Page 91 of How to Dance

“Hayley, I’m saying youalwaysget it right.” His fingertips teased the nape of her neck. “You choose the sky all the time. I have to remind myself to do it every day, and you walked up to some sad guy you’d never met and tried to get me to see beauty. It’s not your fault I was a jerk. Just because I couldn’t see what you were trying to show me doesn’t mean you didn’t do the right thing.”

“Do you see it now?” she asked softly. “How much you deserve to be happy?”

Nick didn’t say anything for a long moment.

“Whenever I look back on that night,” he said, “all I see is how grateful I am that you found me.”

27

Nick lay absolutely motionless, eyes closed, breathing steady. If he focused, his body might just decide to obey him tonight. He would not allow a spastic muscle or startle reflex to wake the woman sleeping in his arms.

He’d been terrified of doing the wrong thing—and then Hayley had wrapped herself around him.

He had wasted so much effort seducing women so he could believe he was worth their attention, but Hayley had ledhimhere.

He had stood in the Squeaky Lion tonight wanting only for her to be okay, and now she was giving him something beautiful.

Nick wanted to kiss her now more than ever, wanted to touch every inch of her, wanted to look into her eyes as he made love to her. But there was no sign of the emptiness he so often felt, no compulsion to prove anything to her or demand that she prove anything to him. Hayley was here, and that was so much more than enough.

She stirred, and his eyes filled with tears when his startle-prone body kept still. He loved the way she burrowed against him, like she was trying to find their perfect fit.

“Do I help?” she mumbled sleepily.

He rubbed her back. “Help with what, sweetheart?”

“Do I help you look at the sky?”

Nick remembered falling into her arms, getting lost in her smile for the first time.“We’ve got this, rock star.”

“You are the sky,” he said.

28

Hayley woke up slowly, feeling foggy and loose with the fatigue in her muscles. Her cheek was still on Nick’s chest, her arms around him, his arms encircling her. She felt his chest rise and fall under her.

Okay. So all of that had actually happened.

She slid carefully out from under his arms and slipped out of bed. Nick was still fast asleep, legs tangled in the sheet that covered him to his torso.

Come on, girl. Go brush your teeth. Wash your face. Find a chocolate bar.

She couldn’t look away from him.

Because she didn’t want to leave. What she wanted to do was reach forward and brush back the hair that had fallen over his forehead. She wanted to climb back into bed, pull the covers over them both, and be in his arms when he woke up. She wanted to take care of him.

It reminded her of her first night with Kevin.

There had been something delicious about the inevitability of Kevin. How he’d waited outside her dressing room before thelate show that night, just so she’d know she was on his radar. How he was the only thing she could think about for the rest of the night, until she was standing in the dimly lit Menagerie bar, and he’d appeared at her side with two words:Carrie’s over.He had chosen her.

She’d awoken before him the next morning, crept to the bathroom, returned to watch him sleep. Elation had quietly pulsed through her: She’d gotten exactly what she wanted. And under that pulse, barely asserting itself, a hollowness, a question—whether everything she wanted should have been more.

It hadn’t been enough, and now Hayley was standing in another bedroom, with another man.

Was it possible to be embarrassed about what they’d done and still glad they’d done it? She shouldn’t have collapsed in the car or cried in his arms; she really shouldn’t have talked him into bed like it was for his sake. She was unquestionably a train wreck. And yet—it allfeltokay. She felt comfortable with him, and she didn’t often feel comfortable at all any more.

But of course she felt comfortable with Nick. Nick didn’t require anything of her. She’d wanted to be friends, and he decided to follow through. She’d wanted a listening ear, and he decided to be there. She’d nearly lost her mind at the bar, and he decided to save her. Fall for her, literally, which was clumsy, idiotic, and adorable all at the same time. Why the hell hadn’t she caught on sooner? If Nick Freeman had actually hurt himself, he would’ve smiled, insisted everything was fine, and hobbled to his car without another word.

Hayley caught sight of his leg braces where he’d discarded them by the bed. For Nick, just wearing shorts would reveal too much weakness—and he had done so much more than that for her.

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