14. Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fourteen
Alyssa
I n twenty-seven years, I had never been this satisfied. Pasha worked out with Tyler in the morning when he woke up and then spent his lunch hour buried inside me behind a locked door, his afternoons actually learning to dance, and his nights watching me from the wings of the stage.
No other person had ever been so entrenched in my day-to-day routine. Everywhere I turned, he was there, and instead of being frustrated by it, I found his presence comforting. For the rest of my life, Mia Malone’s name and this tour, would be synonymous with happiness.
This time might be fleeting, but I would cling to it with everything I had. I wasn’t going to waste a minute of this experience on the tour, with him, this routine.
Now that we’d developed an easy rapport, he’d loosened up on the dance floor and was picking up aspects of the routine at a good pace.
There were still some tricky parts, but I’d always expected those to give him trouble.
What I liked best about him was his perseverance.
No matter how many times I stopped and started a sequence, no matter how vague or specific my critique was, he never let frustration win.
He picked himself up and did it again but better .
“I want to do that again,” Pasha said before biting into an apple and making a spinning motion with his hand.
“The rapid roll?” I reset the song on my phone.
We’d progressed through the first third of the song, not quite at full pace but close.
Yesterday, when we’d done it to the music for the first time, I’d been giddy with excitement.
Maybe the routine hadn’t been a mistake after all.
We had three weeks left on the tour and five weeks until the wedding.
“Yes, that one.”
“Got it.” I forwarded the song to a little before the right place. “Ready?”
He polished off the apple and tossed it toward the garbage can in the corner, nailing it on the first throw. He took first position, and I joined him.
Our gazes locked, and he grinned. “This dancing is not so bad.”
A wave of pleasure spread across my body. “Not so bad?”
“With you, it’s not so bad. Thank you for teaching me.”
I blushed. We’d missed our cue, but I couldn’t stop looking in his eyes, so sparkly and happy. I wondered whether he saw the same in me. Alive, as though he’d filled me with sunlight. “You’ve been an exemplary student.”
He chuckled. “No, I was terrible. But I’m learning.” There was tenderness in his gaze. “I like being this close to you all the time.”
“Or closer,” I whispered, thinking of how we’d been as soon as we walked into the practice room earlier.
I always arrived first, and he locked the door when he entered after.
We didn’t touch outside the room. The first graze of his hand on my arm was a drop of water after a drought, just before the torrential rain started.
I loved that initial contact, the promise of what was to come humming between us at a frequency only we could understand.
What had started as sex had become more, but I wasn’t sure how to label what was happening.
He broke the hold we’d been locked in, framed my face, and kissed me. I tugged on the waistband of his pants, closing the distance. “Missed our cue,” he mumbled as his lips nibbled my neck.
“This wasn’t our cue?” I clutched his shoulders, burning with desire.
“Not for this dance. S’a different one.” His hands crept up my tank top.
“I like this one better.”
A knock on the door made us jump apart. I knew I was flushed, and I ran my hands down my shirt, straightening my clothes. I went to my bag to collect myself and check my phone.
Pasha pressed on his watch and grimaced. “Mia.” He unlocked the door and stepped back to let her into the practice room.
“I’ve got thirty minutes.” Mia entered like a tiny tornado whirling around the room. “Where are we at?”
“First third of the routine with music, and we’ll see if we can get you two up to full speed.” I queued the song on my phone.
“Really?” She turned to Pasha in surprise. “At speed?”
Pasha grinned and gripped the bottom of his T-shirt, flapping some air into it. We’d been going over the routine for almost two hours already today, and we were both covered in a sheen of sweat. “Really.”
“Okay,” Mia said. Her gaze flipped back and forth between us. “This is great news. I was honestly getting a little worried.”
“We’ll be fine,” Pasha said. “Alyssa is an excellent teacher.”
“You two have certainly been spending a lot of time in the practice room at every arena.” She laughed as she came to first position. “ Obviously, I knew we were making progress, but to have a third of the routine at speed with five weeks left till the wedding is a-mazing.”
The next half hour passed in a barrage of steps, turns, and lifts. At the end of it, Mia hugged us both. “Incredible,” she said. “I’m so proud of you both. It’s really coming together. This is going to be so much fun!”
“I’m so happy you’re happy.” I grinned, joy and relief mingling.
“I gotta go.” Mia’s watch beeped. “But whatever you’re doing is working. Big guy,” Mia said, hugging Pasha one more time, “you’re so light on your feet. Who knew?”
The door clicked closed behind Mia. We grinned at each other. There were so many things I wanted to say about his work ethic, about his kindness, about how much I loved his company. Before I could get any words out, my phone rang.
I jogged over to my bag, buoyant from Mia’s excitement, from the realization we were going to nail this routine in front of millions of people. Olivia’s name was on my display, and I held up a hand to Pasha to get him to wait. I didn’t want him to leave yet. “It’s my sister.”
“I’ll go,” Pasha said, gathering up his things. “I need to eat and get ready for my shift.”
“Oh.” I ground down a mound of disappointment. “Okay.” With my finger, I slid open my phone. “I need to eat too. I’ll see you tonight.”
I put the phone to my ear, but I was distracted by the sight of Pasha’s form retreating out the open door. Already, I missed him, wished I’d told him to stay. “Olivia?”
“Oh, hey,” Olivia said. “How are things going there?”
“You know, same old. Lots of dancing, drinking.”
