Page 67 of Dirty Dancer

Adam swung around, only this time, his fist slammed into his friend and knocked the asshole down. He didn’t say a word to him, just looked at me then at Lainey.

“Fine. Get back in the hotel,” he said.

“Not without you two. I apparently can’t trust you and I came down to thank you for Emersyn’s cake. I was going to actually ask if you wanted to join us but you’re not going up there all bloody and gross.”

A half-laugh escaped me.

That snagged me the angry bird’s attention and she glared at me. “I don’t know who you are or where you came from. But now is the time you go—whileI have them distracted.” She paused. “Oh my god, what did you do to his pretty face?”

Adam snarled when she would have taken a step toward me, halting her in place. Smart man didn’t touch her though. “Lainey. On the count of three, if you aren’t moving in the direction of that hotel, I’m throwing your ass in our car and going home. One…”

She made a face. “Jerk.” Then shot me an apologetic look. “Sorry, I never get to see my best friend.” Then she turned.

“Two.”

“You really are period cramps,” she snapped.

The asshole looked right at her, pulled out some bills from his wallet and tossed it at me. They fluttered into the wind andscattered around us. “For your trouble,” he said, then looked at Lainey. “Now. Go.”

She went and he grabbed his friend, hauled him to his feet, and said, “Don’t ever let me see you again, Mister.”

I chuckled. “Or what?”

He stared at me.

“And keep your money, dick. I’m not for sale.”

With that, I walked away from them, awareness of them keeping me on alert. I made it back into a side door of the lobby, avoiding the main portion. Last thing I needed was cops coming after me. I made it back to my room pausing only long enough to hear Lainey’s laughter in there along with Ivy’s before I let myself in the room.

Fuck, my bruises had bruises. I stopped dead when I found Sarah Jane lying on my bed.

“Oh my god, are you all right?” She sat up, concern all over her face.

“Getting better,” I told her and threw the security lock on the door.

DETACHMENT (BONUS POV)

KELLAN

The first time, I’d been heading down for coffee. It was early and I had a long day at the shop. Someone had brought in a car with a bad transmission. If I had to rebuild it, I’d be there until late. Work like that was good. It helped keep my mind focused and detached from obsessing about a certain someone. The door between her room and mine had been open, so I half-expected that she was already down here and in the dance studio or in the kitchen with…

The smell of smoke pumped adrenaline into my system and I raced for the kitchen. The ventilation in the clubhouse was decent, but only if we turned on the big fans. The one drawback to the construction that we hadn’t quite gotten around to fixing.

Fortunately, I could flip one of the master switches on my way in. Freddie probably stuffed pizza in the damn toaster again. Why had he done it the first time? “Well, I wanted to see what would happen? Crispy pizza sounded good.”

It might have been funny, if he hadn’t been strung out at the time and bouncing back and forth between hyper and depressed. The smoking pouring out of the kitchen was white, thankfully and not black. So something was burning, just not likely to burn the clubhouse down even if it asphyxiated us.

The scene waiting for me was not one I could have prepared myself for.

Emersyn stood in front of the stove with an oven mitt on one hand and spatula in the other. Batter had spilled on the counter and over onto the stove top, spreading to the burners where it was burning and bubbling along with…

“Sparrow, what are you doing?” Okay. Tact was my strong suit. Not entirely sure where mine fled but I was hard pressed not to laugh my ass off when she jerked around to look at me. There was dusting of white powder over her face and definitely a splotch of batter on her nose. Wisps of hair escaped from her pony tail and the t-shirt she had on was slipping off one shoulder.

The blackened remains of the substance formerly known as a pancake stuck to the bottom of the skillet. But one glance back up to the tears in her eyes and every bit of my humor dried up.

“I’m sorry…” she began and I swore the sound of a sob catching in the back of her throat made me homicidal.

“It’s fine, Sparrow.” Damage control mode engaged, I reached around her to brace her gloved hand on the pan and we took it off the heat. “Not a problem. I’m guessing you haven’t done this before.” And lest she think I was mocking her, I added, “Trust me, the first time I tried cooking, I was pretty sure my foster mom at the time couldn’t figure out whether to laugh or yell at me.”

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