Gina packed a lot of jive content into their dance. Stone wasn’t as comfortable with the movements, but he did his best, and she was glad to see he was in a much better mood during the filming of the third episode than he’d been in during the second.

Backstage in the Sparkle Parlor, everyone chatted about their stories that would be on display, reminiscing and showing off pictures on their phones.

Stone spent a lot of time talking to Twyla, who showed him a handful of inappropriate set photos from her personal collection. Dwayne—also an Elf Chronicles fan—joined them.

Gina stood to the side with Natasha. Despite living together, they barely saw each other once The Dance Off season began.

“¿Qué están haciendo?” Natasha asked, nodding her head at their partners.

“They’re fans,” Gina replied in English. Even though she sometimes spoke Spanish with her family, she wasn’t as fluent as Natasha, and didn’t always have the vocabulary for full conversations, especially when she was preoccupied. “She’s showing them pictures.”

“Ah.” Tash gave Gina a hip bump. “How are things going with your hot caveman?”

Gina rolled her eyes. “I think the audience will like tonight’s dance. It won’t be his best, but it’s fun.”

“I didn’t ask about the audience, G.”

A stage manager hurried over to them. “Gina, Natasha, I need you two to grab your partners and stand over there with Reggie. I’m going to get Rose and Matteo.”

When they’d all assembled with Reggie Kong, a gorgeous, petite Taiwanese woman with blue streaks in her updo, they waited patiently for the go-ahead.

Reggie turned to Gina. “Since you and Stone are dancing next after the commercial break, we’re going to ask you a couple questions.”

“We’re just here for eye candy?” Matteo joked, his Italian accent and charm still thick after fifteen years in the states.

Reggie laughed. “Basically. Also, you and Rose are dancing right after them.”

They got the cue from Juan Carlos, and Reggie turned to Gina with the mic.

“So, Gina, tell me about your dance tonight.”

“We’re doing the jive, which is an exuberant dance, different from our tango last week. I want it to express Stone’s spirit of exploration and love of nature, and show the audience the more fun side of Stone that I get to see every day in rehearsals.”

“I love it,” Reggie gushed. She took a step back and gestured at Gina’s body. “Now tell me about this ensemble you’re wearing. You look fantastic, of course, as you always do, but you also look like a wild woman who just stepped out of the forest.”

“That’s exactly it.” Gina struck a pose in her sparkly leaf-and-vine covered bikini. Vines twined up and down her arms, even into her hair, and a green ruffled skirt covered her ass and hips. “I’m kind of like a sexy Mother Nature.”

“Ha! And I bet you’re happy with the way she looks, huh, Stone?” Reggie shoved the microphone in his face.

“Gina always looks beautiful,” he mumbled, turning red.

“Right answer!” Reggie turned to the camera and read off the teleprompter. “You’ll get to see them dance, along with our Super Bowl star and former teen scientist, when we return.”

Stone leaned down to whisper in Gina’s ear. “Why do they always ask the most embarrassing questions?”

She huffed out a laugh as they followed the stage manager downstairs. “That’s what they’re paid to do. It makes for good TV.”

The stage crew rushed to get their set ready. Fake trees lined the edges of the dance floor. Three other dancers—including Joel, who was out of the competition—waited nearby, dressed in fitted overalls and white t-shirts, like Stone. They were going to play his brothers.

The commercial break ended. Since Stone had to move quickly to hit his mark, they waited on the stage while their package played on a giant screen overhead.

It started with Juan Carlos doing voiceover, and footage from last week’s dance. Then Stone’s voice rang out across the ballroom.

The most significant period of my life was five years ago, when my family decided to move further into the Alaskan bush and start the show.

You must miss them a lot.

I do.

“Here, let’s eye gaze.” Gina cupped his chin, enjoying the scratch of his beard against her palm as she directed his attention toward her. “Listening to that always makes me feel weird.”