“Men. ”
I’d gone out the last two weeks with the other dancers after the shows when I’d been asked.
But I didn’t stay as long as I used to, didn’t drink as much, and didn’t bother flirting with the bartenders.
The one night I’d indulged in all of that, just after we decided to become a secret, had felt wrong, and the next day, I hadn’t been able to dance as well, hadn’t been as relaxed with Pasha. Guilt had eaten at me. A new feeling.
“Just called for a gossip?” I asked.
“Uh, well, sorta. Kevin was talking to Ricky the other day.”
“Ricky? Ricky Turner? The one who buried me in debt and took all my stuff?”
“Right, so you’re still mad about that?”
I scoffed. “Olivia, I’m going to be mad about that until the day I die. I can’t believe you thought I’d be over something like that. If I hadn’t gotten this job on Mia’s tour, I’d be screwed. Bankrupt. Sunk.” The second realization hit. “Do you know where he is? Does Kevin?”
“No,” Olivia said, her voice breezy. “I don’t know where he is. Kevin asked me to call you and see whether you were still mad at Ricky.”
“You had to call me to figure it out?” The changes in my younger sister were still shocking.
The Olivia before Kevin would have defended me, would have known there was no way I’d be over crippling debt and betrayal in a few months.
We’d been sisters first and foremost. But since she’d met Kevin, she was his girlfriend first and anything else second.
She’d lost jobs and friends, and I wondered if Olivia and I would have lost our relationship, too, if I hadn’t clung onto her so hard.
“Well, you forgave him for the cheating, which, if you ask me, is worse.”
I gritted my teeth and yanked my hair out of my ponytail. The cheating was only worse if you weren’t the one being crushed by debt. At the end of last month, Pasha had brought a bag of apples and two chocolate bars to our dance session because he knew how tight my money ran.
“You tell Ricky that forgiveness only comes when he returns all my shit and all my money.”
“So that’s what you need,” Olivia said, “to take him back?”
“Take him back?” I couldn’t keep the surprise out of my voice.
“Yeah, he told Kevin he really misses what you two had, and he knows he screwed up a good thing. So he’s wondering what it’ll take to make things right.”
I closed my eyes and sank to the floor. Could I go back to what I’d had with Ricky and be satisfied?
“I don’t know if there’s anything he can do. Giving back my stuff is a start.” Ricky was a guy who did what was best for him, and I couldn’t see him following through. “He’d also need to pay off the rest of the credit card debt.”
“That’s a lot,” Olivia said, blowing out a breath. In the background, I could hear Kevin trying to get my sister’s attention. “I’m not telling her that.”
“Tell me what?” Wariness crept up my spine. I didn’t like Kevin, and I often thought the feeling was mutual. My bond with Olivia was the one thing he hadn’t been able to sever. But having her call and side with Ricky was a hairline crack.
“No, Kevin.” The background was muffled for a minute. Olivia came back with a huff. “Ricky wants you to know he’s not upset if you’ve been with anyone else, and he’ll take you back without any questions.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Liv? Are you kidding right now?” I wanted to throw my phone. “He’s been God knows where, doing God knows what, and he’s going to act like I’m the one who did something wrong? He stole from me.”
“It’s just what Kevin said.” Her voice is tiny, like she’d shrunk into herself.
I pursed my lips to keep from letting loose all my opinions on Kevin.
My sister didn’t need to get grief from both sides.
Already, Kevin ranted in the background about her irrational sister in much more colorful language.
When I’d been with Ricky, I’d been glad the men got along.
If we were all together, I didn’t have to talk to Kevin because Ricky was happy to spend time with him.
I’d never thought about what it meant about Ricky that he and Kevin had so much in common.
“I have to go,” I said. Not a complete lie. I needed to eat something before prepping for tonight’s show. Mostly, I didn’t want to fight. With Kevin in the background, the conversation could escalate into something nasty. Words were impossible to take back.
“Okay,” Olivia said, her tone still subdued. “Think about what we said. It would be great if the four of us could hang out again together. You know? I haven’t seen you in a while.”
I had tried to get Olivia to visit me on tour.
Kevin had told Olivia he wasn’t having her staying with her single sister, who was probably out with a different guy every night.
Too risky. According to him, Olivia needed to be protected from guys who would take advantage of her, maybe try to force themselves on her. He needed to be there to keep her safe.
I’d held my tongue as Olivia had offered the rambling explanation, as though his protectiveness wasn’t laced with control. Secretly, I had wondered if he knew I’d do anything to find my sister someone better, more worthwhile. What would it take to get Olivia to see him in the right light?
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’ll be good to see you again.”
If things went well, it would be months before I saw her if Olivia couldn’t visit.
After looking at Sarah Telling’s schedule, I’d have four days between Mia’s wedding and the start of rehearsals for the next tour.
Enough time for me to go home, sleep on the air mattress on my floor for a couple of nights, and then be gone again.
I hadn’t let myself think too much about after the wedding.
While having another job was great, I’d be leaving this one behind forever.
There’d never be another Mending Hearts Tour, another dance rehearsal with Pasha.
Pasha.
Whatever we were doing would come to an end.
The more time I spent with him, the more I wished these days could go on forever.
These moments, this tour, constituted a bubble, and at some point, it would pop, dropping me back into my regular life.
I just wanted to stay suspended for a bit longer.
But no matter what I did, the pinprick would come.