CHAPTER 27
Theo
My house was in West Hollywood, not far from the park we’d just left. From the outside, it didn’t look like much. Just a 1920s Spanish-style home in the Hollywood Hills. Thanks to the hedges that surrounded the oversized lot, there was even a little privacy, a rarity in LA.
I didn’t tell Lex where we were headed, but from the stillness in the air and her stiffened posture, she’d figured it out.
“Before you get the wrong idea,” I said, immediately defensive. I could feel a fight about to start. “I have a studio here. Downstairs, so we don’t even need to go inside my home. Technically.”
“Is this studio attached to your home?” she asked, her tone on edge.
I hesitated. Fuck. “Yes.”
“Then it’s technically in your home. Why did you bring me here?”
“Why are you freaking out?” I knew why.
“Theo,” she warned.
“Okay, fine. Let’s just leave. We can find studio space at Gravity.” I tested. She just needed a minute to realize we weren’t here for me to seduce her, since that was against the rules and all.
She let out a heavy breath as she relaxed against the seat. “You have a studio in your home?” I could almost hear the wheels turning in her head.
“Downstairs. It was just installed recently. Fresh wood floors and everything. I’ve barely stepped foot in it.” I grinned, already feeling her caving.
A smile poked through her pursed lips. “That’s got to be nice.”
I left my finger hovering over the push button to cut the engine. “You think you’ll be okay in there alone with me? You won’t try anything, will you? Cause I can’t have you in my home if you’re going to try to grope me.”
“Oh my God,” she laughed. “Shut up and get out of the car.”
I took her bag and led her around the corner of the house, along a cobblestone path that reached the side door to the downstairs, then continued on to the back.
“This is nice, your home.” Lex spoke up behind me, sounding surprised. “I pictured you somewhere more … uppity, to match your fancy car. This is refreshing.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, turning the key in the lock. “I like the privacy. When I come home, I want to feel like I have some semblance of a normal life, you know?”
She shrugged. She didn’t know. She had no idea what a crazy life I led outside of rehearsal time. The appearances. The award shows. The interviews. The photo shoots and video productions. The consultations. And the touring. I was never off. Only in my home could I tuck away and enjoy a slice of sanity in the pie that was my life.
I held the door open, letting her walk into the foyer first. With a busy week of rehearsals and getting Winter caught up, I’d had only a few minutes to inspect the completed work. But as soon as Lex pushed through the double doors, I felt it. It was the feeling I’d strived for when requesting the remodel. A dance studio of my own. One that I didn’t have to book and where I didn’t have to be gawked at through two-pane windows. Just mine, and only Lex and I knew about it.
“Holy—” Lex stopped and gazed around. The room was almost as big as Gravity’s main studio. Only the dim lights above the mirrors were on, so I flipped the main switch, illuminating the room. It had gray hardwood floors and, in a corner of the room, a speaker system that controlled the surround sound. Long panels of glass lined the front wall, with high arched windows above revealing the dim night sky. To the left was a simple lounge area with a small fridge and a couch pushed against the wall.
“This is insane. I can’t believe this is yours.” She flipped to face me.
I loved her reaction. Most dancers would react the same, but for some reason, when Lex lit up, so did my insides. I shouldn’t have wanted to impress her, but I did. Something stirred in my chest. For the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of peace wash over me.
“Make yourself comfortable. Fridge isn’t stocked yet. I’ll grab some water from upstairs, then we can get started. Bathroom’s down the hall.” I pointed at the door we’d walked through.
She nodded, almost robotically, but I wasn’t sure my words had even registered. Her eyes were still crawling the space, as if she’d just stepped through the wardrobe and into Narnia.
When I walked back through the studio doors, Lex was stretching in the middle of the room. Her center. I’d noticed. “You take the center often.”
She looked up, then that beautiful blush spread across her cheeks, as if my presence surprised her. Or maybe my words did.