In the inky shadows of the stage, she met his gaze.

On the screen, they practiced the jive, with Gina correcting his footwork.

It’s weird being alone—you know, I’m used to having my family around.

We moved there around five years ago, after a fire destroyed . . . well, almost everything.

“Stone was always an active little boy,” a woman’s voice said.

“What the hell?” Stone jerked his head up, staring at the screen. “That’s my mom. They didn’t say they were getting my family to do interviews.”

Gina tucked herself in against Stone’s side, feeling tension in his body. She rubbed his back. “It’s normal. They sometimes get family members to add commentary, and yours already has a camera crew around them.”

His mother—Pepper, the label on the bottom of the screen read—had soft blonde hair that fell past her shoulders. Her eyes—big and blue—were just like Stone’s. To her side sat a man with graying brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a full beard that was also going gray. Jimmy, Stone’s dad.

“It was a hard decision to make, moving further into the bush. We’d talked about it for a long time, but after the fire, it seemed like the right thing to do. And of course, we did it as a family.”

Stone appeared on the screen, talking to Gina in the rehearsal room. I had a girlfriend.

Stone’s entire body clenched.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This was going to be so bad.

She didn’t want to move. Wanted to leave Alaska, in fact. So, we broke up.

Gina would have bet anything this was Donna’s doing.

“Stone,” she whispered. “Stone, look at me.”

He didn’t. A second later, a woman with mousy brown hair and a sweet face appeared on the screen. Stone jerked in surprise, and Gina threw her arms around his waist, afraid he would bolt from the stage.

“Those fucking assholes.” He breathed the words, and Gina knew before she looked what she would see at the bottom of the screen.

Anna, it read. Stone’s ex-girlfriend.

“Stone loves Alaska,” Anna said, her twangy voice ringing out across the room. “I wanted to move to Seattle. We wanted different things. It’s a shame, but it just didn’t work out. He’s doing a great job on The Dance Off, though. I had no idea he could dance. He certainly never danced that way with me.”

The audience laughed. Stone turned to storm offstage.

“Where are you going?” Gina hissed at him, grabbing his arm and digging in her heels. “Stone, do not let them get to you!”

He stopped abruptly and she tumbled into his back, her arms wrapping around him both for balance and to keep him from leaving.

“But they have, Gina. And it’s exactly what they meant to do when they dug up my past and pulled her out of it.” He pointed at the screen. “All my staged interviews were about the fire and the move. Not about her. That wasn’t supposed to be included. I even confirmed with Jordy that it wouldn’t be included.”

One of the stage managers gestured at them frantically, and Gina’s heart pounded in desperation. She had to get Stone to his mark. “I know. What do you want me to say? They’re assholes who screw with our emotions on purpose to create good TV. I’m sorry. I really am. You didn’t deserve this. But please, please, don’t leave. If you walk out now, we’re done.”

He leveled a steady stare on her. “And you want to win.”

“I want to win with you.” She pleaded with her eyes, begging him to understand the difference. “Please, Stone.”

For a second, she didn’t know what he would do. But then he nodded, brushing past her to leap off the stage and join the other guys on his mark. Gina hurried backstage and let the wide-eyed stage manager hustle her to where she’d make her entrance from the trees. The audience quieted as the music began and the lights went up. Showtime.

The performance started with Stone and the other three guys working together to snap a fake house into place in one corner of the floor while lively music played overhead. When they were done, they gave each other high fives, which was Gina’s cue to prance out.

Hands on hips, she sashayed out into the forest clearing meant to represent Nielson HQ. Stone’s “brothers” melted away, and while he went through the motions, his movements weren’t as sharp as they’d been during dress rehearsal. The vibe of the dance was supposed to be sassy Mother Nature meets adoring survivalist. Instead of a wide grin, his lips were set in a closed-mouth grimace, and when they got into hold, his timing was off.

