ALEXA

After calling Damon, I don’t dance for three days. That’s how I know for certain that I’m completely hung up. That, and the excessive crying and balling myself up in his jacket. Though I haven’t yet discussed it with my therapist, I’m pretty sure that behavior makes me crazy. Who gets that attached after meeting a guy for ten minutes? It’s pathetic. I don’t care how great the guy might seem in that short time frame, he can’t possibly be worth three days of over-emotional bullshit. This has never happened to me and I don’t know what to make of it. I try to detach myself from my emotions as I normally do, but it’s as if he’s weakened my ability to do so.

After visiting Madame Jermaine in the hospital, I make my way to her dance studio to pick up the three after-school classes that Janine, her assistant, can’t cover today. Putting on a brave face, I run each group of kids through their basic skills before we work through the choreography for their upcoming recital. By the end, I’m pleased to learn that I’ve got some of my desire to dance back.

Locking the door as the last group leaves, I put on my own music and use the space to dance out my emotions. I dance in the empty club when I’m home, but Madame’s feels like home too, only there aren’t a bunch of other dancers everywhere you turn.

Cathartic dancing requires more privacy than Beyond can offer me. My friend Violet insists that dance helps you to work through troublesome emotions, and I’m getting nowhere crying in my bed.

The truth is, I know she’s right. I’ve always loved dance; right back since Mom first took me to see Swan Lake when I was four. I begged her to let me learn, though she didn’t take that much convincing. All through the bad stuff, it was dancing that gave me comfort. Which is why, when I had the chance to take my life back, I begged Madame to let me join her classes.

She looked at my old clothes and hole-ridden sneakers, and I knew immediately I wouldn’t fit in with her other students, but she let me dance for her. It was an audition of sorts, I suppose. She wanted me to prove I was worthy of her tutelage, and I had nothing to lose. With no music, I danced for twenty minutes straight in complete silence. She never said a word the whole time, but when I finally came to stand before her, her eyes were wet. That was when Madame Jermaine invited me to attend any class I wanted as long as I paid my way by washing her walls of glass and mirrors. The back room soon became my home, and the lost property collection box became my wardrobe. Luckily for me, one black leotard looks much like another, so nobody ever accused me of stealing.

As I dance now, I let myself be lifted by thoughts of those who helped me climb out of trouble. One day I plan to be strong enough to help others to do the same. People like Madame, and Prez, and Sam and Larry, prove there is good in the world and kids in trouble need more of that good in their lives.

Slowly spinning to a stop, I hold my position a moment before relaxing to flat feet. Walking to my bag, I look up at the sound of tapping on the glass. Sam’s face is pressed against it, flattening her nose as she squints through the tint. She gives me a wave. Waving back, I quickly change into my shoes and pull on my hoodie.

Coming to stand next to me as I lock the door, she waits patiently for her hug. I squeeze her longer than is really necessary and she pulls away to look at me in concern.

“Everything okay?” she asks. “You dance beautifully, by the way. Every time I watch you, I’m entranced.”

“I’m fine,” I say with as much conviction as I can muster. “Got you a present,” I say, diverting and rummaging in my bag to pull out a pair of my old boots. “They look worn enough so nobody will want to steal them from you, but they have warm linings and no heels.”

“You don’t have to keep looking after me like this, Lex. I’m an adult.”

“I want to. Walk me to the bus stop?” I ask, checking her out and smiling because not only is she wearing the jacket and hat I gave her, but she has also showered recently.

Gesturing for me to lead the way, she takes the position on my street side.

“So did you and Damon get beyond making goo-goo eyes at each other?”

Staring at her a moment, I drop my eyes to the sidewalk. “Why do you ask?”

Sam shrugs. “I just thought he seemed kind of perfect for you, is all.”

I stop. “Why would you say that?”

Laughing, she looks at me. “Um, it’s pretty obvious, but whatever.”

Looking at her strangely, I fold my arms tighter around myself. “Maybe he is perfect. All the more reason to stay away from him. I’m nowhere near ready for perfect. I’ll only mess it up.”

“You’re crazy,” she says, nudging my elbow with hers the way she always does when she wants to show me she cares. “I love you Lex, but you have to open yourself up to pursue happiness.”

“I’ll open up when I’m ready, Sam.”

“You’re ready now!”

“I’m not!”

“Why not?” she asks, leaning against the bus stop shelter and looking down the street.

“I’m just not ready, Sam! I have too much to do before I can even try. I’m not finished school, I don’t have a perfect job, or a perfect past, or a perfect family, or a perfect track record.”

“But you could have the perfect guy.”

“Perfect guys don’t want crazy and I have way too much crazy. If any guy knew all my crazy, there’s no way he could ever love me.”