“It’s my go-to spot. Started when I was little. I don’t even notice it anymore unless I’m forced away from it. I think it makes me feel—” She laughed and shook her head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
“No, not never mind.” I sat and faced her then pulled my legs into a wide V position to mirror her. “Tell me.”
She let out a sigh, a smile lingering on her face. “It makes me feel centered, I guess.”
I felt a tug at my heart when she cocked her head as though she was questioning her own feelings. If Lex had a smidgen of knowledge as to how fucking adorable she was…
Her shoulders lifted and released dramatically. “I blame it on my preteen years, when I started developing. My body was changing, and my little dancer body didn’t know how to keep up with it. I was curvier than the others, and balance became a big challenge. My ballet instructor would call me out in class, make me stand in the center of the room, and demand that I execute fouetté turns until she instructed me to stop. It was humiliating. I couldn’t even hide the fact that my body was different from the others.”
It was the wrong time for me to check out Lex’s curves, but just as in the car, I couldn’t help glancing down. She wore white cotton shorts and a pale-pink sports bra. Simple, but combined with the bend of her curves, it was enough to know I couldn’t look at her again. Ever.
“Your balance is perfect now.”
She nodded and lay back, sprawling out as if she were about to make a snow angel. “It took a lot of work. Shane helped me. We started doing these workouts to help strengthen my core and doing a crazy amount of cardio. I don’t necessarily believe fourteen-year-olds should become health nuts in the way I did, but I felt so helpless at the time. I remember thinking that my body was cursed and that the one thing I loved most in the world was unreachable because of something I could never change.
“Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and tell my younger self that it will all be okay. That I was beautiful and perfect just the way I was. That my dreams wouldn’t be crushed because I was a little heavier in the hips or in the chest. I was me. And my dreams were my dreams. Sometimes the things that make us different are what make us great. You know?”
A lump formed in my throat, and a rush of heat spread through my chest. “What about your parents? I know you said they were strict and all, but didn’t they know your insecurities?”
“Don’t get me wrong, Theo. My parents loved me. Still do. They just never understood the whole dance thing. It wasn’t what they envisioned for me, and they’ve never been able to let that go. My mom heard me crying about my body, and she offered to help me fix it instead of telling me the things I really needed to hear. I didn’t need fixing. I just needed to learn how to love myself.”
I followed her lead and lay back on the floor beside her. The ceiling fans were on full blast, and the AC was blowing cold air, but the room still felt warm next to Lex. “What about now? Do you love yourself?”
“I’m getting there.”
I slid my hand across the floor until I felt hers and enveloped it with mine. “You know, it makes sense after hearing your story about the fouetté turns.”
She turned to me. “What does?”
I nodded. “That you find your center in the center of the room. It’s where you got comfortable with it. And I’ll admit, balance is one of the hardest things to grasp as a dancer. It takes immense strength, so for you to recognize that at such an early age and make healthy changes to your body is not necessarily a bad thing. I’ve heard worse stories.”
She nodded, then as if another thought crossed her mind, she let out a little chuckle. “I swear my body was made to defy gravity.”
Every time Lex referenced her body, I couldn’t help appreciating it more. It seemed she was tempting me—daring me to look. I lost every single fucking time. Her trim frame and sexy curves wouldn’t normally work well for balance, but it was clear she worked hard on her core. I just never would have guessed that the work stemmed from insecurity. It made sense now. All I knew was that I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
She sighed and sat up, looking refreshed with her hair down and her eyes soft on mine. “Now that story time is over, are we going to dance or what?”
This time, Lex held out a hand to help me up. I grinned, amused that she thought she could lift me from the floor. All six feet and hundred and ninety-five pounds of me. Using my quads, I stood and tugged on her hand, sending her flying into my chest. I narrowed my eyes on her when she looked up. “This one is a bit more intimate. Think you can handle it? I know you have trouble keeping your hands off me.”
Her smile turned playful as she pushed me away. “I’ll do my best.”
