Page 16 of Knot For A Moment

“Because…” I picked at my nails. “There’s some stuff I haven’t told you. I should have. I just barely knew how to deal with it myself, let alone tell anyone else.”

“Okay, you’re scaring me a little,” she admitted. “What’s going on?”

I cleared my throat. “Okay, remember the meeting I had to go to that day after you and I went to lunch? You were with Cole?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. It was right after she met her Alphas and had been overwhelmed with the newness andrightnessof being scent matched. “Why?”

“You were right.” I leaned my head back into the beanbag. “I was late. But I didn’t think anything of it. The meeting was with Mark, and he’d never be mad at me for being a couple minutes late.”

Stormy slid off the beanbag, flopping down on the floor between the two of us, and Petra waited for me to continue.

“It wasn’t just with Mark. Ian Chambers was there, and no one knew, but he’s going to be the new artistic director. Mark is retiring. He’s been talking about it for years, but we all thought it was a joke. And Ian is a big deal in the ballet world. He was… less than pleased about me being late.”

Petra frowned. “But you didn’t know he would be there.”

“Doesn’t matter. ‘If you’re a professional, you’re on time regardless of who’s present, and I expect this never to happen again.’” I curved my fingers into quotation marks.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“So… was he like a massive dick to you today?”

I shook my head. “No, we didn’t even speak. But when we were getting ready for the Gala, and while we were there, you’d asked me what was wrong. That’s what was wrong. I’m Mark’s last promotion to principal, and I couldn’t get it out of my head that I would start out being the black sheep right away. Never a good thing.”

“No.” Petra looked at me, and everything told me she was thinking. Because so far, what I’d told her, while it sucked, didn’t account for my mood today.

“Anyway, I’m just setting the stage. I’ve been anxious about the first day for a few weeks. Now, for the other thing.”

She laughed as the elevator chimed. “Why do I feel like you’re going to tell me someone died?”

“Not that.”

Blake entered the room, bags of takeout draped over his arms and a smile on his face. The magnetism between the two of them was electric. My best friend lit up before running over to him and jumping into his arms despite the takeout bags.

He laughed, somehow managing to set the bags on the floor before he could support her legs around his waist. “I thought you were going to just send someone over with the food,” she said.

“But then I wouldn’t have the excuse to come home and kiss you.” He did just that, and I had to look away. The way they looked at each other was the way I wanted to be looked at.

The way Asher had looked at me today.

I couldn’t reasonably explain the fear that lodged in my chest. When I’d walked into that studio and scented him while he was kissing Vivian, smiling like the world was perfect, I left because I couldn’t bear a look of disappointment when he just found happiness. Happiness I helped him find. Now I was afraid that I’d ruined it because it had been too long.

“This was a nice surprise,” Petra murmured.

“Good. I’ll be back later. Nice to see you, Sloane,” Blake said before he kissed Petra on the nose and left.

She grinned as she brought the bags of food over and set them around. Stormy nudged a bag with her nose, but didn’t seem overly invested in stealing our food away from us.

“Sorry about that. What were you saying?”

I opened a styrofoam container of saffron rice and took a bite. Petra raised an eyebrow, and I covered my mouth with my hand. “Fine. You win.” Shoving another bite of food in my mouth, I got comfortable.

“Five years ago.”

“Oh, we’re goingwayback.”

“Yeah, to when I came back from the conservatory.” Petra and I had both spent time at conservatories, but hers was for music and mine was for dance and the visual arts. Neither of us graduated.

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