Page 22 of Watch Me

“You and Zoë didn’t have to sit and listen!” he yells, but I exceed his tone.

“We had no choice!”

“Fuck this!” Tate picks up his tablet and moves towards the doorway. “This is so fucking typical. You want me to live here, but everything has to be on your terms. There’s no room for me here because you need to be in control of every fucking thing. Well, fuck this. I’m not going to live under your thumb. I’m a grown man. Yes, I make mistakes, but you don’t get to weigh in on them. You gave up the right to comment on my life the day you left us. I don’t even know why I fucking agreed to live here. You need to be in control of every little thing that happens under ‘your’ roof?” He tucks the tablet under his arm and makes air quotes for emphasis. “Fine. I’ll go back to living with Mom. Fuck this bullshit!”

He storms out of the room with all the power and frenzy of a tornado, sucking the air out in his wake. I sit down in the chair again, winded but still activated, my heart pounding, while I listen to him stomp down the stairs and start swearing in the basement.

When he comes back up with a suitcase and a computer monitor under one arm, I can only watch him with a mixture of disappointment and disdain. Six months into living together, and I’ve failed as his father again.

ZOË

I’M PREOCCUPIED AND out of it all day. My dance teacher reprimands me for being distracted, I leave my bag on the bus and a woman has to chase me down to return it to me, and I’m so tuned out at the club that I make half as much in tips as I usually do.

My stomach is in knots over last night. I have both knots… and butterflies.

Tate’s indiscretion couldn’t have been uglier. Maybe I should have run downstairs screaming and pulled that girl out of our bed. Maybe, after my confession at the club, that’s what Tate wanted—to see that I was upset, to get a reaction out of me. Maybe that’s why he did it. But I couldn’t do anything except sit there and take stock of my life.

But then there was Nick, a brilliant, burning bright spot in what should have been a horrible night. Nick riding in like a knight in shining armor to support me through the shock and shame of Tate’s betrayal. Nick’s skin against my cheek as I fell asleep. The deep feeling of calm I felt when I was cocooned against him.

Being in Nick’s arms was reassuring in a way I’ve never experienced before. I can’t remember the last time I slept that deeply. It’s not just that I’m unbelievably attracted to Nick. There’s something else, too. A feeling of being in the right place when I’m with him. A feeling of being home.

My head is a cacophony of noise. On the one hand, there’s my anger at Tate, and the stressful prospect of moving just weeks before my audition, when everything in my life should be focused on dancing. And on the other hand, I’m in an absolute fever about Nick. When I think about him, my heart leaps up in my chest. My breathing is high and shallow. I can’t relax.

There’s no heartbreak over Tate, just anger, because I’m completely besotted with someone else—his father.

For as long as I can remember, my entire purpose has been a straight arrow pointing in one direction: Corps de ballet dancer at eighteen, prima ballerina by twenty. Since the moment she enrolled me in dance lessons at three years old, my mother had my whole life mapped out for me.

And then I grew up and it got complicated.

When my mom died of cancer when I was eighteen, followed immediately by my father, who had a heart attack two weeks later, I had to put my mother’s dreams on hold while I settled my parents’ debts and started supporting myself as a waitress. It ended up being three years before I got accepted to the Regency Ballet School and moved to the city. I was supposed to get back on track, but somehow, it’s not that straightforward anymore. My focus is shattered now, a kaleidoscope of concerns and hopes and dreams instead of that clear path that was always laid out at my feet.

So when I got home last night and was stopped in my tracks by the sounds coming out of our bedroom, the full weight of my choices hit me with a profound existential reckoning.

This wasn’t supposed to happen to me.

I was supposed to be a prima ballerina by now, but instead, I was a woman scorned. I was disappointed in Tate, but more than anything, I was disappointed in myself.

My life plan had never factored in the distractions of adult life. I didn’t know that after puberty, desire would snake through me—a relentless thread of heat, always there, pulsing under my skin. It’s the reason my focus got pulled by Tate in the first place. He was sweet when we met, yes—but he was hot, too. Tall and brawny, with that beautiful toasted-marshmallow skin and sleepy brown eyes. It wasn’t the promise of love that drew me to him, but lust. I thought a boy like that could slake the insatiable thirst inside of me, ride it right out of me, yet he gave me everything except what I most wanted from him. Without this constant desire, this weakness, I wouldn’t have gotten involved with him in the first place. I wouldn’t have been drawn to stripping, either, with its promise of sex right below the surface.

I wouldn’t have spent the night in Tate’s father’s bed.

* * *

When the Uber drops me off at the house, my stomach tightens with anxiety. I don’t want to see Tate and I do want to see Nick. The truth is that neither of the Rivera men are good for me, and I have no choice except to go home to both of them.

“In and out,” I whisper to myself as I approach the door and hesitate.

Do I use my key?

Do I knock?

Finally I decide that, as long as all my stuff is still in the house, I have the right to let myself in. Besides, it’s two in the morning. Too late to knock. I square my shoulders and use my key.

I expect Tate to be awake at this hour, but I’m surprised—shocked, delighted, excited, anxious—to see Nick instead, sitting on the couch with his computer on his lap. His thick hair is disheveled, as though he’s been running his hands through it, and he’s wearing glasses, which look sexy as fuck on him. He glances up at me and smiles, the same broad smile that Tate has, but it’s so much more electric on Nick, so warm and genuine I could melt. A flutter of nerves erupts in my stomach. I smile back and try not to notice how good he looks as he stands up and walks towards me, in a t-shirt, sweatpants, and bare feet. The sight of him fills me with an aching longing.

“Hey,” he says.

Nick hesitates for only a split second and then opens his arms and enfolds me into a hug, and I completely let myself go in the cocoon of his warmth. I rest my temple on his chest and inhale his scent.

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