Stella stood from the machine and grabbed a water bottle. “Okay, next time you come to my studio, I’m going to make you wear my old pointe shoes and you’ll have to dance around on your toes until I say stop.” Stella paused when Annabelle only laughed harder. “Without the toe pads. I guarantee you won’t be laughing when your feet are all bloody and your toenails fall off.”
That last sentence put a halt to Annabelle’s laughter. She scrunched her face. “Ew, do your toenails actually fall off?”
Stella shrugged, remembering the blinding pain in her feet from hours upon hours of dancing on her toes. “Yeah, you know. It happens.”
Annabelle shook her head. “I’m fascinated and grossed out all at the same time.”
Stella waved a hand in the air. “What can I say? I’m a slave to my art.” At one point in time, those words had rung true. She’d been willing to endure any amount of pain to be the best, to get to the top. She’d hid the pain and her suspicions, until her ACL had given out on her during a grand pax de deux performance. That had been the beginning of the end.
“So, why not Brandon?” Annabelle pushed.
Stella groaned as she retrieved her bag from the floor. “Are we back to this?”
“Well—”
“Something’s holding him back,” Stella blurted out.
“Maybe Brandon just has a lot on his mind,” Annabelle offered. “No, I’m serious,” she went on, as though Stella was curious. Which she wasn’t. Not even a little. “Trish has been calling—”
“Wait, what?” Stella straightened after pulling a pair of cotton pants out of her bag. “Trish? As in his ex-wife, Trisha?”
Annabelle blinked as though realizing when she’d said. “Did I say Trish?” Annabelle hedged. “Because I meant Carol.” Her head bobbed up and down. “She’s their third cousin on their mother’s side. She lives in New York. You don’t know her,” Annabelle added in a rush.
Stella narrowed her eyes as she yanked on her pants. “Really? That’s the best you can come up with?”
Annabelle’s shoulders slumped. “I know. Blake says I can’t lie worth a damn.” She took a step forward as Stella pulled on her hooded sweatshirt. “I’m sorry, I overheard Blake and Cameron talking. I didn’t think it would be right to say anything.”
She shrugged and zipped her bag. “Why should I care who he talks to?”
“Right.” Annabelle nodded. “You shouldn’t.”
“I don’t.” Except she did. Like, a lot.
“Yes, you do,” Annabelle persisted. She gripped Stella’s shoulders. “You love him.”
Stella shook her head. “How could I love him? I don’t even know what we have with each other.”
“I didn’t know with Blake, either. But that didn’t stop me from falling for him,” Annabelle admitted.
Stella blew out a breath. How could she love him? He drove her nuts. He picked on her and played pool with women named after poodles. He made her hot and drove her home when she’d had too much to drink. He loved his son more than he loved himself. He was also the only man who’d been able to touch her without sending her into a panic. He didn’t make her feel like there was something wrong with her because she didn’t like to be touched. He wanted to take apart the man who taken advantage of her.
Yeah. She loved him.
“What do I do?” she asked Annabelle.
Annabelle walked her to the door. “You could talk to Brandon.”
Or she could eat herself into a sugar coma and then pass out in her own vomit. Yeah, sounded better. Less painful.
Stella opened the studio door, then paused. “Why do you think he didn’t tell me?”
“Probably the same reason you haven’t told him about Terry. Or Rick.”
A shudder ran through her at the mention of two men. One she’d given up everything for. And the other had stolen something much more sacred.
Thirteen
Thumping salsa music greeted Stella as she opened the front door. Steeling herself for whatever horrors awaited her, she shut the door and walked toward the ruckus.
Gloria Davenport was dressed in black spandex pants and an off-the-shoulder magenta top with a yellow spaghetti strap tank top underneath. The coffee table had been pushed to the sliding glass door, allowing her mother to have plenty of room to…what the hell was she doing?
“Hey, honey,” her mom greeted as she swung her arms over her head, then spun around in time with the music. On the television was…was it a video game? Or a music video? Stella couldn’t tell. Gloria executed a little two-step thing, then dropped down to a lunge.…thingy. Whatever the hell.
“Mom…” Stella shook her head and dropped her gym bag on the floor. “What?”
“Zumba,” Gloria answered. The song ended and the television cheered for what an awesome job her mom had done. Then the program moved into another song and Gloria readied herself.
“God have mercy,” Stella whispered to herself.
“Want to join me?” Gloria asked as she swiveled her hips to a slower number. “This stuff kicks your butt. I’ve already burned, like, four hundred calories.”
Stella tapped her leg with the palm of her hand. “Bum knee, Mom.”
Gloria laughed as she kept her attention on the screen. “Sorry, honey. I forgot.”
“That’s all right. I’ve only told you about five hundred times,” she muttered to herself. She flopped down on the recliner and blew out a breath.
“Okay.” Gloria put a halt to her dancing, thank goodness, and shut the TV off. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she replied automatically.
Gloria jabbed her hands on her hips, which were looking abnormally smooth thanks to the spandex. “You have the look on your face.”
“What look?”
“Like you’ve been chewing glass.”
“You know, I’ve never understood that saying,” Stella argued. “If I had actually been chewing glass, I wouldn’t be sitting here all calm. I’d probably be bent over the toilet throwing up blood.”
Gloria held her hands up. “It’s just a saying.”
“Well, it’s stupid.”
“Point taken,” Gloria soothed. “I won’t use it again.” They sat in silence with Gloria fiddling with the hem of her shirt and Stella wishing the floor would swallow her whole. “I know what’ll cheer you up.” She grabbed for some papers off the coffee table and held them up for Stella to see.
“What’re those?”
“These”—Gloria rattled them with a big grin on her face—“are the papers for the lease agreement I signed this morning.”
The words Stella had been waiting to hear. “Lease?” she asked, trying not to sound too excited.
“Yep,” her mom responded. “For a three-bedroom ranch house about two blocks from here.”
Stella shook her head. “You’re renting a house?”
Gloria nodded. The idea should have elated her. But for some reason she felt like shit. Like the worst daughter who’d been counting the minutes until her mother left. Some people didn’t have mothers. And she’d been wishing for hers to leave.
Gloria glanced at the papers in her hand, then at Stella. “Well, yeah. You’ve been wanting me to find my own place since I got here.”
Stella nodded. “Yeah.”
Gloria blinked, then set the papers on the coffee table. “Okay.” She came and hunkered down in front of Stella. “What’s really wrong?” When Stella didn’t answer right away, Gloria took her hands. “Tell Mommy about it.”
Stella looked down at their clasped hands. “It’s nothing.”