“You’ve got this.” Gina pulled him along, beaming a big smile for the audience. “You can do this.”

He didn’t reply. They broke hold, and he started off on the wrong foot. The wrong fucking foot. He’d never done that in rehearsal.

“You know this dance. Stop thinking so much.” The dance brought them together, and once again, Gina fought to get them back on track.

“Smile!” She shouted at him as he swung her body between his legs and then up into the air. “Don’t give up on me, Stone. Stay with me.”

That seemed to snap him out of it, and he met her eyes. They completed the dance, more or less according to Gina’s choreography, and finished in a dip with their faces close together.

The music ended. Stone shut his eyes and dropped his sweaty forehead to hers.

“I’m sorry.”

She wanted to kiss him, to wipe away the anguish on his face and melt the tension from his muscles. But they were on live TV, with cameras pointed at them, millions of people watching at home, and hundreds in the live studio audience.

“Thank you,” she said instead.

His brows creased. “For what? I screwed up.”

“But you didn’t quit.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you.” He pulled her to her feet and they headed to Reggie, who waited by the judges’ table. Gina kept her arm wrapped around Stone’s waist. This next part wasn’t going to be fun.

All the judges were dancers. They’d seen the package, and knew what had gone wrong. They wore grimaces of compassion—they understood, but they still had to judge the dance.

Sure enough, the scores were brutal. Dimitri gave them a fifty, which brought their average score down to fifty-seven percent.

Stone was quiet through Reggie’s post-dance interview questions, and Gina babbled about how they did their best and hoped to try again next week. When the camera’s recording light shut off, Gina’s shoulders slumped. “Ugh, that sucked. What did I even say?”

Reggie patted her arm. “I’m rooting for you guys.” And then she hurried off to have her makeup touched up.

Stone avoided the cameras for the rest of the night, and Gina didn’t blame him. Finally, in the last five minutes of the show, they trotted all the couples out onto the stage for the elimination.

During dress rehearsal, Alan and Rhianne had been the ones sent home in the fake elimination. Usually, the couple who was called out during rehearsal wasn’t the couple who was going home that night. Thanks to last week’s performance and scores, Gina had thought she and Stone were safe tonight, but her confidence had taken a hit.

“Since we’re running out of time,” Juan Carlos said, “we’ll cut right to the chase and reveal which of our remaining ten couples are in danger of elimination.”

Everyone stood still while the cameras zoomed in on their faces. A few long, drawn-out seconds later, the lights fell, leaving the bottom three couples in red spotlights.

Including Gina and Stone.

Her stomach plummeted. Stone put an arm around her and crushed her to his side. She took a deep, shuddering breath and clung on to him.

She didn’t want this to be over. They had a shot at the trophy—she knew they did. Not only that, she was just getting to know Stone. They’d both shared things about themselves this week, and she wanted to continue growing their friendship. He was a great partner; a pleasure to dance with and teach now that he was taking it seriously, and certainly easy on the eyes. And she saw him changing from this experience, too. At the beginning, he never would have hugged her so freely, or joked with the hosts, or palled around with Twyla Rhodes. Being on the show was helping him open up and let down his guard.

Gina glanced around them. Twyla and Roman were also in jeopardy, as were Farrah and Danny.

Crap. Farrah was young, but she was a fantastic dancer. There was no way she was going home yet. The bottom three weren’t necessarily the lowest in terms of scores and votes. Sometimes, the producers put couples in the bottom to scare viewers into voting, or to zap them out of complacency.

Only one thing was for sure: one of the couples in the bottom three had the lowest combined votes and judges’ scores, and was going home. It wouldn’t be Farrah, which meant it was between Stone and Twyla.

Twyla, who had a fan following spanning three generations.

“I’m sorry,” Stone whispered again.

“The couple leaving the competition tonight is . . .” Juan Carlos paused for dramatic effect. Gina held her breath, squeezing her eyes shut while the silence dragged on. Stone wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to his chest, his heart pounding against her ear.

