Chapter 5 #2
“Still lying.” But he releases me, stepping back with that crooked smile. “Wine sounds perfect. Point me toward the glasses, and I’ll pour while you remember how to form complete sentences.”
“I can form complete sentences.”
“If you say so.”
I want to argue. Instead, I point at the cabinet above the stove and retreat to the living room, where I spend the next several minutes rearranging throw pillows that don’t need rearranging.
This is fine. This is completely fine. People have dinner together. Adults have wine together. Nothing about this is significant.
Except that my hands won’t stop shaking.
Except that every nerve ending seems attuned to his presence in the next room.
Except that when he returns with two glasses of the red I’d almost forgotten I owned, I have to physically restrain myself from closing the distance between us.
“To the Showcase,” he says, offering me a glass. “And to the most demanding instructor in the eastern seaboard.”
“To partners who actually listen.”
“Occasionally.”
“Rarely.”
“When it matters.” His glass clinks against mine. “Isn’t that what counts?”
We drink. The wine is decent, a leftover from some celebration I can’t remember, and it warms me from the inside, loosening something that’s been wound too tight for days.
“Can I ask you something?” The words spill out between sips.
“That depends on what you’re asking.”
“The bracelet.” I nod toward his left wrist. “You never take it off. Even during practice, when it must get in the way. Why?”
His hand moves to cover it with the same reflexive gesture from the studio. “It’s... sentimental.”
“You don’t strike me as the sentimental type.”
“Shows how much you know.” But there’s an edge to his voice now, something guarded. “It was a gift. From someone important. A long time ago.”
“The stones—”
“The stones are none of your concern.” He says it gently, but it’s a clear shutdown. “Some things need to remain private. Even between partners.”
I want to push. I want to demand answers and explanations, some insight into the mystery that is Malachi Vexis.
But the food arrives before I can, and the moment passes, and somehow we end up sitting on my living room floor with cartons spread between us like a picnic, talking about everything except the things that matter.
Dinner is unexpectedly fun. There’s no other word for it.
Fun—pure, uncomplicated, almost foreign in its simplicity.
Mal tells stories about his travels that are vague on details, but vivid on descriptions while I counter with competition disasters like the wardrobe malfunction in Tampa and the partner who dropped me in front of three hundred people.
We argue about music and food and somehow circle back to dancing.
“You started young,” he says, studying one of the photographs on my wall. Seven-year-old me in a sequined dress, holding a trophy nearly as tall as I was.
“Three.”
“Three?” His eyebrows rise. “That seems... early.”
“My mother had me in dance shoes before I could walk.”
“By choice?”
“Hers or mine?” I take a long sip of wine. “I don’t remember a time before dancing. It’s like asking if I chose to breathe.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Isn’t it?”
He’s quiet for a moment, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. “Did you ever want to stop?”
The question hits somewhere tender.
“Once.” I don’t look at him. “I was sixteen. I was exhausted and sick of competing. I told my mother I wanted to quit.”
“What happened?”
“She didn’t speak to me for two weeks.” The memory still stings, even now, even after everything. “Not a word. Not a glance. I was invisible. A ghost in my own home. Until I apologized, promised to try harder, recommitted to the schedule.”
“That’s...” He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t need to.
“It’s fine. It made me who I am. Disciplined. Focused.” I drain my glass. “Successful.”
“Is that what you are?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I think you’re lonely. I think you’ve built this life around achievement because achievement feels like love. Because somewhere along the way, you learned that your value was measured in trophies and ribbons and perfect technique, and now you don’t know who you are without them.”
I should be angry. I should push back and dismiss his amateur psychology with the contempt it deserves. Instead, my eyes sting.
“You don’t know me.”
“I’m starting to.” He reaches over, brushing a strand of hair from my face the way he did in the studio.
“And I think you’re magnificent, Isadora Solis.
Not because of the trophies or the technique or the studio.
Because of the fire underneath all that control.
The passion you’ve spent your whole life trying to contain. ”
“I don’t—”
“You do.” His hand lingers at my jaw. “Every time we dance, I feel it. This force, this hunger, this desperate need to feel something real. You’ve built walls around it, but it’s there. Waiting.”
“Walls are necessary.”
“Walls are prison cells.” His thumb traces my cheekbone. “What are you so afraid of?”
Everything, I think. You. Me. This. What happens when I stop being perfect and the whole structure collapses.
But I don’t say it. Can’t.
“I should clean up.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “It’s getting late.”
He lets me go. Of course he does. Whatever else Mal is, he’s never pushed past a boundary once I’ve established it. That almost makes it worse.
