Ripped (35 page)

I’
D NEVER
understudied and I have to say, I was not a big fan. I was grateful to Jaz for getting my foot in the door and the cast and crew were all awesome and so welcoming, but standing in the background marking out the routine was even more frustrating than sitting in the audience watching Jaz dance with Mikhail.

At this close a range and from a different angle, I could list at least twenty things he did wrong with every run-through we had. His foot positioning was appalling—no wonder he nearly dropped Jaz every time he lifted her over his head in arabesque. He wasn’t balanced. All his weight was on his front leg and when he raised her above his head, he held her too far forward. The result was all of his weight and all of her weight were off-center, and he struggled to maintain the position without toppling over.

The guy was a menace, and if Jaz managed to get to opening night without being dropped and cracking her head open or breaking a bone it would be a fucking miracle.

It was time for a break, and the dancers who had actually been dancing were wiping their brows and fanning themselves, hot and sweaty from exerting themselves for the last hour. I was still fresh.

Pierre had agreed to let me understudy alongside Robert, but that didn’t mean I would actually get to dance. Whenever Mikhail needed a little time out, Robert was called in to take his place so one of the creative team could take notes on their stage positioning.

Jaz came over, her cheeks flushed, her hairline damp. She looked gorgeous.

“What are you grinning at?” she asked, a cheeky smile gracing her strawberry lips as we sat on the floor, our backs leaning against the wall.

“I’m just thinking how your flushed cheeks and glowing skin after dancing reminds me of how you look after another form of exercise.”

She bit her lip and climbed onto my lap. “You don’t say.”

“I do say.” I kissed the tip of her nose. “And it’s really, really hot.”

Her lips were on mine, her body pressed hard against my chest. “I like having you here,” she panted before smashing her mouth back down to mine.

“Oh, for God’s sake, if you two are going to be making out every chance you get, I’m going to have to rethink our friendship.” Tiffany’s shadow hung over us.

“You’re just jealous,” Jaz joked.

“Damn right I am.” She sat down beside us. “You’ve got a hot stripper man—of course I’m jealous.”

“I don’t strip any more, remember?” Just the mention of it made both Jaz and me tense up.

“No, but you’ve still got the moves.” She did an exaggerated body roll to emphasize her point, pulling the cheesiest, unsexiest face I’d ever seen. Jaz burst out laughing.

I shook my head at how ridiculous Tiffany looked. “Well, unfortunately, you don’t have the moves—that was horrendous. I’m scarred for life.”

She threw her head back, laughing. “I think I’d make an awesome stripper. Maybe I can get a job swinging on a pole if this show goes under.”

Jaz’s phone pinged with a message, and we looked at each other expectantly. We’d been waiting to hear back from Janice for two days, and I was beginning to worry that she wasn’t going to come through for us. Jaz crawled from my lap over to her bag and pulled the phone from the side pocket, the broad grin on her face telling me it was good news.

“Saturday evening,” she said, still reading the message. “We have rehearsals until four and then we’ll quickly go home, change, and go to the gallery by six.”

I nodded. That should work. “What does she say?”

“Hmm …” She gnawed on her lip, still reading, then put down the phone. “She’s arranged a cocktail party for her friends. There’ll be an area for us to perform one number.” She frowned. “Which routine do you want to do? The opening act where we say goodbye? That’s a touching piece.”

That sounded perfect. I still had the music recorded and we could wear any dance clothes—it didn’t need to be done in the actual costumes from the show. Things were all falling into place and even if I didn’t get the opportunity to dance with Jaz on stage, I would at least get to dance with her at the fundraiser.

We raced home from rehearsals, showered and changed our clothes, and were on the train by five. My nerves had been on edge all day, and I stared out the window as the scenery blurred by, taking in nothing and everything at the same time. I hadn’t performed a serious routine in front of anyone in years except for Jaz and a few people who had seen us practice together. There was so much riding on this—the show, Jaz’s career, and my own. It all boiled down to this one performance. If Janice’s friends liked what they saw, they would invest. If they didn’t, then they would walk away and I would have failed yet again.

It was a heavy load to carry.

“We’re going to be great,” Jaz said, squeezing my arm.

I turned to look down at her, her heart-shaped face upturned, her eyes full of confidence. Even when I had stopped believing in myself, she had never given up on me. Of all the people I’d ever met in my life, Jaz had been the only one who, no matter how far I had strayed off course or how much of a fuck up I’d become, had helped me find my way through with her patience and belief in me.

The gallery was buzzing when we arrived. Men in suits and women in designer cocktail dresses sipped champagne and nibbled on canapes as waiters in tuxedos weaved through the crowd with silver trays. Janice had done a wonderful job of changing the entire mood of the gallery. Soft lighting and piped classical music gave the minimalist space a warmer atmosphere.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re here,” Janice said with a slightly panicked look. “I thought for a moment I was going to have to put on a show myself.”

“I’m sure Ophelia could do it,” I said jokingly. The young girl sat in a corner, watching the goings on with wide-eyed awe, and beside her was Tiffany, keeping her company.

Janice laughed. “She’s talked about nothing else but this cocktail party for days. I had to let her come; she would never have forgiven me otherwise.”

We were shown into the office so we could prepare, giving Tiffany and Ophelia a quick hug as we passed. Changing out of my street clothes, I pulled on my bike shorts and commenced stretching out my muscles, going through my ritual warm-up.

There was a soft knock on the door. “Come in,” Jaz called, and Ophelia poked her head into the room. “Hi, Ophelia. You can come in and keep us company. Is Tiffany with you?”

She shook her head. “She’s just getting a drink and socializing.” She beamed at Jaz, and then looked at me in my bike shorts and nothing else and turned scarlet.

“Don’t worry about him,” Jaz said with a laugh. “He won’t bite.”

I winked at Jaz. She knew all too well I could bite—her inner thigh had the teeth marks to prove it. Her eyes flared at me, and she put her hand over her thigh, knowing exactly what depraved thoughts raced through my mind.

“So you want to be a dancer?” Jaz asked as she sat with her legs straight in front of her, her chest on her knees in a hamstring stretch.

“More than anything.” The little girl sighed. “All my life I’ve dreamed of being a ballerina.”

I turned my face away so she wouldn’t see my smirk. All her life was only ten years, and I doubted the first three or four she would have known what a ballerina was.

“Ever since Mom took me to my first ballet lesson when I was two and a half, I knew it was what I wanted to be.”

I raised my brow. She’d started young and to still be committed was admirable, but was she any good? It was a long, hard road to become anything other than a weekend dancer, I knew that all too well, but I didn’t want to crush her dreams. “I’m sure if you keep up your passion for it, you’ll make it,” I told her as encouragingly as I could.

“Do you really think so?” Her eyes widened with hope.

“Sure,” Jaz said. “I started young, too. You’ll make it as long as you never lose your love for dance, because if you do it will become a chore. It has to come from in here.” She tapped her chest. “And never let anyone tell you you’re not good enough.”

There was a lesson in that for all of us. I’d been guilty of letting others get into my head instead of listening to my heart and following my dreams.

Performing on a white-tiled floor while people stood around, eating and drinking, was a new experience for me. Even though the lights had been dimmed and a spotlight rigged up, we could still see the faces of the crowd scrutinizing us as we stood in position, ready to start. Tiffany was in the front over to the left. I could see her talking to a gentleman who looked more interested in her cleavage than watching us, but if he had deep pockets then he could ignore us for all I cared.

“Fuck, tell me again why I’m doing this,” I whispered into Jaz’s ear as I stood behind her, trying to contain my trembling.