“Stop.”

It wasn’t Juan Carlos who’d spoken. Everyone stared at Twyla, who stepped out of the spotlight with a noticeable limp.

Juan Carlos recovered quickly, as a good host should. “Is everything okay, Twyla?”

“No, everything is not okay.” She stood with her head held high, leaning on Roman’s arm for balance. “I screwed up my ankle in the dance tonight. I was going to try to suffer through it, but you know what? I’m too fucking old for this.”

Everyone gasped and giggled, but Gina’s heart swelled as she strained to hear Twyla’s next words over the laughter.

“I’m going home.”

Gina exhaled in a rush, sagging against Stone. He pressed his cheek to the top of her head and ran his hands up and down her arms.

“Does this mean we stay?” he asked.

“It does.” She sent up another prayer that people would take pity and vote for them tonight.

He lowered his voice further. “What if it was supposed to be us?”

“We’ll never know.”

“We better kick ass next week.”

She smiled. “We will.”

Backstage, they said goodbye to Twyla. The older actress kissed Stone full on the mouth, which made his whole face turn red but only slightly diminished the tension in his stance.

Jordy pulled Gina aside and handed her a piece of cardstock. “Your next dance. Figured you might want to start planning right away.” He grimaced. “Sorry about the rehearsal package. You know that was all Donna’s idea.”

“I know.” Fucking Donna.

Gina grabbed Stone before he went off to change. “Jordy gave us our dance for next week.”

“Already?”

She showed him the card. “We’re doing the paso doble. It’s a forceful Latin dance mimicking the drama of a bull fight. The leader—that’s you—plays the role of the matador, and I play the cape or the bull.”

He shrugged. “All right.”

Frowning, she tapped the card against her leg. “Next week is also Fairy Tale Night.”

“Oh, so we have to tell a story again.” He rolled his eyes, then sighed. “Sorry, I’m not mad at you. Tonight was just . . . a lot.”

Her heart went out to him. She would have died if they’d gotten any of her ex-boyfriends for a surprise interview. Trying for a joke, she said, “Just wait until we have an argument. Even if it’s two minutes out of the whole week, you can bet that’s what’ll be shown before we dance.”

“I believe you.” His eyes cut over to Jordy and the camera crew. Jordy shrugged, as if to say, Hey, just doing my job.

“Anyway, I have a fun concept for this dance.”

“Oh yeah?” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “What’s that?”

“We have Little Red Riding Hood as our fairy tale, which is perfect.”

He held his index fingers up on the sides of his head like ears. “Am I the Big Bad Wolf?”

Even his attempt at humor sounded tired and quiet. And other day, it would have had the sexy growl that drove her crazy. She forced a giggle, since he was trying to make it seem like he was fine. “No, I am.”

“Explain.”

“You’ll be a combination of Red and the Woodcutter. I’m going to be the wolf.”

He nodded, but his gaze was distracted. “Sounds good.”

Jackson came over to say goodnight, and Gina chewed on her lower lip while the guys chatted. Stone’s movements were slow and restrained, his head bowed. Shit. He was really bummed about their jive score.

Their paso doble was going to suck if he couldn’t get his head back in the game and dance with force. It was up to her to help him, to reignite his competitive spirit. The paso doble was perfect for him, and she needed him at one hundred percent.

In a flash of insight, she came up with an idea to cheer him up. When Jackson walked away, Gina spoke to Stone in a low, rushed voice.

“We’re going to break early tomorrow.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why? After tonight, I probably need more practice, not less.”

“You’ve been working really hard. I want to do something nice for you.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Another salsa club?”

“Ha. No.”

“What did you have in mind?”

Her stomach flip-flopped at the thought of being completely alone with him, but she grinned. “Since our last attempt was thwarted, you’re coming over to my place for a home-cooked Puerto Rican meal. I hope you like pork.”