Chapter 6
Maple
“I don’t want to do this lame dance.” Marcus said.
At thirteen, he was the oldest of the kids, and had zero interest in anything that required him to move.
I sensed it the first day when he sat through the entire warm-up party I had planned as an ice-breaking event for the kids.
I had tried to involve him in other parts of the play, from dialog writing to administration work with Nancy.
Nothing had worked. I looked at the ceiling for a moment.
Then I looked back at him. “Okay,” I said. “I get it. I genuinely get it. I hate doing things I don’t want to do too. It’s the worst. You know what I hate? Doing laundry. I despise it. I would rather do almost anything else in the world than laundry.”
Marcus’s eyes were on me. He was listening intently.
“So here’s what I’m going to say to you,” I continued.
“You don’t have to dance. I’m not going to make you dance.
But I need someone to be my official set designer for the Fall Festival performance.
Someone who builds the props and tells me if the stage looks right.
” I paused. “That’s a real job. I need a real person for it. ”
His eyes went wide. Then he crossed his arms, and looked at me with deep suspicion.
“Set designer,” he said.
“Official set designer. I’ll put it on the program.”
He uncrossed his arms. Just slightly. “Will I get to cut things?”
“Things that need cutting, yes.”
“Fine,” he said, and there was a small sliver of a genuine smile on his face.
Yes! That was a small win.
But a win nevertheless.
With twelve foster kids and seven weeks until the Fall Festival, I was counting everything as a win.
On the other side of the studio, Jordan and Devon, both eleven, were sitting against the mirror with their arms crossed and their expressions set to we are not moving.
They had informed me on day one, in those exact words, that they had been sent here by force and had no interest in dancing.
They had maintained this position with impressive consistency.
I let them sit. Forcing kids who’d had things forced on them their whole lives was not my strategy.
My strategy was to wait.
I went over to Nancy at the front desk during the water break and dropped into the chair across from her.
“The town council called this morning,” I said. “They’re sending a volunteer today. Someone to help with the kids.”
Nancy looked up from her laptop. “Please tell me it’s someone who can actually handle children.”
“I have no idea. They just said today.” I picked up my coffee. “It’s been three weeks since I put in the request so at this point I’ll take what I can get.”
The front door opened.
I looked up.
Jasmine Simmons, the town council events director, walked in.
Jasmine and I went back to my first year in Chestnut Ridge.
She had helped me get my first real show at that year’s Fall Festival.
That one event had made my dance studio popular overnight.
Jasmine had given me the opportunity because my work spoke for itself.
She had seen and appreciated my talent before anyone in Chestnut Ridge even knew me, and I owed a big portion of my success to her.
She was smiling a full smile, all cheery. And when Jasmine got that cheery, it usually meant she was about to deliver some unsavory news. I’d known her long enough to read that smile.
Behind her was Cade Sonnenberg.
I set my coffee down. Jasmine kept smiling. “Maple! So good to see you, as always. I wanted to come personally to introduce your new Fall Festival volunteer—“
“Why is he here,” I said. Very pleasantly.
“Cade has generously agreed to volunteer with your program for the next four weeks, and he’s also made a very significant donation to the Fall Festival fund, which we are so grateful for—“
“How significant,” I said. Still very pleasant.
“Very,” Jasmine said. “Very, very significant.”
Cade caught my eye over Jasmine’s shoulder.
“Hi, Maple.” he said. He looked like he was standing in a minefield and was choosing his steps carefully.
Smart man.
I smiled at him with the tightest smile I could muster.
Nancy came out of nowhere with a clipboard in her hand. “Hey Cade, good to see you again.”
Cade gave her the kind of smile that used to make me blush. Now I just wanted to punch him in the face.
“You’ll be volunteering with us?” Nancy asked, and then stopped herself from talking anymore when she saw me staring at her.
“Yeah, I had some time on my hands this fall, so I thought why not put that in good use?”
Jasmine clapped her hands together. “What a wonderful thought.”
I smiled at both of them with my lips pressed together, and looked over at Nancy.
Nancy got the hint and took Cade off to fill out the volunteer forms, which I was grateful for because it gave me thirty seconds alone with Jasmine.
“Jasmine, why is he here?”
“He’s the only person who volunteered to work with twelve foster kids for a dance performance.” She looked at me gently. “And the donation is going to cover the stage lighting we couldn’t afford and the sound system upgrade and the—“
“I understand,” I said.
“It would be a shame to turn away the only volunteer—“
“I get it, Jasmine.” I said again.
Jasmine patted my arm. “Give me a call if he gets smart with you.” She said as she waved goodbye to Nancy on her way out and gave Cade a warm smile. She gave me one last look before stepping out. The door closed behind her.
Cade walked over.
I looked at him. “Why are you here, Cade?”
“I’m here to set things right.”
“Things can’t be set right.”
“Maple. I’m here to fix what I broke. And for that, I’m ready to do whatever needs to be done.
” He glanced at the studio, where the kids were slowly reconvening after the water break.
“But if you genuinely want me to leave, I’ll go.
Right now. I’ll tell Jasmine something came up.
But I’m not going to stop trying to show up for you—“
“You want to leave,” I said. “After a very large donation and Jasmine coming here personally. You think I’d tell you to go and make myself look like I can’t manage one volunteer? You want me to look bad in front of the town council?”
“I never want you to look bad. If you say go, I go. I’ll figure out the Jasmine part myself.” He looked at me steadily. “But even if I leave today, I’m not giving up on you. I meant what I said on your porch. I meant every word of it.”
