to stay, and, despite feeling embarrassed, I want that, too. I’m not ready to say goodbye to Nick, no matter what that means. I’m so desperate to be close to him that talking about it tomorrow sounds pathetically promising. At least I’ll see him.
So I nod.
He runs his hand through his hair as I pick my bag off the floor and turn to the basement door.
“Good night, Nick,” I say with as much sangfroid as I can muster.
“Good night, Jumping Bean,” he replies, in a voice so heavy that tears prick my eyes.