“Then try and turn off that busy brain of yours.”
His eyes darkened. “I can think of one thing that would do that.”
Ash
The first day with all the dancers was hard. I couldn’t tell if it was good. I needed it to be amazing, or Laney would be bankrupted.
I rubbed my forehead, feeling the pressure building again.
Then Gary walked up, an odd expression on his face. Without speaking, he pulled me into a tight hug. I was surprised to feel his body shudder. He was crying.
“Thank you,” he gasped out.
That was all. The man whose mouth never stopped was silent. There were no words left.
And I understood, because I felt it too—it wasn’t revenge for what had been done to us; it was a reckoning.
“Gary! You are such a tart!” yelled Sarah, breaking the moment. “Poor Ash—you’re always trying to cop a feel. Have some dignity, why don’t you?”
“Oh, look what the cat dragged in,” snarked Gary. “Talk about a bitch in heat.”
Sarah poked out her tongue, then pulled him into a tight hug, and I saw her wipe away his tears with her thumbs.
And then I felt Yveta’s hand in mine and she met my surprised gaze. She never looked anyone in the eye anymore, but right now, that’s exactly what she was doing.
“Luka is right,” she said softly. “It is amazing. We will be amazing. Thank you.”
Laney
I SAT IN my specially designated disabled seat at the end of the front row, Mom gripping my hand tightly, me holding my breath. Dad sat next to her, then my sisters and their husbands, along with most of the cousins and second cousins. The Hennessey clan was out in force, my enormous firefighter cousins wedged into the small flip-up seats looking uncomfortable among the red velvet, rococo plasterwork and gilt chandeliers of the quaint theater. But they’d come—to support me, to support Ash.
Gary’s parents were here too, silent and stoic in their Sunday best. Angie was with Phil as her date, and his reviewer friend from the Tribune had also showed up. We’d given out 35 press tickets and it seemed as though most of them had come, which was unheard of, apparently. Vanessa and Jo had both flown in for the first night and were sitting directly behind me with several friends from work.
We also had a considerable police presence, bearing in mind what had happened last time Ash was on stage—that, and the fact that the Mayor and Police Commissioner were here with their wives.
With all the publicity that Ash’s hard work had drummed up, the two weeks were almost sold out, and if the reviews were good, there were several theaters who’d expressed an interest in taking the show. I really hoped that was the case because Ash and I had put ourselves into debt to make up the funding gap. I cringed every time I thought of it.
I so desperately wanted tonight to be good, to be great. Since I’d been barred from rehearsals, I’d lost any sense of how things were going. I’d gratefully handed over the production duties to Selma, but now I felt even more adrift.
Ash had been coming home exhausted and largely silent. The only people he really talked to, and then only on his phone and in hushed tones, were the other dancers. Or to Luka, of course, in Slovenian. I was jealous of all of them—it seemed as if they were stealing Ash away from me.
But now, after all the heartache, after all the work—the blood, sweat and tears—we were here.
Mom gripped my hand as the house lights dimmed, and I saw her cross herself with her other hand. Soft rustlings died away as the audience waited, hushed and expectant. The theater itself seemed to tremble with anticipation and whispers slid into silence.
When the eerie sounds of a harpsichord rang from the orchestra pit, surprising me—as well as half the audience, if I could go by the mutters—the curtains opened to total darkness. Suddenly, the stage flashed, lights swirled and dipped in neon colors, bright searchlights crisscrossing the stage as Bad Romance boomed out.
The ugly beauty of Las Vegas . . .
The backdrop was of a half-finished skyscraper in some unfamiliar European city that I guessed was Ljubljana, as a construction gang of six men strode onto the stage. In the lead was Ash, wearing boots, overalls, tool belt and hardhat—and looking super macho, his back arching, his arms whipping into the strong, masculine shapes of the Paso Doble, banderillas stamps and the exaggerated Flamenco taps with his feet, disdainful promenade and counter promenade.
Although the bib overalls covered his chest, his arms were bare, the spotlights catching the play of his toned biceps when he moved.
A tarpaulin became a matador’s cape, as the men lunged and fought their way across the stage in a series of striking and scripted poses.
I doubt anyone had ever seen ballroom dancing that was so aggressive, so red blooded and muscular. And definitely not with hardhats.