Page 2 of One Last Encore

“So what happened?”

“Ronan had to apologize while I backed away like I wasn’t just trying to hug a working animal. The cop almost forgave me. The grandpa definitely didn’t.”

"Sounds like a relaxing honeymoon," Ingrid said, grinning.

Eden and her husband, Ronan, had been honeymooning for weeks now, ping-ponging across continents and collecting travel mishaps like tourist magnets.

It still blew Ingrid’s mind that her chaos-goblin best friend had voluntarily signed a legally binding document tying her to another human being and done it without fleeing the ceremony or faking her own death. Then again, it had taken a mildly famous, frustratingly hot director making a documentary about her music career for Eden to finally say I do. Of course, Eden would turn a work project into a rom-com.

"Oh, super relaxing," Eden deadpanned. "I flashed a peace sign at Blarney Castle and some Irish grandma nearly beat me with her umbrella. Apparently, that means ‘screw you’ there. Ronan had to step in and explain that I was just stupid, not offensive."

“You’ve been international for like five minutes and already offended a whole culture. At this rate, you’re going to get banned from the EU.”

"It’s part of my charm."

Ingrid leaned back, warmth creeping into her chest. Eden was still Eden–unfiltered, chaotic, and always one slip-up away from being an international headline.

They hadn’t lived in the same city since college. Eden had been in L.A. chasing a music career since graduation, while Ingrid stayed in New York, wrapped in the world of ballet. But distance had never dulled their friendship. Same chaotic energy. Same inside jokes. Same certainty that one day Ingrid might have to wire her bail money across an ocean.

"Careful," Ingrid said. "I can’t afford to fly out and spring you from jail in Ireland. Not during Swan Lake season."

"Right, right. You’re too busy being the prima ballerina," Eden teased. "But if I do get arrested, please make it sound glamorous in the press release."

"No promises," Ingrid replied with a smile. Over the past year, she’d held the title of prima ballerina in several New York City Ballet productions. But Swan Lake was different.

This wastherole. She would take on the dual roles of Odette and Odile, innocence and seduction, light and shadow. It demanded everything: strength, precision, emotional control. Every ballerina dreamed of it. It was a rite of passage. The pinnacle of her career so far. And the weight of it thrilled and terrified her.

She’d danced Swan Lake once before, back in her Juilliard days, but calling that a “performance” was generous. Catastrophe? Artistic trainwreck? Take your pick. The memory of that night still burned in her mind and not in the triumphant, spotlight-glory kind of way. More like a slow-motion car crash set to Tchaikovsky.

Eden must’ve sensed the wobble in her silence. Her voice dropped, softer now. "How’s the practice going?"

Ingrid’s smile faltered, just for a second. It had been five years since Swan Lake, the performance that had sent her life spiraling into an emotional dumpster fire. Eden had witnessed it all firsthand, and though it felt like a lifetime ago, the sting was still fresh.

“Good,” Ingrid said, the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

“You’re going to kill it, you know,” Eden said, her voice oozing with dangerous levels of optimism. “No one deserves this more than you.”

Then came the pause. Ingrid tensed. That pause always meant doom. And then, as casually as if she were announcing she’d adopted a pet iguana, Eden lobbed the grenade:

"Today is moving-in day."

Ingrid’s stomach did a freefall.Shit.

She knew this was coming. In theory. She’d been mentally prepping for weeks. Distracting herself with work, podcasts, and a concerning amount of pastries. Her freezer was now a croissant graveyard, and she’d eaten an entire baguette on the street like a sad French aristocrat in a breakup montage. Denial had been a beautiful, buttery place to live. Too bad she was getting evicted.

Because here it was: Beck Gershaw.

Theex. The heartbreak. The one who had shown her what love could feel like, only for it to dissolve so suddenly and completely that, on bad days, she questioned whether it had been real at all.

But no, it had been real. And her body remembered it before her brain could object. Her grip on the phone tightened. Her pulse fluttered like a caffeinated butterfly trying to escape a mason jar.

Memories flooded her mind like an uninvited guest at a party she’d spent weeks curating. The laugh she had once loved. The late-night conversations that felt like entire universes unfolding. The way her name sounded in his mouth like it held a meaning only his voice could give it.

She’d spent years building an emotional fortress, one strong enough to withstand judgmental ballet instructors, punishing rehearsals, and the ever-looming threat of bunions. She did not crack. But now? She was cracking like cheap drugstore foundation in July.

And the worst part was that Eden had orchestrated this entire disaster. In a city of over eight million people, the odds ofrunning into Beck should’ve been nonexistent. But Eden, sweet, well-meaning, possibly-possessed Eden, had given Beck the key to move into the apartment right next door to Ingrid.

Eden owned both units—the one Ingrid lived in and the one Beck was moving into today. She’d bought them as an “investment.” Now, she was using her real estate portfolio to ruin lives.Diabolical.

---