“Any contestant can use live music,” I added. “They’ve just made the choice not to.”
“All right.” Her sigh sounded very much like a ‘fuck it.’ “But off stage, so it’s not a distraction.”
Alarm tore through me like fire. “No, please. He needs to be on stage with me.”
“Absolutely not.” Tina’s expression was plain. “Sorry, honey. Only contestants are allowed in front of the judging panel.” Decision made, Tina turned to leave, eager to get to the next fire she had to put out.
My heart hammered, but I’d prepared for this. “That’s not true. Ballroom dancers get to audition with their partners, even if they don’t make the next round.”
Her back was to us as she pulled to a stop. “Yeah, but they can’t perform without them.”
I swallowed a huge breath. “He’s part of the routine.”
She gave me side-eye, skeptical. “Are you saying you can’t perform without him?”
My mouth went dry. If I said yes and she allowed this, what if my solo was scheduled during his rugby match? He told me he’d never missed a game in his entire life. I’d asked so much of him the last month—
“Yes,” Grant said automatically. “If you put me off stage, her choreography won’t make sense.”
Tina’s sigh was bigger and more dramatic. Her eyes drifted from us, and I could hear the faint sound of chatter in her earpiece. What I was asking for wasn’t difficult. It probably seemed like nothing in the face of the bigger problem she was listening to.
“I don’t have time for this. Fine.” She gave her approval to Andrew, then focused in on me. “Word of advice. I don’t know how the judges are going to react, so have a backup plan. Be prepared for them to ask him to leave the stage.”
“Yes,” I nodded, “thank you.”
She waved the comment away as she abandoned us, moving down the hall at a fast clip.
Andrew didn’t make Grant play for him. He listened to the piano part, finished filling in the form on his laptop about the music, and handed me an orange card. My throat closed as I read it.
I was to be standing by to perform my solo at three-forty p.m.
“Uh . . .” I started.
As Grant read the card over my shoulder, Andrew’s gaze burned into me. He looked up at us like he wondered what the fuck I was still doing here.
“Thank you.” Grant grabbed my wrist and gently pulled me away, guiding me toward our pile of stuff. His voice was hushed. “It’s all r
ight, Tara.”
“But your game.”
His warm smile made his blue eyes more vibrant. “I already called my coach and told him I couldn’t make it.”
“What? When?”
“As soon as you went for your interview.”
Oh my God, this man made me go boneless. He’d just put my desires above his own, and I struggled to remember a time in my life when anyone else had ever done that for me. Before him, I’d felt invisible. Maybe that wasn’t the right word. Indistinguishable was a better one.
Yet Grant saw me.
Tonight, I’d tell him everything. I’d lay it all on the line, and if he wanted me to leave the blindfold club and never see Silas and Regan again, I’d easily put his desires above my own. And it had nothing to do with me being a submissive.
It was because I was falling for him, and falling hard.
“I’m running out of ways to say thank you,” I said, blinking back tears. It’d been an emotional day, and we weren’t even halfway through it. “But, thank you.”
“Of course.” He smiled. “Besides, Milwaukee is terrible. The guys can win without me.”