I CHECKED IN on every class. Brax’s class was easily doing the best; the brains behind the scriptwriting were already pouring over all the lines along with the music. The set crew was excited about the way they could frame in the dance scenes with a lot of people while still using part of the audience as the actual audience during some of the dances to give it an inclusive effect.

The first two weeks were always chaos at camp.

We had to decide what musical the campers would do since the counselors had to join them on the final production, organize within our different classes, and then we had auditions.

Saturday.

Followed by a party on the beach where we had races across the lake to our nemesis, hip-hop camp.

They thought we were rich kids with nothing better to do.

And most of them hadn’t even studied dance — let alone hip hop — long enough to know anything beyond how to crump. It was filled with white kids who wanted to dance without having to put their hands over their head and clap.

And instructors who probably hated their lives trying to teach high schoolers with no rhythm how to magically find it in two months.

I shook my head at my clipboard and eyed her name.

Ray.

May as well say, “Laser beam. Use extreme caution.”

I tapped my pencil against the board and then slowly walked toward the dance studio. The music was blaring as it was most days. The windows were pulled open, the curtains waving in the breeze.

She wasn’t dancing.

Her class had been dismissed for at least two hours.

She was lying on her back staring up at the ceiling, balancing a pencil on her forehead.

I frowned and made my way into the studio then knocked on the door. “Solving world hunger?”

“World peace, actually,” she said in a dry tone without moving.

I dropped my clipboard onto the nearest chair and joined her on the floor. I laid my hands at my sides and stared up at the boring white ceiling as the smell of cedar and campfire filtered into the room.

It was a mixture of outdoors.

Of life.

Adventure.

I inhaled and closed my eyes.

“How do you do that?” she asked in a small voice.

“What?” I turned my head.

Her shoulders were hunched by her ears, her face tense. “Just… exhale and exist. How do you relax, shut your brain off?”

“Turn your other organs on?” I offered with a smug smile.

“Very funny.”

I smirked and moved my hand and lightly tapped two fingers across her chest. “I meant this…” Tap, tap. My fingers grazed her collarbone then lowered. Her skin felt like velvet, and even through her flimsy staff shirt, I felt her heat. I felt her heartbeat, and I wanted. “…your heart. Get your head out of the gutter, SP.”

“Fine.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the music started again the song from the Phantom of the Opera soundtrack.

“Good choice.” I cleared my throat as the driving, throbbing beat of the main title took on its own presence in the room. “One of my favorites.”

“I saw it three times,” she confessed. “Twice in London, once in New York.”

“Must have been nice,” I said as politely as I could. I’d seen it once, and I’d sat in the balcony and been so stunned that my jaw had come unhinged two minutes in.

She had probably been in a box seat.

Or backstage shaking hands with the actors and actresses.

“The first time,” she began, “was so I wouldn’t be angry with my parents for missing my high school graduation.”

A thousand knives dug into my chest. Rage poured over me as I clenched my teeth. “Well, that’s bullshit.”

“They forgot.”

“Your graduation?”

“It was my fault. I didn’t sync my calendar with theirs.”

I bit my tongue to keep from calling them names that were very deserving.

“The second time was a date, college. I was so excited. It was our third date, and he was… charming. Another theater major. He left halfway through because he was personally offended over their casting choice.”

I snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, sounds like an actor.”

She turned and smiled at me.

“And the third time?”

Her face paled. She jerked her gaze back to the ceiling. “He was powerful…”

“And?”

“…and…” She let out a long painful sight that made me want to pull her into my arms and kiss her lips, whisper against her mouth that I’d protect her, that I’d been wrong, that I’d do anything to take back the hurt I felt from her whenever she was near.

The music built toward a crescendo as the artists sang of dreams and the power exerted over a person.

“He wasn’t a good man.”

Man. She’d said man.

I stored that away for later as the music shifted yet again into “Music of the Night.” I grinned. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“You know, we could probably be better friends if you didn’t question everything I asked you to do.”

“You know, Marlo, we could probably be better friends if you didn’t get me naked in order to satisfy a revenge plot you’ve had against me since high school.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Not since high school. Don’t flatter yourself.”

An elbow came down on my stomach. Hard.

“Fuck!” I heaved out a painful breath then grabbed the elbow and the person it belonged to and pulled her to my side, locking her next to me, pinning her arms at her sides. “It wasn’t revenge until I saw you. Until I saw…” I stared down at her mouth. “Ray, it’s never really been about revenge.”

“Could have fooled me.” She wiggled in my arms and glared.

“It’s been a lot of things.” I leaned in until my lips were inches from her neck. “It’s been war. It’s been chaos. But it started with want. Revenge doesn’t just happen. You have to lose something first, something so pivotal in your life that the only way you think you can ever truly exist is if you get it back in any way possible.”

She stopped struggling and relaxed against me. I kissed her bare shoulder. “And what did you so desperately need back?”

“Other than my pride?” I joked.

She wiggled again.

I pulled my hands away. “It’s not so hard to figure out.”

She sucked in a breath, drew it between her lips as she zeroed in on my mouth. “Other than your pride?”

“Come on.” I held out my hand and stood. “And remember, close your eyes.”

“So, that’s it?”

“Until you figure it out, absolutely. Now let me help you.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like your kind of help.” She crossed her arms. At least her eyes were still closed as she stood there. Even her damn body swayed toward me as if it didn’t want to believe the words coming out of her mouth.

With a sigh, I gripped her hand and squeezed her fingers. “Listen to the ‘Music of the Night…’”