I looked at him.
He looked back.
“You might fight me as much as you want, Maple. But deep down I know you’re tired of fighting your whole life.”
The audacity of that sentence made me want to throw something at him.
“Just give up, Cade,” I said. “Seriously. Go back to your apartment, or your parents’ villa, or your very cushioned office or wherever the hell you want to go. Find someone new to fuck. I’m sure there are plenty of options. Sapphire seems very available.”
“I don’t want anything to do with Sapphire or any other woman.”
“Right.”
“You and I are going to be together again. I’m going to make sure of it.”
I smiled. The dry, flat, completely humorless smile that I reserved for very specific occasions.
“You are very welcome to keep imagining things, Cade. Daydream all you want. In fact, do it while you’re working.” I looked him up and down. He was wearing a blazer with a shirt underneath, dark trousers and leather shoes.
“You came to volunteer at a children’s dance studio in that?”
“I had a client meeting on the way here.” He looked completely unruffled. “I can handle a group of kids in this.”
“Kids?” I said. “Who said anything about kids?”
I went to the supply closet. I came back with a broom. I held it out.
He looked at it. He looked at me. He took it.
And then he smiled. A real one, full and warm and entirely genuine, and I hated it.
“Thank you for giving me another chance,” he said.
“It’s a broom, Cade. I’m not giving you anything.”
He took off his blazer and laid it over the back of the waiting area couch. He took off his tie calmly, all the while looking at me. He rolled his trousers up an inch at the ankle and gripped the broom tighter.
“Clean the whole floor.” I commanded. “Every inch. There shouldn’t be any dust left. Some of the kids here have allergies.”
“Absolutely,” he said.
Two hours later, I had successfully gotten nine out of twelve children to do the basic step in something resembling the right direction.
Jordan and Devon had migrated from the mirror to actual spots on the floor, which I was counting as a miracle and not mentioning out loud in case I jinxed it.
Marcus had designed three props on paper and was now asking me with deep seriousness whether the backdrop should be orange or burnt orange, because apparently there was a difference and it mattered.
I got myself a coffee from the machine in the break room. Hot, two sugars.
I came back out.
Cade had finished sweeping. He was most of the way through mopping, working his way backward across the studio floor methodically and carefully. Considering he had never swept a floor in his entire life before, he was doing a pretty decent job.
Of course I was not going to tell him that.
His shirt was slightly damp. His hair had lost its perfect arrangement. He was humming something under his breath.
And somehow, he looked completely at home.
I looked at him. At the mopped floor. At the neat pile of dust he’d swept into the corner.
I walked over.
I tripped.
On nothing. On absolutely flat floor. I tripped on the air directly in front of Cade Sonnenberg and spilled the entire coffee onto the freshly mopped section of floor in a large, very thorough, very brown puddle.
“Oopsie daisy,” I said. I smiled at him sheepishly and fluttered my eyelashes.
He looked at the coffee. Then at me. Then back at the coffee.
He picked up the mop.
He walked toward me, this six foot two, objectively ridiculous man in rolled up trousers and a damp shirt, carrying a mop, and he came right up until he was close enough that I had to look up at him, and he looked down at me with an expression that was completely calm and slightly amused and entirely certain.
“You look beautiful when you do that. That fluttering of the eyes, that was so hot.”
I felt a wave of heat on my cheeks and I had to look away from him.
“And Maple. There is nothing you can do to scare me away.”
Then he reached out and tucked a strand of hair away from my face, gentle and quick, just back behind my ear, like he’d done it a thousand times.
Then quietly made his way back to the splashed coffee, and started mopping again.
To add insult to injury, he started humming again.
Was he on a different planet than I was? I had just insulted him, spilled an entire mug of coffee on the floor that he had just broomed and mopped, and instead of getting frustrated he was humming?
I turned around and made my way back to the reception desk, genuinely surprised at Cade’s reaction. He could see clearly that I had tripped on purpose.
Nancy looked at me through her glasses, and smiled knowingly at me. She looked at Cade, and then back at me. She looked at the coffee puddle disappearing under the mop.
“My guess,” she said, in a very conversational tone, “is that he massively fucked up with you.”
“Nance—“
“And that he fucked up so bad that you are going to make him go through actual hell.” She nodded slowly. “Professionally assessed.”
“Of course I will. And you’re right. He massively fucked up, and he wil pay for it.”
“Why do you really think he’s here?” Nancy asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care. He’ll give up when he gets bored of the routine of this place. He’ll realize this little inconvenience is not worth his while, and he’ll stop showing up. I know his kind. And then, you’ll see him at the fall festival with a different woman in his arms.”
Nancy looked at me. Then she looked at Cade, who was finishing the coffee puddle and moving back to the section he hadn’t gotten to yet, still humming.
“Maple,” she said. “You’d have to be completely blind. This man loves you. Can’t you see that?”
I stood there and watched him mop.
Why was he doing this? What did he want from me? What could he possibly have thought was going to happen?
And the audacity?
The absolute, staggering, unbelievable audacity of this man, who was standing in my studio in his client-meeting shirt, mopping a floor and humming, after fucking me over literally and figuratively. Like everything’s fine, like we’re fine.
Well, nothing’s fine, and I’ll make sure he regrets his very decision of volunteering in my dance studio.
I picked a water bottle from the chiller and went back to my kids.
Behind me, Cade kept humming.
***