“How far can you see from up there?”
“Rush, put me down.”
His tone hardens. “No. Not when I’ve got you all to myself. Have you thought about what happened between us yesterday? I have. I’ve thought about it a lot.”
I sit frozen, my throat locked up. There’s nothing but panicked white noise in my head.
His hand gripping my waist gentles. “Baby, you can talk to me about it.”
He can talk. I’ve forgotten what words are.
Rush grasps my waist, turns me so I’m facing him and lets me slide down his body until we’re chest to chest, but my feet aren’t touching the floor.
“What’s so scary, Dree?” he murmurs.
“I don’t know, literally everything? Maybe for you this is nothing, but I’m not used to this sort of thing.”
“Quit saying shit like that,” he growls. “It’s not nothing to me.”
He can glare at me all he wants. I stare at the sleeve of his tank top until he releases me to the floor with a sigh.
“We’ll run through the choreography again tomorrow,” I tell him. “Work on your tricep strength for the lifts.”
His tricep strength is fine. His attitude, I don’t know what to do about. Work on being less Rush?
“Sure, see you later, Dree.” He casts me a final look before leaving the ballroom, and his expression is no less determined than it was a moment ago. The word later sounds both like a promise and a threat.
Marlena and I audition the dancers together. She’s worked with half a dozen choreographers I admire and she’s fifteen years older than I am, so it’s bizarre witnessing her defer to me as we discuss each of the auditions. She’s never patronizing or makes me feel stupid or inexperienced.
We need to cast nine women and nine men to take on the dance roles that I have planned. The most important role to cast is that of the Priestess, the woman who’ll dance with Rush. She needs to be expressive as well as talented, conveying innocence, fury, love and mercy in equal amounts.
Rush wants to sit in on these auditions, which means dragging him out of the studio. I can tell how much it breaks his flow when they’re trying to lay tracks down, and I try to talk him out of it. Rush has rejected two women for the Priestess already, both of whom would have been great in the role. We have to start filming the video in ten days’ time, but he seems to have forgotten the deadline that he set himself.
“You don’t have to come. Marlena and I are getting along just fine. We can choose a perfectly good dancer between the two of us.” Then we can get on with rehearsals and he can stop getting his hands all over me. I lie in my bed at night in the dark and it’s all I can think about.
That and the fact that Rush’s bedroom is somewhere nearby. Rush’s bed. Rush in it.
He shakes his head and puts aside his guitar. “I don’t want perfectly good, I want perfect. I’m the one who has to dance with her.”
I sigh as I follow him down the corridor to the ballroom where Marlena and the auditioning dancer are waiting. Perfection. It’s all he thinks about.
My gaze drops to his ass in his tight jeans. Speaking of perfect…
We audition the dancer, and she’s barely left the room before Rush is shaking his head. “Nope.”
“Why? What’s wrong with her?” I ask.
“She doesn’t have the right feel. Who’s next?”
“There isn’t anyone else.”
“You only planned to audition three dancers?”
Marlena jumps in. “Dree and I auditioned fifteen female dancers. These three were the best of them and we were certain you’d like one of them for the main role.”
“Call up a few more. There are loads of dancers in this country. Don’t worry, you’ll find the perfect one.” He winks at me and heads out of the room, humming cheerily.
“It would help me if I knew exactly what you were…” I trail off as he disappears through the door and finish in a mutter, “Looking for.”
Marlena gives me a sympathetic look. “Are you freaking out?”
I take a deep breath, trying not to let every second that’s passing and bringing the deadline closer make me collapse in a panic. “Not freaking out, just concerned. Rush has approved the choreography and the costume ideas I proposed, but there’s no point to any of that if we don’t have a Priestess.”
“Two out of three ain’t bad,” Marlena says with a rueful smile as she picks up her notebook and phone. “Especially when it comes to Rush.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, but feel gloomier than ever. I suppose it could be worse. I overheard Rush arguing with the graphic designer for the album art yesterday. They’re onto the twenty-seventh round of corrections. I’m amazed the designer hasn’t decked Rush with his expensive laptop and told him to get fucked.