Page 18 of Dirty Dancer

I touched mine to hers and she grinned again. Then we headed back in the direction of our hotel, hand in hand, while we enjoyed the ice cream. She seemed focused on devouring hers, but I didn’t think she was wholly thinking about the ice cream.

“Anyway,” she said, chasing a melting drop of strawberry up from the chocolate with her tongue. “Like I was saying, I know in my head not everything is about the performance. This tour has been amazing, but it’s been missing something…”

I waited for her to work it out.

“Before, the tours were always about getting away from Uncle Fuckbucket and not going home. Don’t get me wrong, I loved performing, but I just didn’t want to be around him.”

“You never have to be again.”

Another quick smile chased the shadows from her eyes as she glanced at me. “I know. I’m glad.”

So was I. Maybe we should have made it hurt more. I wanted him gone though. I wanted to erase him thoroughly from Starling’s life.

“But I don’t want to escape home now,” she said. “Home is with all of you and I love the performing—or maybe I should love it more than I am.” She frowned. “It’s kind of jumbled.”

“Is that why you wanted to learn new sets?”

“Yes,” she said, then shook her head. “And no. Sorry.” She made a face. “I think I’m making it more complicated than it is. I love performing, but I don’t know that I’ve ever been allowed tojustlove it and not need it desperately.”

I could understand that. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I called Sully because I thought that I needed more challenging routines. It took me a while to master the old ones, but I don’t?—”

When she cut herself off, I waited and just worked on my ice cream. We were walking slowly back to the hotel. The breeze from the water cooled the hot sun, but it was hardly chilly. The brightness made for vibrant colors everywhere, but they didn’t stand out the way they did in the harbor.

We passed more art, but Starling wasn’t looking at it as much as she was studying her ice cream cone. That was the problem with some of the works. They were bright colors, but they blended here. Too much light saturated the paint and it lost some impact. There was a stark black and white cartoon done along one side of the beach wall.

That intrigued me because it stood out.

“I want to push myself,” she said, then looked up at me. “I want to take more risks with the dances.”

“Then we take more risks.” I touched my ice cream to the tip of her nose. It left a strawberry smear and I used my finger to wipe it off. She caught my hand and licked the ice cream from my fingers. “But we do it safely.”

“Yes, or Vaughn will be cross.” She scraped her teeth over her lower lip. “But pushing it means, pushing boundaries and taking risks means actually risking the falls to master the new skills.”

He’d be far more than cross. “I’ll talk to him.”

We could still make it safe.

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind?” I wanted her to be happy. She couldn’t see herself when she flew. I could. Flying made her happier than she knew, but she didn’t trust it yet.

She trusted us and that was enough. She needed to trust herself and she was learning to do that.

“Because I make things complicated,” she said and I tilted my head.

“No,” I said. “You don’t. The past makes it complicated. Vaughn makes it solvable. You make it beautiful.”

“Thank you.”

This time, I did ask, “What for?”

“For being you. You’re—you make me believe everything is possible.”

“I like being me,” I said. “Liam’s terrible at it, but I’m not bad at being him.”

For a moment, I could feel her staring at me and when I smiled, she burst out laughing.

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