Page 6 of Found Forever

“Yeah, I make that face a lot lately.”

“Does you brother know you’re unhappy?” he asked.

“He does. But he says it’ll get better. But honestly, I don’t think it will. Ihatehustling. It is not part of my genetic makeup. Cold-calling and having to brown nose people to get them to choose me as their listing agent, or buying agent. It’s very cutthroat and competitive. I hate it. I had to deal with enough cutthroatbullshit and drama with girls on the ship when I was dancing. I’m over that. I’m too old for it.”

He snorted at her mention of being too old. She was thirty-four. She wasn’t too old for squat.

“You laugh, but I was cut from the ships because I was too old to dance. So was Mieka.” Then she glanced behind her at the two women flirting with Ryker. “So were Melissa and Jillian. We were all sacked as soon as we hit our early thirties. We’re geriatric dancers. Might as well just send us to the glue factory. Just a bunch of useless old mares. That’s what we are.”

He snorted again. “Then quit.”

“And do what?”

“Anything else. Whatever will make you happy.”

Her pout was less put on and more real. “Dancing makes me happy. It always has.”

“Then find a way to do that again. Ask Mieka for a job.”

Her sigh was weary, and she seemed to deflate in Decker’s arms. “If only it were that simple. I’ve already started the application process to get Canadian residency. What’s it going to look like if I go, ‘naw, I think I wanna be a yank, instead’? They’ll deport me back to my mum post haste for sure.”

Something told him it didn’t quite work that way, but he’d also never applied for dual citizenship anywhere, or even residency status, so he wasn’t entirely sure. Maybe she was right?

However, what he did understand was that if something made you consistently miserable, you quit it. Life was too fucking short to do things that made you unhappy.

Losing Brendan had drilled that into his head more than anything.

It seemed simple enough to him. Quit being a Realtor and find a way to dance again. Even if that was in Toronto. But then again, he wasn’t a dancer. Maybe it wasn’t likeriding a bike.

He’d be happy if he had two left feet. But I his case, as soon as the music came on, his limbs turned into tentacles and any sense of rhythm disappeared like a puff of smoke.

Somehow, the beauty leading him around the dance floor managed to wrangle his tentacles and convert him into a passable dancer. If she let go of him, though, he’d be a spastic squid again in the blink of an eye.

Her smile was smaller, but held a wry tilt to it. “Maybe you weren’t sitting in the corner in judgment. Maybe you’re just really observant. Is that it?”

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m judging the shit out of everyone.”

She pursed her lips and shook her head. “I don’t think you give a shit enough to care what people think of you, or to judge people.”

He was stunned silent for a moment on her accurate evaluation of him.

“Did you like, major in psychology or something? Or were your parents shrinks?”

Her chuckle warmed him better than the whiskey. “No. My dad is in finance and my mum teachers piano and is a seamstress. I’m just observant. I’m not wrong, am I?”

He shook his head. “No, you’re not.”

She leaned back. “But something tells me as much as youdon’t give a shit, you read people really well. So what kind of reading do you get of me?”

That heat in his belly intensified to an almost uncomfortable warmth. He fought the urge to squirm and cleared his throat. “Let’s just dance, hmm?”

Determination flickered behind her eyes. “No. Tell me. I read you and told you. Now it’s your turn.”

Sucking in a deep breath through his nose, he took a tighter hold of her hip and tugged her just a little bit closer. Her eyes flared.

Desire lanced through him as her breasts brushed his chest and a sexy pink raced up from her cleavage into her cheeks. She swallowed, and it was all he could do not to lean forward and trace the line of her throat with his tongue.

“You’re hurting,” he said softly. “And you’re masking the hurt with a smile. But with every smile, another crack in your heart forms. It’s payment for the visage you’re showing the world. You’re lost. Much like Mieka was before she found a home and a purpose here with Nate. You’re pretending the world is just one big happy fun-time party, so nobody sees howunhappyyou really are. And no, I didn’t learn this from you telling me you hate your job. I could see it in your eyes the first time I saw you. The masked pain. The fake smile. The excessive laughter. It’s all a coping mechanism. A veil. It’s one we’ve all done at some point in our lives. But you’ve been doing it for a while now that it’s almost second nature. Only, it’s also fucking exhausting.”

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