“I know all your crazy and I still love you,” she says, stepping forward as my bus approaches.

“I’m sure I don’t have to remind you that we didn’t work out either. I’m not ready. I can’t handle a perfect guy yet. I’ll scare him.”

“He seems brave enough to me, but what would I know? I’m not perfect either. We still deserve a chance though, right?” she asks, kissing me on the cheek and leaving before I can respond.

***

ALGEBRA IS INSANE. I can’t for the life of me untangle the numbers from the letters. Since I was nine, math has been a constant struggle and although I’ve been fighting my way through the grades, I feel like there will never be an end to this numerical battle.

It’s late in the afternoon and I’m probably the only one in the apartment that’s stressing out. Sundays are our permanent day off, because the club stays closed. It should be the most relaxing day of the week, but I’m on a deadline. Closing my eyes, I lean back in my chair. I can hear talking and laughter coming from the living room, which means that most of my roommates are having a nice day.

“It’s good someone’s enjoying themselves,” I tell Charlotte, who’s propped on my desk watching me work. She stares at me with her good eye. Rubbing my own eyes, I smile at her.

“If I’m talking to you, I probably need a break.”

She keeps staring at me and I sigh. Getting out of my chair, I stretch my back and close my books. Heading to the kitchen, I grab a cookie from the tin and pour myself a glass of milk. Dunking the choc-chip delight, I suck the milk back out before the cookie goes completely soggy. One won’t be enough at all.

Reaching for the tin again, I listen to one of the guys telling a story in the living room.

“... So I’m naked on the bridge, calling this cop a fucking idiot. The cuffs fall off - proving my point, so I just start running. I figure I’ve got no pockets he can search for ID, so he doesn’t know who the hell I am. If I can just beat him back over the state line I’m home free!”

The group erupts into laughter. Poking my head around the corner to find out which of my roomies likes to run around starkers, I freeze.

“...So I’m running and then-” Damon sees me and stops.

“Then what?” Scarlett prompts, lowering her beer.

“Nothing. That’s the end of my completely inappropriate and therefore totally fabricated story,” he says in a rush, standing up. “Alexa?”

Bruno, Scarlett, Cooper and Ireeni turn around to stare at me, and I just stand there like some mannequin advertising milk and cookies. I can’t even move my mouth to speak.

He’s found me.

“You live here?” he asks, looking at Bruno, then back to me. “You were here? The whole time?”

Bruno looks between us, a strange expression on his face.

“Lexi is your sparkles girl?”

Delivering a swift kick to Bruno, Damon doesn’t shift his eyes from mine. He takes a step toward me and I panic. Dropping my cookies, I manage to toss the milk into the sink as I run to my room, but not before a glance over my shoulder. The sight of Damon leaping over a chair to pursue me makes the panic much more real.

Slamming my door shut, I lock it as I hear him bump into the wall outside.

“Shit. Alexa? I didn’t mean to scare you! I didn’t stalk you or anything - I’m a friend of Bruno’s. Please. Alexa.” He sounds hurt. Not physically, but as if he’s been wounded by my dash to safety.

“Is true, Lex.” Scarlett’s voice says through the door. “He’s harmless. He and Bruno have been friends for years. They were in the army together. Well not the same unit, but that’s kind of how they met. His name is Damon Shermansky and he’s quite hilarious, and pretty damn non-threatening. Lex? Are you okay?”

Now I’m really freaking out. Looking across my room, I start to shake a little.

“Shermansky?” I ask through the door.

“Shermansky,” he confirms. “Alexa?” he says, sounding in even more pain. “Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” I answer, before actually thinking. “I mean yes. Maybe?”

“Just tell me which one and I’ll do it,” he says, as if I can just order him about.

“He’s a good guy Lex,” Bruno offers.

“I know.” Wow. Do I?

At least I know he has the tick of approval from some of my closest friends. That’s got to count for something. That’s the usual safety test I use before I try to go further with a guy. Maybe I can do this. Maybe he’s perfectly reasonable and can live with all of my weird shit. I look across the room to the painting on the wall.

“I’m going to open the door,” I say as calmly as possible. “But Damon?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t freak out, okay?”

“Why would I freak... out?” he finishes as I pull the door open. Damon’s warm olive green eyes travel from me to my walls. Taking in my collection of dolls, his gaze comes to rest on the painting.

“Holy shit,” he whispers. “Is that... my painting?”

“It is,” Bruno confirms. “Lex did you buy that at the charity exhibition?”

“Yes.” My voice isn’t much more than breath. “I love him.”

Damon’s eyes are back on mine in a flash and I swallow the nerves that are streaming in every direction inside of me. His hands push further into the pockets of his hoodie and he glances back at the painting.

