Page 4 of One Last Encore

With a quick goodbye to Eden, Ingrid slipped her phone back into her bag and moved toward the barre. Her feet carried her there out of habit but her mind refused to settle. Thoughts of Beck swirled relentlessly, pulling her focus to the past.

"Tendu!" Aimee’s sharp command, thick with her biting French accent, sliced through the haze of Ingrid’s thoughts. "First position!"

Ingrid felt a walking cane tap the back of her calf with a light swat, a gentle but firm reminder. In response, Ingrid's body immediately snapped into the first position, her heels together, and her toes turned outward, the movement ingrained in her muscle memory.

"Where is your mind?" Aimee asked gruffly, her red lips pursed in annoyance. "Too many carbs cloud your brain."

Ingrid internally rolled her eyes, like bread was the toxic one in this scenario. Bread didn’t wield a walking cane like a whip or treat warm-ups like Navy SEAL training.

Ingrid knew the stakes; she had been a ballerina for the large majority of her life. She understood what it took to be perfect, and she had sacrificed everything: normal-looking feet, bread, relationships. Her mind involuntarily jumped back to Beck, and her stomach turned at the thought of his name.

Five years had passed since she had been with him. Since that Swan Lake performance that changed everything. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She was now preparing to dance the very ballet that had nearly shattered her, and the man at the center of it all was now living dangerously close to her Wi-Fi.

There was no avoiding it now. She had to confront it all, the performance,him.

She gritted her teeth as she executed a graceful movement that was odds with her emotion, her leg floating gracefully over the wooden studio floor as irritation bubbled in her blood.

"Chin up, Prima!" Aimee’s voice commanded from the side, the sharp French accent cutting through the air. The words reverberated in Ingrid's mind.Chin up. It’s the only way to face your demons.

Ingrid scaled the six flights of stairs like a fugitive, sticking to the edges to keep her steps quiet. Her studio bag dug into her shoulder, and her warm-up pants swished with every movement, loud enough to announce her presence to the entire zip code.

Damn it. She’d grabbed the wrong pair. These were the obnoxious ski-pant kind, not the silent terry cloth ones. Rookie mistake.

But her brain had been elsewhere, preoccupied with the looming Swan Lake production. Even in moments of stillness, the dance consumed her thoughts. She couldn’t afford to make the same mistakes again. She wasn’t entirely sure she could live through it if she did.

Her mind conjured the grand finale, the moment of pure magic. The music swelling, the stage lights blazing like a second sun, every eye in the audience locked onto her. The final overhead lift, the one that was supposed to make audiences weep in awe and critics grovel at her feet.

It had to be perfect. It also had to not go the way it did last time. She shoved the memory aside and focused on her real mission: getting inside her apartment unnoticed.

Beck had moved in today. As in directly next to her. As in, one minor address mix-up and her mail would be arriving in his hands. Absolute nightmare fuel.

Her stomach twisted, nerves prickling under her skin. Something buzzed in her veins, a jittery energy she absolutely refused to classify as excitement. It was dread. Plain and simple.

Reaching her floor, she cracked the door open and peeked out. Empty hallway. Hell yes. Finally, a win.

On tiptoes, she padded toward her door, her boots landing in muffled thuds. She pointedly ignored the door next to hers, but her gaze still snagged on the sliver of light glowing from beneath it.

Her heart stopped. He was in there. Beck. Living. Five feet away.

She tightened her grip on her keys, the cool metal biting into her palm. In slow motion, she raised her key to the lock, careful not to let the others jingle. Then–

"MEEEEOW."

She froze.Oh no. Not now. Not now.She clenched her jaw, whispering murderously at the door. "Shhh!"

The unseen menace inside apparently took this as a personal challenge because–

"MEEEEOOOW."

Panic hit her bloodstream like an espresso shot. She rammed the key into the lock, twisting it aggressively.

The second the door cracked open, a sleek blur of black fur launched out, skidding to a stop in the hallway.

Freddie. Her loud, dramatic, utterly traitorous cat. The same one she’d rescued from a dirty alley and nursed back to life with round-the-clock care and expensive organic kibble. And out of the sheer goodness of her heart, she’d even named her after Frederick Ashton, one of the greatest ballet choreographers ofall time. A noble name for a not-so-noble creature who chose the worst possible moment to stab her in the back.

Freddie paused mid-strut, tail flicking, and turned her big green eyes toward the door next to theirs. Her pupils dilated. She chirped excitedly. No no no no no–

"Where are you going, Freddie?" Ingrid whisper-hissed, lunging for her, but the cat was already on a mission.

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