Cleaning up takes longer than it should. Not because there’s much to clean, but because the cottage suddenly feels too small. Every time I turn, Mal is there. Handing me a towel. Reaching past me for the soap. Standing close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
“You can go,” I say finally, shoving dried dishes into a cabinet with more force than necessary. “I can finish this.”
“I don’t mind helping.”
“I mind you helping.”
“Why?” He’s leaning against the counter now, watching me with that infuriating half-smile. “Because it disrupts your system? Your carefully organized approach to dish management?”
“Because you’re in my way.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.” He doesn’t move. “Because it seems to me like you’re in your own way. You’ve been circling this kitchen for ten minutes, moving the same three items back and forth, clearly avoiding something.”
“I’m not avoiding anything.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“I’m standing three feet away from you.”
“Physically, yes.” He pushes off the counter, closing the distance between us. “But you’ve been somewhere else since I asked what you’re afraid of. Since I got too close to the truth.”
“You don’t know my truth.”
“I know you’re shaking.”
I look down. My hands are trembling around the dish towel I’m clutching like a lifeline.
“This is unprofessional,” I say.
“We’re not in the studio.”
“It’s still—”
“What? Inappropriate? Complicated?” He’s close enough now that I can see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. “Life is complicated. People are complicated. The only thing that matters is what you want.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t what? Don’t know? Don’t want?” His hand catches mine, stills it. “Or don’t trust yourself to say it out loud?”
“You’re infuriating.”
“I know.”
“You never follow directions.”
“Not the boring ones.”
“You treat structure like a suggestion and choreography like a starting point and you have absolutely no respect for—”
“Control?” He’s smiling now, that real smile that makes my chest ache. “Maybe that’s because I’ve seen what happens when people try to control everything. They miss the moments that matter. The unexpected. The spontaneous. The beautiful accidents that make life worth living.”
“Accidents cause injuries.”
“Sometimes.” His free hand rises, hovering at my cheek without quite touching. “And sometimes they create something better than anything you could have planned.”
“This is a terrible idea.”
“Probably.”
“We’re partners. Professional partners. We have a showcase in three weeks, and emotional entanglement will only—”
“Isadora.”
“—complicate things, and I’ve worked too hard to throw it away on some—”
“Isadora.”
I stop. He’s right there, close enough to kiss, close enough that I can feel his breath on my skin and smell that impossible combination of smoke and expensive cologne.
“What do you want?” he asks.
And I’m so tired. Tired of fighting. Tired of building walls and maintaining discipline and measuring my worth in technical perfection. Tired of being afraid of the things I feel and the person I might be if I let myself want something for reasons that have nothing to do with achievement.
“You,” I whisper. “I want—”
He doesn’t let me finish. His mouth finds mine, and everything I thought I knew about control and discipline shatters.
The kiss isn’t gentle. It isn’t polite or careful or any of the things a first kiss is supposed to be.
It’s hungry. Desperate. All the tension of the past weeks igniting at once.
His hands are in my hair, pulling it free from the clip I barely remembered putting in.
My fingers are twisted in his shirt, dragging him closer, demanding more.
He tastes like wine and spice and something darker—that hint of smoke I’ve noticed before, stronger now, intoxicating.
“I’ve wanted—” he gasps against my mouth.
“Don’t talk.”
“Bossy.”
“Always.”
I pull him back in, and thinking stops. There’s only this. His body against mine. His hands mapping curves I’ve kept hidden covered in professional attire for years. The counter digging into my back as he presses closer, closer, until there’s no space between us at all.
His lips trail down my jaw. My neck. That sensitive spot behind my ear that makes my knees buckle. I feel his smile against my skin.
“Still think this is a terrible idea?”
“Yes.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No.”
His laugh is warm and triumphant. And when he kisses me again, it’s slower this time. Thorough. Like he’s trying to memorize every detail.
My back hits the refrigerator. A magnet clatters to the floor. Neither of us moves to pick it up.
“Mal. We should—”
“Should what?” His forehead rests against mine. Both of us are breathing hard. “Stop? Think about consequences? Be reasonable?”
“All of the above.”
“Mm.” His thumb traces my lower lip, swollen from his kisses. “And if I don’t want to be reasonable?”
“Then you’re more trouble than I thought.”
“I’ve been telling you that from the beginning.” He kisses me once more—quick and soft, a promise and a threat all at once. “The question is whether you’re willing to find out how much trouble I can be.”
I should say no. I should step back and remember all the reasons this is dangerous and complicated and destined to implode.
Instead, I grab his collar and pull him back down.