Page 72 of Surrender
“You got time right now?” he asked, folding his arms across his chest. “We could go for a walk around the outside, make a list. It’ll give you a good idea of what kind of price tag you’re gonna be in for.”
I looked up at the large clock, which we called Big Ben, on the opposite wall. It was a little after two, and Darcy wasn’t finished at the studio until seven.
“Yeah, I’ve got a few hours to kill,” I said with a nod, grabbing my keys from the desk and following him outside. “I didn’t get to have a good look at the house when I was there last week. It was the first time I’d been back on that street in years.”
We stopped outside where Callan’s truck was parked at the curb. “You used to live next door, right?”
I gave a tight nod.
The house next door that I’d lived in with my parents was long gone.
“My old place was pulled down years ago when they brought in these new laws about drugs and testing to make sure people weren’t cooking or smoking shit like Meth in the home,” I explained, screwing up my nose because my mother had definitely been doing the latter. “They found traces of it everywhere, and whoever bought it chose to tear it down and build a couple of townhouses instead.”
“Well, that explains a lot,” Callan mumbled and barely dodged the left hook I threw at his arm, fucker jumping back with a smug grin. “You getting slow in your old age?”
“Why don’t you get in the ring with me and find out?” I jested, rounding my ride that was parked next to him and picking up my helmet.
“Because I’m not stupid?” he answered, though he still hadn’t stopped smiling. “Man, I’m so unfit that I stood up too fast last week and saw God. One punch from you and I’d be shaking the fucker’s hand.”
I barked out a laugh. “It’ll do you good to remember that if you think about fucking around on Lucy.”
Callan paused with his hand on the driver’s door of his truck, looking back over his shoulder at me with a frown.
“’Cause Darcy will want your ass dead,” I informed him, throwing my leg over my ride. “And you know she’ll tag me in.”
“Honestly, you’d probably be doing me a favor,” he said with a low chuckle. “’Cause Lucy would already have cut off my dick, so there’d be no point in me living.”
He said it like a joke, but I knew Lucy.
So, he’d better keep it in his pants.
Chapter Twenty-Six
DARCY
“All right, girls, that’s all for today. Thank you,” I called out to my class full of seniors.
A collective sigh of relief rippled through the room. I couldn’t help but giggle to myself as the girls all slumped to the floor, noses scrunched, while they peeled off their ballet shoes and stretched out sore, overworked muscles. I had absolutely put them through the ringer for the last hour and a half.
“Thank you, Miss Darcy,” they chimed in unison a few minutes later, flashing wide grins as they gathered their things and trickled toward the door, leaving me alone in the studio.
I glanced at the clock—a little past seven in the evening.
I’d been teaching since one this afternoon, and my body felt it.
It was the good kind of sore, though, the kind that settled deep in my muscles and reminded me I was doing something I loved.
Nate was picking me up and had texted earlier to say he’d be a little late, so instead of packing up my stuff, I moved over to thebarre, placing my fingertips lightly on the smooth, glossy wood. The soft melody of the piano still played through the sound system, and without thinking, I let my body move to the rhythm.
It had been years since I’d taken the time to dance for myself.
No students to teach.
No variations to learn.
No shows to rehearse.
I was able to lose myself within the music with no expectations or confinements. My calves burned as I lifted onto my toes, pushing higher, holding for longer. I stepped away from thebarre, lifting up into a turn, one after another, spinningacross the floor.
