Page 36 of A Dark Duet

“What do you mean ‘changes things?’” I frown, confused.

“Oh, come on, Giselle. You’re a ballerina and he’s an MMA fighter. You’re from a different world.”

“Oh, I get it. I’m too prim and proper now, not a dancer from a strip club. News flash, Jaden, I obviously could not go back to New York after my parents died. I left with nothing and could not expect a spot in the dance company to be waiting for me with a red carpet. It doesn’t work like that. And what does that have to do with anything? I’m from the broke and get-a-job-wherever-I-can world. Helping my best friend as she helped me when I was down and homeless. So don’t go talking about which world we’re from. You know nothing about me or Brie.”

When I mention Brie, his hands stiffen on the steering wheel. “Yeah, well, I know a little about where Brie is from, but let me tell you, Nate and I just don’t trust anyone. We may like you, but we don’t give our trust and just let anyone in because they wear a skirt and can dance. We’ve had to earn everything, we come from the gutter raised in shit.”

I take in his last remarks and realize how they really see us, and it makes sense in how they are, and if I’m honest, he is right. My parents brought me up in a perfect bubble. They raised me, giving me everything they could so I could live my dream in a different world than they come from.

Brie was always with me since elementary school, having a crack-addicted whore of a mother who didn’t give a shit about her. Still, we try to send money and make sure her mother is not on the street. Hanging out with Brie when we were young, she was bullied for having a mother like that, I was considered a freak that couldn’t go to school, they probably thought I was just like Brie’s mom since Brie and I were always together.

“Look, Jaden. I’m here as a friend to Nate and nothing else. I will not trap him or distract him. He came looking for me and asked me to come here. Trust me, I was fine,” I lie. I wasn’t fine, but I was having fun with Jason and Jace hanging out until Nate rode in to whisk me away.

“He has a fight coming up, and he doesn’t need to be emotionally drained. I know he brought you here, but Nate is… complicated.”

“You know what? I will help teach the classes to the girls, and I will learn to be a teacher, then leave to go to work until the program is over. Then I’m gone.”

I get out of the car and walk into the house to the guest bedroom. I can’t believe him. What the hell is his problem? I pull out my phone and call Brie to tell her everything.

Nate

Ibrought her here thinking I could handle being around her. I can’t get her out of my head. I want her in my bed. I know if she sees the baggage I carry inside, she will run.

When Lenora figured out where she went to school, I couldn’t think straight. A fucking ballerina! This whole time I thought she went to a school and was just a girl who could dance well and was offered a spot at the club for her talents. Never did I imagine she was from that world, a world very different from mine. She paid for those girls so they could dance, the look on their faces like she was an angel sent from heaven. The answers to their prayers. I know she will honor her word and teach them until the program is over.

She is passionate about her love of dance, it makes sense why she’s that good.

I’m no good for her and will just dirty and damage her. I have already begun doing just that. I should have known she went to a prestigious school, and her parents raised her in a bubble. The whole club thing covered it up real nice.

She wouldn’t understand pain and abuse, how broken and messed up I am inside. How would she look at me knowing what I did, that I let my father get away with killing my mother. I covered up for him and then suffered years of neglect, abuse, and pain, to only end up in foster care with two dead parents, a kid that no one would give a shit about.

All I know is fighting and how to endure pain and inflict it, it’s what I was taught and brought up on. How would she fit into my life? The problem is, how do I let her go? I’ve taken her innocence, dirtied it, and made her feel like she had to clean herself from the possibility she would be pregnant with my kid. A kid that would come from me and a lineage of drug addicts. Why would I want to bring a kid into the world so all they would see is a father who came from a heroin addict and can’t sleep in the same bed with their mother?

I see the want in her eyes when she looks at me. I recognize the need. The need for me to dirty her up.

I saw the little girls looking inside the dance studio by my gym and I took advantage and talked to Lenora about Giselle. It was an excuse to bring her. I could have left her alone knowing she wouldn’t be pregnant or had to explain the burn scars on the inside of my thighs inflicted by my father. I could have let her be with Bresely, but when I saw him with her at the game or behind her dancing, I saw red.

I have an immense problem when it comes to Giselle. We are just friends, as she so eloquently put it. I can’t have her, but I don’t want anyone else to, either. I know I’m being a selfish asshole and it’s not fair, but guess what? Life’s not fair, it’s a bitch that fucks you.

Jaden comes back from taking Giselle home because I can’t train when she is around. I thought having her here would help me calm the demons down.

If anything, it made them worse. I just have to deal with it and the need to stick my cock inside her deliciously tight pussy. Looking at her in her sexy leotard inside my gym was a direct contrast to everything I stand for. Even Nick couldn’t stop staring at her. I had to tell Jaden to take her home, I couldn’t stomach having to look over my shoulder, knowing she would be there waiting while the men at my gym ogled her. I didn’t wanted to embarrass her further when Lenora laid out her little secret and gave her a sweater to cover up her tight leotard, outlining her perfect breasts and slim waist.

Now thinking about it, I would like her to wear a Grim Reaper sweater with my name on it. I go into Jaden’s office to get a new one from the box he has inside when I find him already sitting at his desk with a frown on his face.

“What’s up with you, brother? Why the face?”

He looks up at me, and I know whatever he is going to tell me next, I’m not going to like it.

“I kind of said some stupid shit to Giselle about her distracting you and being from a different world.”

“You did what? What the fuck?”

“I know, man. I fucked up. I even brought Brie into it. Just never thought it would work out. They are both different from what we’re used to and I didn’t want this to impede training and the upcoming fight. She is not what you expected. I saw your face when Lenora said where she went to school. You were shocked, looking at her differently.”

I know he is trying to protect us and what we built. Emotions can get in the way and fuck up everything we have worked for. I can’t let that happen, even if I want her more than I should. I can’t get mad at him for trying to make sense of all this. We can’t get caught up with some girls from a strip club, and I just made matters worse by bringing Giselle here. I wasn’t thinking, and it’s too late now.

“I get it. I’m not mad, but you should have let it be. I can handle my emotions with my dick. I don’t need you meddling in my personal shit, too. Let it go, it will blow over. Once the season and the program is over, she will be done and that will be the end. For now, I will enjoy her company,” I say with a smile.

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