Page 4 of Dance for Me

Suddenly the rain didn’t matter. She couldn’t feel the cold lash of it pelting her and she paid no mind to the water running off her hair or through her clothes. Nothing mattered but those eyes watching her, assessing her so keenly. Never had she come under such scrutiny from a stranger before.

“Gather your things,” he murmured, “before they’re ruined completely. I’d like it if you’d join me for a coffee or something to eat, little ballerina. If you have the time, of course.”

“I-I-I...” Her tongue and lips went numb with shock, preventing her from forming words or linking together sentences. Embarrassed, she whirled around and grabbed her jacket, throwing it over the boombox and praying it wasn’t already water damaged. She didn’t have the money to buy another.

“Are you cold or nervous?” Stranger asked quietly. He hadn’t made a move to touch her, even step toward her. He just stood still, hands tucked nonchalantly and nonthreateningly in his coat pockets. Just waiting.

Bodie closed her eyes. “I’m neither,” she said snippily as a roll of hunger tumbled through her stomach loudly enough for her new friend to raise an amused eyebrow. Shit, she couldn’t tell him she wasn’t hungry now, could she? “Look, thanks but no thanks.”

He moved forward and scooped up her money box, giving it a little rattle. Shaking his head, he bent to retrieve the lid on her makeshift piggy bank then sealed her money inside before he handed it to her. “Skittish then,” he decided as she all but snatched her precious box to her chest. “That’s okay. I’ll leave you be. Get yourself out of the rain and dried off unless you want a nasty chill, little one.”

She knew how to look after herself, goddamn him. If he wasn’t standing here in his precious overcoat and good shoes, delaying her escape from the street corner, she’d already be halfway home to a bowl of stale cereal and a freezing cold, empty apartment.

“Thank you. Have a good evening.” There, once her tongue worked again, she could be polite and noncombative toward him. She just needed to remember tact, decorum, and manners.

He flashed a white-toothed grin that was so even architects could have used his teeth as a ruler. Inclining his head without saying another word, he strolled away into the rain, whistling lightly between his teeth.

For several long seconds she watched him go, wondering who the hell he was and why she reacted so...positively toward him. As he disappeared down the street, head and shoulders above the few people still rushing about, she told herself it didn’t matter.

Whoever he was, she wasn’t going to see him again.

A chance encounter that wouldn’t be repeated.

After Liam fractured her trust and their friendship, she had no one left. The phone company had cut off her cell phone so he couldn’t get in touch with her, but if he had...she wouldn’t have replied. Wouldn’t have answered his calls.

He could have stabbed her in the heart and not hurt her as much as this.

Bodie never wanted to trust anyone again. Her family could go to hell. Liam could join them. And as for Mr. Mysterious...well, whatever his problem was, he’d just have to deal with it on his own.

People couldn’t be trusted.

Even the one who’d been with her through thick and thin, the high times and the periods of wading through shit so high she thought she might drown in it. The one she’d supported when he’d come out of the closet, when he’d had no one but her to lean on.

She was done with the whole fucking population of planet earth.

With her sodden gear in hand, feeling like a gutter rat caught in a storm drain, Bodie plodded home. The cold was seeping into her bones, making her feel fragile. The boombox seemed to weigh twice what it did earlier in the day, and she wasn’t sure it wasn’t just a useless pile of junk now.

Maybe she should just toss it and her dreams in the trash once and for all. Let her ambitions of dancing float away on the wind and just fade into a meaningless existence where serving fast food was the highlight of her day.

She was tired of fighting for something she couldn’t keep.

By the time she reached her crappy apartment, her body was no longer connected to her brain. The cold eroded every last nerve ending into painful numbness, and thanks to the SUV that drove through the puddle right next to Bodie at faster than wise speed, she was as wet as she could possibly get.

She had indeed thrown the boombox in the first trashcan she could find.

Her key scraped into the stiff lock, turned with effort she couldn’t quite muster the first time. Her fingers were frozen, useless. The door stuck, then popped open when she kicked the bottom corner. She almost fell into her hallway, barely managing to catch herself on the wall.

She shut the door, shivering madly now she was out of the wind and rain. Droplets landed on the carpet, and as she staggered down the hall, she left dark footprints in her wake.

Dropping her moneybox on the armchair in the living room—one of the last pieces of furniture she had left after selling just about everything else to try raise some cash—she headed into the bathroom and stripped out of her heavy clothes, leaving them in a sodden heap.

The cold nip in the air stole her breath as it bit into her wet flesh. Knowing it wasn’t going to help much, she flipped the shower on and stepped under the pitifully weak stream of water that wasn’t more than a couple degrees warmer than the fucking rain.

Miserable, feeling depressingly alone and unloved, she squeezed her eyes shut and forced the tears away. Pitying herself was no excuse to let her weakness get the better of her. She was stronger than that, had spent years making damn sure she was stronger than anything and everything that came her way. Being held captive by her emotions was not going to happen.

Twenty-seven years’ worth of memories had been systematically repressed to ensure nothing had the power to send her to her knees.

So she’d had to sell just about everything she owned. It was just possessions, the trappings of society. She didn’t need a couch or a TV. Why have a bed when a mattress on the floor worked just as well? Taking her life to the bare essentials was enlightening, freeing, good for the goddamn soul.

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