I had been teasing, but I adopted a more serious tone with my next request. “Can I lift you? We can talk through the moves first. But this one will require me to move you a little.”
I wasn’t sure what her issue was with partnering, but we had worked well together before. She had seemed so freaked out about it at first. I watched her ponder my request, then she nodded slowly. “Yeah.” Her eyes met mine. “I trust you.”
Her words wouldn’t leave me, not when I walked away to switch on the stereo. Not when I paired the Bluetooth on my phone and scrolled through my song playlist to find “The Cure,” one of Winter’s more personal tracks.
“All right, so you want to stand”—I searched the space then moved to her, placing my hands on her shoulder and turning her to the side—“here.” I took my spot behind her. “The first two eight counts are me, guiding you, almost like I’m puppeteering you to move. The feeling should be that you’re manipulated by what I want you to feel, so you move as I control you.”
“Sounds a little creepy.”
“Have you listened to the words of the song? It is a bit. But it’s also emotional and devastating and tragic.” The tragedy that had entered and exited my own life crossed my mind before I grounded my thoughts back in the present.
I was choreographing on the spot, repeating the start of the song to make sure it looked as good as it did in my head. As always, Lex followed me, her eyes in the mirror, picking up every intricacy and offering suggestions when something felt more natural for her.
“Yeah,” I commented as we ran four entire eight counts from start to finish. “That felt good. Do it again from the top.”
By the end of the song, I was bending her back, her body wrapped in my arms and her hair tickling the floor, and my nose pressed against the spot just below her chest. I never wanted to let her go. Not when she smelled so damn good. I wanted to search for the origin of the fragrance, bury myself in her. All night if that was what it took.
Fuck, I’m hard. I stepped away from her, reached the other end of the room, and grabbed a hand towel from one of the cabinets near the fridge to wipe my face with.
“That felt good,” Lex said, approaching me from behind, completely unaware of the effect she had on me. It was better that way. “Whoever gets to dance that will be lucky.”
I looked over my shoulder and stared at her throat as she spoke, not daring to turn my body until the swelling between my legs relaxed again.
“Do you know what Winter wants to do with the songs? Did she say?”
I didn’t know how to respond since I hadn’t checked my phone all night. It was right there on the counter, so I grabbed it and started scrolling through my messages and missed calls. “Shit,” I muttered when her name appeared a few times. One missed call and two text messages.
Winter: I just tried to call you about the features. Don’t make me do this alone.
Four hours later.
Winter: It’s done. See you tomorrow.
Lex’s forehead wrinkled in the middle. “What is it?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Winter asked for my help and I didn’t see it. She’s pissed at me.”
“I’m sorry, Theo. Do you need to call her?”
No, I wanted to say. But I knew I should. Nodding, I pressed on Winter’s name and waited for it to ring. It went straight to voicemail. “She’s probably asleep.” I stuffed my phone back in my pocket, hating the discomfort whirling in my gut.
“It’ll be fine. Just talk to Winter in the morning.”
Lex sounded so calm, so certain. I wasn’t so sure it would be that easy. I hadn’t told her what Winter had said this morning. Lex would lose her shit if she knew that Winter compared her to Mallory, and I could never tell her.
“You ready to go home?” I said, my mind twisted with worry. I shouldn’t have brought Lex here. My intentions were pure, but my feelings for her clearly weren’t, and that was enough to get us both in trouble.
Too fucking late, Noska.
“Yeah.” I could hear the hesitation in her voice, as if she thought I was kicking her out. I guess I kind of was. “I’ll grab my bag.”
When we got to her place, I offered to walk her up, but she refused again, sliding her curves through a slit she’d created in the door entrance. But I’d already caught the worry in her eyes as she glanced around the space, apparently making sure the coast was clear before she entered.
Something churned in my gut then—a suspicion that she was hiding something from me. Whether it was someone or something, I didn’t know.
But I was damn well set on finding out.