“I’m glad you like him,” he says softly, before looking sideways at Bruno. “Most critics said he was creepy as fuck.”

Bruno raises his palms and shrugs. “I said haunted and depressing. Jenkins said creepy as fuck. But to each their own, I say. We good here Lex?” Bruno asks, his eyes searching my face as he raises his eyebrows.

Nodding, I release my breath fully. “Yeah. Sorry. Thanks guys. I panicked. Go back to what you were doing. I was just taking a study break.”

“What are you studying?” Damon asks, his eyes landing on my books. Frowning a little, he looks to Bruno, then back to me. “Do you work downstairs?”

“Yes. I’m a stripper, Damon. Sorry.”

Narrowing his eyes at me carefully, he studies me a while, his head tilting just a little.

“Why are you apologizing? Bruno’s not sorry he’s a stripper. Scarlett are you sorry you’re a stripper?”

Scar looks at him as she tries to hide her smile. “Not at all.”

“I didn’t think so,” he says with a grin as he turns back to me and leans against my door frame. “Please don’t tell me you were saying sorry because you thought I would judge you, because I don’t think I’ve ever met a stripper that I didn’t like. Oh -” he says, interrupting himself and leaning his head adorably to one side. “There is this one old lady in that rest home Bruno visits. She takes her clothes off while she sings to you. And it’s not that I don’t like her exactly, it’s just that she makes me a bit sad.”

Laughing a little, I watch Bruno and Scarlett creeping slowly away.

Clearing my throat, I fold my arms in front of me. “I thought maybe it might take some of the shine off that kiss we shared. Strippers don’t have a great reputation.”

“Nothing could take the shine off that kiss, Alexa. You could be a puppy killer and I’d learn to love it,” he says, cringing afterward. “Please tell me you don’t kill puppies.”

“I don’t kill puppies. Or anything else if I can help it. But I don’t go as far as being a vegetarian, because steak is delicious.”

His smile grows into a grin. “It is,” he agrees, looking to the floor a moment. “Bruno’s been telling me to come up to the apartment for months,” he says quietly, moving one socked toe in an arc, leaving a rainbow shape on the carpet. “I wish I’d given in to him sooner,” he says, raising his eyes to my face and smiling sadly.

“Why didn’t you?” I ask, sitting back at my desk and bringing Charlotte into my lap.

Taking a breath, he blows it out slowly and gazes down at his pockets where he looks to be fidgeting. “I get shy,” he says, shrugging. “There are like, a dozen hot people living up here. It’s pretty intimidating.”

“You’re pretty intimidating.”

“Not really,” he says, shaking his head. “I mean, I know I’m tall, and I go to a fight gym, but it’s not because I want to rip people’s heads off. I’m really more of a lover than a fighter. Plus I...” Damon’s face twists into a grimace and he sighs as he scuffs his foot through the carpet rainbow. Sighing, he looks from his pockets to me.

“I don’t want this to end, Alexa. I know that sounds weird, because I only just met you so it hasn’t really started, but...” He looks at the painting on the wall a moment before his face turns to the floor again. “I really want to kiss you again, Alexa.” Biting the corner of his bottom lip, he raises his face just enough to look through his lashes at me.

I am in so much trouble.

Holding Charlotte tighter, I try to calm myself, because there’s a strange sensation building inside me, and it feels dangerous.

“You want that even though I’m a stripper? Worse,” I correct myself. “I’m a stripper at Beyond. If you know Bruno well, you’ll know we’re all messed up in here right?” I ask, looping my finger in the air to indicate the whole club/apartment situation. “I wasn’t kidding on the phone, Damon. I’m a big problem.”

“You are a problem, or you have a problem?” he asks, watching me patiently. “Because we all have problems.”

“Both,” I confirm in a serious tone.

“Okay,” he says, nodding. His eyes rise to the dolls, as if looking for answers. “What happens to the problems if I still want to kiss you?”

Saying nothing, I watch his look of appraisal as he studies my dolls. “They don’t bother you?”

“What?” he asks, stepping closer to inspect Arthur, the one-legged doll closest to him. Bending his knees a little, Damon meets him eye to shattered eye. “The dolls?” he asks, turning back to me. “I have sisters. Dolls don’t bother me.”

“I only collect broken dolls,” I say, clarifying what I think is the part people normally find ‘creepy’.

“Broken things still need love,” he says quietly. “More, probably,” he adds sadly, looking at his painting again. “But you already know that, I think. What happens to the problems, Alexa?”

“If you kiss me?”

“Yeah.”

Taking a breath, I look to the ceiling and shrug, trying not to focus on how much I really want to kiss him again. “Some will get better, some will get worse. Some will stay the same, probably.”

