Page 68 of The Way We Dance

"Oh baby," Ty grabbed my shoulders and looked down into my eyes. "I still plan on being here every Tuesday and Thursday whether you want me to be or not. We don't have to do ballet, but we can find other ways to dance." His eyebrows shot up and down, and the smirk he gave me was playful and full of promise.

"Really?" I teased. "Can we do the lift from Dirty Dancing?"

Ty pulled back slightly and looked as if he was thinking for a minute. "Oh, fuck yeah. We don't have to wait though." With that, he took my waist in his hands and lifted me over his head effortlessly while I screamed and laughed.

I must have been louder than I intended because as Ty set me down on my feet again, the guard outside started banging on the locked door.

"Shit," Ty turned toward the door. "We better both go so he knows I didn't murder you."

We walked quickly to the door as the guard continued to bang, "Miss Metrovik? Miss Metrovik? Are you ok?"

I opened the door, barely missing his fist as it flew to bang the door one more time. “I’m ok, I’m ok."

He was looking behind me where I saw Ty had approached and was looking out of the door over to top of my head. "Sorry," Ty said easily before trailing off. "I….."

He never finished that sentence. His eyes were focused on something I couldn't see at my level. I tried looking around the guard, but Ty never said anything else or indicated what the problem was.

"Ty?" I asked, hoping to snap him out of it, wanting him to explain what was happening.

"It’s ok," he said, pulling me into the door. He started to close it but looked to the guard and told him. "Go ahead and take off, man. I got it from here."

The guard nodded and looked to me for approval. I was too confused to worry about why Ty was telling him to leave, so I nodded my approval and let Ty close the door.

Pacing across the lobby, he looked like a caged animal with serious decisions to make. I let him go back and forth a few times but eventually, I needed to know what the hell was going on.

"Ty?" he stopped and looked at me, tilting his head but still lost in thought. "What’s going on?"

"I think I saw someone," he looked toward the closed door and then back to me.

"Then why would you send the guard away?" I had taken my voice up a pitch with the nerves flowing through me.

"Not anyone dangerous," he said calmly. "I sent him away because I think we should skip dancing tonight."

"But why?" I didn't understand. If someone was creeping around that wasn't dangerous, why leave? Nothing made sense.

"You know what?" Ty started putting his shoes back on and nodding at my office. "Go grab your things and I will be back in five minutes. I won’t take my eyes off that door, but I just want to see if it was my brother I saw walking by across the street."

"Your brother?" I calmed down. Ty had told me his brother and him had a strange relationship. He said he worried about him but he was, for the most part, harmless. He had also said he hadn't heard from him since he moved out of his apartment.

My first thought was, they were having issues and when he saw his brother, he decided it was fate and he needed to talk to him. My second thought was, maybe his brother found him and was hoping Ty would give him time to talk.

As connected as I felt to Ty, we were not near close enough for me to insist he not talk to him at that moment. I had a bad feeling but I needed to trust Ty. His brother was his problem, not mine.

"Ok," I agreed.

He kissed my cheek, told me he would be right back and darted out of the door, leaving me standing there in confusion.

After grabbing my things from the office, I made my way back into the lobby. Ty was still not back so I took the time to log off the computer and turn the lights off in the studio.

Just as I emerged from the studio, the door opened and I turned with a smile, ready to praise Ty's timing and hear how things went.

But it wasn't Ty that came barreling through the door. It was another man holding a gun and a snarl on his face. This was a different man than before and he shut the door quickly and locked us in before I could even think to scream for Ty.

His hand was over my mouth in an instant and the gun was pointed at my temple as he backed me into the room more.

"Where is it?" he demanded.

I shook my head, having no clue what he meant. Where was what? I couldn't ask because his hand covered my mouth but the moaning I emitted told him I didn't know.

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