Chapter 7 #2
My hand stopped dead. “What do you mean you don’t want to keep doing it?”
A sliver of hope ran through me at the idea of her not going back to New York.
“I don’t know. I’m just so tired of it all.
The pain. The life. The constant competition.
” She pinched her bottom lip between her fingers and pulled it away from her teeth.
“It’s exhausting.” She looked up at me, and her eyes filled with sadness.
“I’ve reached every goal I set for myself.
I’ve been the lead in every major performance for the past eight years, and still, it doesn’t feel like enough.
Someone is always gunning for my place, hoping I get injured or can’t dance so they can have my spot.
I don’t feel like they’re my friends, really. How can I?”
She sat quietly for several moments. “I’m lonely. I want more in my life. I didn’t realize just how much until I came back here.” She pulled her foot out of my hand and sat up cross-legged, facing me.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” She studied me for several beats. “When I came here this summer, I knew this would probably be my last season with the company. I just can’t do it anymore, but I didn’t have a clue what I wanted to do next.” She shifted on the sofa.
It took everything in me not to press her for an answer, to tell her to stay in Hollow Peak. With me. “And now?” I asked. My heart pounded in my chest.
“Now I’m wondering what you’d say if I stayed.”
“Do you even have to ask?”
“Yeah, I do. I mean, I think I know what you feel, but…”
“In case it wasn’t obvious, I’m crazy about you, Nat.”
She grinned. “I’m crazy about you too.”
I grabbed her arm and pulled her back onto my lap. “If you’re asking. Yes, I want you to stay. Hell, I want you to move in here and pack this house with babies with me.” Her eyes widened.
Shit, was that too much? The last thing I wanted was to scare her. “I was willing to settle for long distance since there’s no way I would ask you to give up your career and your dreams for me.”
She stroked the side of my face. “Dreams change.”
That was an understatement. Before Natalie, I never even dared to dream about those kinds of things. Now I could see it all so clearly. There was nothing I wanted more than a life with this woman. “Yeah, they do.” I brushed my lips against hers gently at first, then slowly deepened the kiss.
“Hold up.” Natalie pressed against my chest. “So, what are we saying?”
“I’m saying whenever you’re ready, I want you to move here and really give this thing a shot. Whatever that looks like.”
“Yeah?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that because when I was wandering around in town today, I saw this old house downtown that I thought would make a great dance studio.”
“You want to run a dance school?” I was confused. Didn’t she just say she was done with that life? “I thought you didn’t want to dance anymore.”
“No, as long as my body will let me, I am always going to want to dance. I said I was tired of the life. My life in New York, not dance. When I saw this house today, I instantly pictured a dance studio there. I’ve never seen anything so clearly.
I could see it all. A dance studio, my kids learning to dance in it.
You and me. Our life together. Everything. ”
I stroked her cheek. That sounded pretty amazing to me. “I like the sound of that.”
“Me too.”
“Would you really be okay walking away from performing and settling down in a small town like this?”
“Not a small town like this. This small town. With you.” She looked at me. Her face filled with more love than I had ever seen directed at me in my life.
My chest felt so full it got tight.
“Honestly, I’d be happy anywhere with you,” she said.
“It’s a big change from New York.” Part of me was still afraid to believe she would give up everything for me, for us.
“It is. But I’d already decided to step away from that part of my life. I just didn’t know what the next phase was…until you.”
“Next phase and all the rest to come.” I cupped the back of her neck and drew her into a kiss.
What had felt like a shit day when I came home had suddenly morphed into the best day ever. I kissed the side of Nat’s neck, and a shiver ran through her. “What do you say we take this upstairs and have a nice long shower?”
“Mmm,” she moaned. “And maybe tomorrow we can go look at the potential studio, and you can tell me if it’ll work.” She nipped my lip. “I’ll make it worth your while,” she teased.
My dick pulsed against my jeans. “Woman, you keep doing that, and I will build you a fucking studio.”
She giggled. “Well, it’s an old house, so it might come to that.”
I smirked at her. “What the hell does this place look like?”
Natalie stood and grabbed my hand and tugged me off the sofa. “Nope, that’s a tomorrow problem. Tonight we’re hitting the shower, and then you’re going to finish rubbing my feet now that I know they don’t gross you out.”
“I was hoping for a little more than a foot rub to end the evening.”
She took a step towards the stairs and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Guess it depends how good the rub is.” She waggled her eyebrows.
With a growl, I lunged toward her. Nat squealed and ran, but she wasn’t fast enough.
Within a couple of steps, I grabbed her around the waist, threw her over my shoulder, and carried her up the stairs.
By the time I was done with her, there would be no doubt in her mind that I knew how to rub everything exactly right.