“Well that’s not all bad,” he says lightly, before his face becomes more serious. “How do I make it better without making it worse?”

“You stick to my rules,” I tell him, wondering if Kat might be right about him handling my baggage.

“Which are?” he prompts.

“You can’t touch me.”

Frowning, he takes a small step back towards the door. “How do I kiss you without touching you? By definition, I’d be touching you with my lips.”

“You can’t use your hands.”

Laughing, he shakes his head. When he sees my face, he stops immediately. “Seriously? That wasn’t Bruno’s idea of a - No. Of course not. Sorry. Okay. No touching with my hands. That will not be a problem. At all. I guarantee it. Can I kiss you now?”

“There’s more,” I say slowly, feeling my body beginning to rev up at the thought of Damon’s lips on mine. He waits for me to continue.

“I set the pace.”

“Okay...” he says, nodding slowly. “And?”

“I’m not interested in a relationship. At the moment my priority is myself. I can’t deal with what a relationship entails.” Well that, and because I already know it won’t last. Every guy I’ve ever tried to get close to since making my no-touch rule has needed to touch me at some stage. They start out saying they can handle it, but soon enough, they can’t help themselves. It’s human nature. It’s only natural to reach for the woman you’re with, to stroke her, angle her, and possess her.

“So we would be doing... what exactly?” he asks, his eyes searching my face. “Because I want to get to know you better Alexa.”

“And maybe you will, if the other stuff goes well.”

“Other stuff?”

“The kissing and the following of the rules.”

“Sooo, this is an audition for a... non-relationship?” he asks, looking more confused than ever.

Sighing, I rub my forehead and set Charlotte back on the desk. Standing, I move to the bed and sit on the edge. Here goes nothing. Closing my eyes, I blurt out what I want.

“I’m attracted to you, Damon. Like, really badly. But I’m no good at balancing that with any of the other stuff. Essentially I want to use you for my pleasure, but... maybe we could be friends too.” It almost sounds like a question, because I have no idea how to keep a friend that I’m sexually involved with. I haven’t ever been a willing friend of my sexual partners.

Damon’s eyes widen and he looks out the door as if someone might be listening.

“Are you suggesting a friends with benefits scenario?” he asks, looking surprised and maybe a little... disappointed?

“Shall we just start with a kiss first?” I suggest, patting the spot next to me on the bed. “We might be blowing that last one out of proportion. If we kiss now and there’s no spark, we can just forget all about it. Sound fair?”

“I guess,” he says slowly, stepping towards me and pausing.

“What’s wrong? Now you don’t want to kiss me?” I ask, bringing my knees up to my chest.

“I definitely want to kiss you, Alexa. I just... I’m a bit confused, and actually quite nervous that if I don’t perform well, I won’t get to kiss you ever again, which would be devastating. It’s um, a lot of pressure and I’m really attracted to you too, and I don’t want to make anything worse, and... I feel like we have an audience,” he says, looking at the dolls. “Which is fine,” he adds quickly, “So long as I do a good job, but I don’t want them to see me fail. They don’t need that shit. Does that make sense? Shit.” Looking to the ceiling, he shakes his head. “None of this is making any sense to me because all I can think about is what it felt like when I kissed you last time, and I would give anything to feel that again, but what if you’re right? What if I’ve built it up in my head, and things are different now, and holy shit, I can’t stop talking!” he says, looking to me for help.

Standing up, I take his elbow and lead him to the bed. Pushing him lightly until he sits, I close the door.

“Relax. I’ll drive us,” I say softly, returning to stand in front of him. “All you have to do is make sure your hands don’t come out of your pockets,” I say as I straddle his lap.

Tensing beneath me, he starts to breathe a bit faster and his eyes widen in what could be fear. “Alexa, I should -”

“Shh,” I whisper, cupping his face with my hands and silencing him with my lips.

Oh wow!

The same buzz-filled feeling travels down to my toes and back, and my scalp tingles excitedly; it tingles all over. Definitely not a one-time thing.

Wondering if Damon’s felt it too, I pull back. His eyes fly open in alarm.

“More,” he whispers. I don’t know if it’s a question or a demand, but it’s exactly what I want. Leaning in, I give him a tentative lick before sucking his bottom lip into my mouth and releasing it. Damon moans a little and something flickers deep inside me. His beard is softer than it looks, but still rough against my cheek as I brush over it. My fingers work into his hair.

“Alexa,” he whispers, making me shiver. “Oh,” he sighs, as if he’s felt it too. “Is this real? Can you feel this?”

“I feel it,” I whisper back, sealing his mouth with mine and tasting his approving moan as his body completely relaxes beneath me.