“What game?” I ask, recalling his quixotic statement from earlier. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s not go there, Kelsey. If we’re going to do this, let’s at least try to be honest.”
“Do this?” I retort, my temper flaring. “Does that mean you’re hiring me? Because if it doesn’t, I’m not sure what this is.”
He doesn’t answer, and this time it’s me who makes the hard scoffing noise.
“You know what?” I demand, the ferocity in my voice fueled by irritation. “You’re being an unfair son-of-a—well, you’re a jerk.” I rush on before he can squeeze in an argument. “Maybe I screwed up back then, but you weren’t exactly innocent. You screwed up, too.”
He’s completely silent. No sounds of disbelief. No laughter. No breathing.
I pull the phone from my ear and check the display, wondering for a moment if he’s hung up on me. But the connection is clear, and there are four bars of service.
“Hello?” I press.
His answer is a single word that seems fragile against the weight of this conversation. “How?”
I shouldn’t say anything. I know that. But now that I’ve seen him again, it’s all so fresh. So painful.
But against my better judgment, I whisper, “When I left. You didn’t even try to come after me.”
I hear him draw a breath, but he doesn’t speak.
“Wyatt?”
“Nine o’clock? That’s what time you said, right?”
“Does that mean you’re coming?”
“I guess we’ll find out,” he says, and then the line goes dead.
6
I guess we’ll find out.
Hours later, his words still ring in my mind as I pace the cramped dressing room backstage at X-tasy. There are five of us squeezed in together, surrounded by fogged mirrors, dim lighting, and the stale miasma of sweat, body oil, and desperation. Behind a black curtain, music blares as the first contestant is out there shaking her groove thing.
I’ve been here only once before, but never backstage. Nia’s friend Gerrie—a struggling fashion designer—was about to marry the lawyer who’d negotiated her deal with one of the home shopping channels. Since Nia was in charge of the bachelorette entertainment, we’d all been dragged to X-tasy for the Naughty Girls Amateur Hour, where Gerrie was goaded into signing up to perform, with the aid of about five Cosmopolitans and three test tube shots.
She’d put up a protest, but ultimately conceded, saying that the cash prize would come in handy during their honeymoon in Monaco. And because she’d promised her husband-to-be that she’d act out some of the dances she saw on her girls’ night. “And maybe it sounds a little fun, too,” she’d added, before scurrying off to cull together a costume from the bag of lingerie that Nia had brought for that very reason.
I’d watched, a little bit jealous, telling myself that I was only envious of the fact that she was dancing, the thing I love most in the world and have so little time for except when I’m teaching it during the summer.
But it was more than that. It was the way the audience responded, and the buzz that I knew she must be feeling because of their energy. It was the sensation of moving through space, and of controlling that space and your own body, and creating something that other people find sensual or thought-provoking or enticing or just plain lovely.
Most of all, though, I’d been jealous of the fact that she’d owned what I couldn’t. That she’d stood up and admitted that it would be fun to dance on that stage. To be a little drunk and a little wild and just have a good time. To be raw and let loose.
To dance for the express purpose of getting a man hot and bothered.
The music fades, giving way to catcalls and clapping. The voice of the bartender-turned-emcee blares out through the sound system, encouraging the men in the audience to cast their vote in hard, cold cash deposited into the buckets that the club’s waitresses were bringing around.
Normally, the men would show their approval by tucking a bill into a dancer’s G-string, but that’s against the rules during amateur hour. Each girl has an assigned bucket, and whoever has the most money at the end wins the entire pot.
I intend to win, of course. Even though I came here to audition for Wyatt, until Griffin’s officially on the protocol, I’m scrounging every penny I can.
And, also, as far as dancing goes, I might be a teensy bit competitive.
The amateur hour theme music starts up—an unpleasant electronic tune—and a moment later the curtains flutter as the girl who just finished slips backstage.
Her skin glistens with the sweat of exertion, but she’s smiling, so I have to assume she thinks she’s done well. She has long, lean thighs and a dancer’s body that’s pretty similar to mine, and I frown, because she might be real competition for me.
I also can’t help but notice that she’s essentially nude, having stripped down to nothing—seriously, nothing—but a pair of black thong panties.
The butterflies that have been pirouetting lazily in my stomach for the last hour morph into badgers, clawing and twisting and fighting.
I don’t think I can do this. How the heck can I do this?
I take a deep breath. And then, for good measure, I take another. Because I can. I can, and I will. It’s for Griffin. It’s for the money. And I just need to keep my eyes on the prize.
The emcee announces the name of the next girl, and as she struts onto the stage to the blare of Madonna’s Like A Virgin, I peek through the gap in the curtain, searching for Wyatt in the audience.
If he’s there, I don’t see him, and a fresh wave of emotion floods through me.
Disappointment.
It settles in my veins, twisting me up inside. I bend over, stretching out my quads as I tell myself that I’m only disappointed because if he doesn’t show, that means I don’t get the job. So my disappointment is about the money. About Griff and the protocol. And about the fact that my last ditch plan to get him here didn’t work.
I tell myself that, but of course it’s a lie.
In reality, I’m disappointed that I won’t feel his eyes on me again. That I won’t experience that tingle of awareness when he’s near, the way I did back when there was nothing dark between us.
I move to a reasonably clean spot on the floor and sit, stretching my legs wide and bending at the waist until my forehead is on my knee and my hands are cupping the ball of my foot. I hold the stretch, feeling the pleasant tightness, the mild burn as my muscles come alive, ready to perform.
I’ve already warmed up, of course, but I need the distraction now. Because no matter how much I wish I could pretend that this is just about the money and the dance, it’s about Wyatt. Of course it is. And instead of running from that uncomfortable little fact, I need to be like Gerrie. I need to just own it.
Own that it excites me to be around him. That I miss the way he made me feel. The way we used to laugh.
Maybe it was nothing more than a teenage summer fling, but it didn’t feel like it back then. And it doesn’t feel like it now.