Stella straightened and removed her leg from the bar. “Sorry,” she told them. “I get caught up sometimes and lose awareness of my surroundings.” She practically floated, because that was the only way Stella moved, toward a stereo system and shut the music off.
Brandon’s blood pressure shot up another notch when Stella closed the distance between them. She had on her usual attire of short black bike shorts and bare legs. Only this time, instead of a skintight tank top, she had on a loose T-shirt, with a neckline so wide the thing hung over one shoulder. With no visible straps.
Damn, was she naked under that thing?
All he’d have to do was hook his index finger in the hemline and give it one good tug.
Yeah and she’d let him too.
Brandon glanced from Stella to Matt when he realized the two of them were staring at him.
“You said you wanted to talk to Ms. Davenport,” Matt reminded him.
Uh, yeah. Talk to her.
Stella’s perfectly shaped brows arched up her forehead. Then she held her hands up in surrender. “Don’t worry, I don’t have any shoes for him to wear.”
Matt laughed like it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever heard.
Brandon scratched a hand along the back of his neck. Nervous much?
“I just wanted to know about how long it’ll be,” he finally said.
His too-observant son narrowed his eyes.
“I have to step out and make a few calls,” he added. Because that was way less creepy than lingering in the doorway and watching her.
Stella moved those elegant shoulders and her T-shirt slid farther down her arm. “Thirty or forty minutes, maybe. I don’t have any classes today, so there’s no time frame.”
Matt gestured toward the bar where Stella had been stretching. “I don’t have to do any of that, do I? Because I’d probably break my spine or something.”
Stella’s grin widened, then turned into a laugh. She placed a comforting hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, only the more experienced dancers can stretch like that. For now we’ll just work on balancing on two feet. But if you’d like to sign up for more ballet classes, I could probably get you there.”
“Uh…” Matt’s mouth hung open, but Stella saved him from having to answer.
“I’m kidding,” she told the kid.
“I’ll be back in a half hour,” Brandon told Matt. He turned to go, then faced Stella. “If he’s in a pair of tights when I come back, we’re going to have words.”
The corners of her full mouth twitched. “Scout’s honor,” she answered.
Yeah, right.
She’d slap a pair of tights on Matt just to get a reaction out of him. Stella Davenport was trouble like that.
“Coach will kill me if I break my ankle,” Matt said as a single drop of sweat ran down his forehead.
Stella couldn’t help but laugh. The kid was so sweet, trying his hardest to hold the positions but looking more awkward and uncomfortable than anything else. “If you do it right, you won’t break anything. That’s sort of the point of all this. Don’t lower yet,” she instructed when Matt tried to lower off the balls of his feet. “Hold it for a few more seconds.”
His grip on the bar tightened, his knuckles turning white with exertion as he balanced on the balls of his feet. It was a standard stretch for any ballerina and one Stella could do in her sleep. But for Matt, who’d never even stepped foot inside a studio before, it was no doubt more challenging than tackling a running back to the ground.
“I don’t know how you do this stuff,” Matt commented.
Stella squatted behind him and pushed her index finger into his arches, urging him to tighten his hold. “The more you do it, the easier it gets. After a while it becomes more muscle memory than anything else.” She straightened. “You can lower now.”
They’d been working for about twenty minutes, starting with basic floor stretches, moving into plié squats, then balancing. The kid was a trouper, she’d give him that.
She turned and snatched some Kleenex off a shelf by her stereo and handed them to Matt. “Unless you’re going to tell me real men don’t wipe their sweat off.”
Matt’s mouth curled and, holy moly, the kid was the spitting image of his dad. “Sounds like something my dad would say.”
Speaking of…
He accepted the tissue and swiped it across his brow and down his temples.
“What kind of deal did you have to strike to get him to agree?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” He was trying to be coy even though she saw right through his act.
Teenagers were notoriously transparent.
When she jabbed her hands on her hips and lifted a brow, he relented.
“I told him I would cook dinner for a month,” he told her.
Stella tilted her head and realized what a strong bond the two must have. “That’s actually not bad,” she agreed.
Matt tossed the tissue in the trash. “He tried getting me to wash his truck too, but I told him not to push it.”
“Sounds pretty fair.”
Stella studied him for a moment, noting the similarities between the two and the differences, which were few. Matt’s eyes were a shade darker than Brandon’s, bordering on a rich chocolate. But they had the same thick dark hair, the same square jaw. Heck, even Matt’s stubble, already grown thick for a kid his age, resembled his dad’s. And Brandon was hardly ever without his edging-on-midnight shadow, which had proved to be both a curse and a blessing for Stella.
And, not for the first time, she wondered what Matt’s mother looked like. Little was known about the woman, at least that’s what Annabelle had always told her. And Stella wasn’t about to ask, even though she was more than curious. That right wasn’t hers because all she and Brandon shared were mild flirtations.
Yeah, but you want more.
Well, of course she wanted more. What woman wouldn’t want more with a man like him?
But she couldn’t. Jumping into something with Brandon West would impede the plans she’d already carefully laid out. Because planning was everything to her. Planning kept her sane. It gave her a sense of stability.
“Sounds like your dad’s pretty fair,” she commented to Matt. “Like you two have a good relationship.”
Matt shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Yeah, he’s cool I guess.”
Which was teenage code for “I love the hell out of him.”
“But you’re more than just close with him,” she guessed. “It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone that you actually like your dad.”
Matt ran his hand along the top of the bar. “I mean, it’s always been the two of us, so…”
“Even since you were born?”
Yeah, this is me subtly asking about your mom.
He shrugged again. “My mom left when I was three. I don’t really remember her. Only what my dad used to tell me about her.”
Which is?
Which is none of your beeswax.
Good grief, now she was talking like her mom.
“I was raised by a single mom,” she explained. “It takes someone special to raise a kid by themselves.” Okay, okay. So Gloria hadn’t been a total f-up of a parent. She could have walked away. Could have dumped Stella Lord knew where after her biological father took off to drive trucks, or so her mom had always told her.
“Yeah, he’s cool,” Matt said again. “He takes me shooting and stuff.”