“If I haven’t mentioned it,” Grant piped up, “your friend seems cool.”
Ever the director, Elena was too focused on the issue to respond to him. “He’s going to upstage you, Tara. You’ll have to put him behind the curtain, off the stage.”
She made an excellent point, but I didn’t want to hide him. “What if . . .” I started. The idea blossomed in my head and took shape.
Whatever expression I had, it filled him with visible unease. “What if, what?”
“What if I made him part of it? We put him center stage.” The words sped out of me as I grew more excited. “He’s static while I’m moving around him. I could even play off of him with the choreography.”
“Yas, girl.” Elena grinned. “It’ll make you travel more too. That was going to be my next suggestion.” She grabbed the back of Grant’s chair and tried to move it, but he was still sitting there with a dubious expression. “Front and center, Hot Cello Guy.”
He humored us, carrying his bow in one hand and the neck of his instrument in the other, while she dragged the chair to the center of the room.
“If I put my hands on you while you’re playing,” I asked him, “will it mess you up?”
“I guess it depends on where you put your hands.” He’d said it with a straight face, but his eyes dripped with innuendo.
I was absolutely capable of putting my hands somewhere to make him lose control, but . . . I couldn’t, could I? My body went tight at the thought.
“Uh, your shoulders.”
He considered it. “As long as it doesn’t affect my posture, that should be fine.”
“Okay, let’s try it.”
Elena helped him sync his phone to the sound system as I walked through a few steps, plotting out my new routine. When we were good to go, I moved behind his chair and set my hands on his broad shoulders, my fingers splayed down his chest.
At the contact, he took in a sharp breath, like this simple connection was shocking. The crazy thing was I felt it too. I nodded to Elena to start the music. At the first notes of the piano, I began to move, trailing my hands across his body, separating from him just as he readied to play.
When his music started, I came alive. Every sound he produced was echoed in my body. I became his bow. I fluttered around him, trying to be the visual representation of the song.
He wasn’t just directing me with his music, he made me his willing slave.
It was the shortest and longest two minutes of my life, and when he stopped playing, I ached for more. But Elena turned off the recording, and her expression wasn’t at all what I expected or hoped for. She looked . . . dissatisfied.
“What’s wrong?” I wanted to cry it at her but managed to keep a handle on it.
“Nothing. It’s beautiful.”
I wasn’t buying it. “Then why are you looking at us like that?”
Her sigh was full of reluctance. “I have a suggestion, and I don’t think you’re going to like it.” She glanced up at the clock, then back to me. “Never mind. It’s not important.”
I charged at her. “Oh, no, you don’t. Spit it out.”
&
nbsp; “The song. It’s so . . . safe. I mean, he plays it beautifully, and your technique, your choreography—it’s all on point. But you’re dancing classical ballet to a song that has a classical sound.”
I was filled with dread. “It’s a snooze-fest.”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. It’s that the song is, like, serious.” She dropped the pretense. “It’s somber as fuck, and it’s so not you.”
Holy shit. She was absolutely right.
The front door opened, and a group of kids came in, chatting noisily as they hung their backpacks on the hooks in the waiting area.
Which meant it was four o’clock, and I was out of time.