The Ballerina & The Fighter (Book 1) (8 page)

The door suddenly opened and
a man stepped in. “Ivy, are you coming with us tonight?”

I glanced up after taking off
my stage makeup, my roommate, best friend and the other half of my Pas de deux,
dance of two, Dante stood behind me. I smiled. Dante was one of the most
beautiful men I’d ever known, prettier even than Maze and that was saying
something. The first time I met Dante he’d been hugging his boyfriend goodbye
outside of the auditions for the company. We’d hit it off immediately and
became good friends. Two months later he tried to kiss me. I grinned even more
at that memory and my shock. He was the first bi-sexual person I’d ever known.
He claimed he loved either sex, he did not discriminate. Looks and personality
attracted him, well mostly looks. His wish was for a three-some, one that would
include me, and surprisingly another woman, which I found odd. But I declined
his invitation and told him most people had a hard time maintaining one
committed relationship, much less two. It wasn’t until I moved in with him I
realized he’d just been having fun with me. He told me he thought I was too
proper and he wanted to rattle my cage. He could be a crack up at times, but I
believed he searched for a deeper connection with someone, male or female. I’d
found that kind of connection once, and let it go. After I turned down Dante’s
come ons, we’d been best friends and great roommates for the last three years
and I never regretted it. He was my rock and I was his. But our relationship
was more that of siblings.

As a professional dancer I
didn’t date much, when I did it was usually a friend or brother of a fellow
dancer. But none of them stuck for more than one or two dates. I told myself it
was because dance took everything I had so I could not commit to a
relationship. Dante was the only one I’d ever told about Shelly and Maze so he
understood. Surprisingly, he was the one that encouraged me to really connect
first with someone, instead of just jumping into bed with a stranger or anyone
who didn’t rattle my cage.

He sat on the chair beside me
and wrapped his arm around me. His long blond hair hung loose around his
shoulders. When he danced it was pulled back into a queue. Tonight he was ready
to party.

“Come on girl. None of that.
You’ve been down lately, but the show’s over. We did a fantastic job. Now we
have a bit of a break for the next couple of weeks before rehearsals begin
again. Just classes a few hours a day. Now it’s time to party.”

Dante and I were the couple
most often paired because we danced beautifully together. He knew exactly how
to catch and hold me, how to make my body move for him. We’d even choreographed
a few of the modern ballet pieces, lots of difficult leaps and lifts. Videos of
our press lifts are used as examples in other companies and studios. We’d even
both been approached by other companies, trying to lure us away but we’d never
leave. Dante and I were happy where we were, although during downtime we had
begun choreographing more for others as a team and getting paid. Which was
pretty nice.

I sighed knowing Dante was
determined to get me out tonight. He’d been worried about me lately. I’d done
nothing but eat, sleep and dance. I hadn’t been on a date in a year or out with
him and our friends in a couple of months. I didn’t really understand the
restlessness in myself. It wasn’t like Shelly’s birthday or the day she died
was coming up. Usually I’d begin to get restless about that time. My friend
would have turned twenty-two this year, same as me. We’d have been able to
drink legally. Even though we never let our ages stop us. No, the sense of
restlessness I guess stemmed from something else I couldn’t define. Maybe from
loneliness, Dante had been dating regularly and while it was nice seeing him
with someone it reminded me of what I didn’t have. Perhaps he was right and I
needed to get out more, be open to meeting people.

“All right, I’ll go. Let me
finish changing.”

“Cool. I’ll be right back,
let me go hurry Christy and Bloom and whoever else is going along.”

He left and I finished
changing. As the lead ballerina I had my own small, emphasis on small, dressing
room. The core dancers all changed in two main dressing rooms, the guys had
their own. I was glad after I got dressed that I agreed to go out with Dante
and our other friends. I’d just grabbed my bag when Dante walked back through
the door. The man did not knock, no one did around here. At times when dancers
had to do quick changes, getting in and out of costumes in sixty seconds
backstage, stripping was just not that big a deal. You had no time to glance
around you to see who might or might not be looking. In truth, no one was. But
dancers had to learn sometimes to change around the opposite sex and after
awhile you became numb to it.

“Ready,” Christy asked,
walking in behind him. She held his hand. Dante and Christy ‘were testing’ each
other as Christy put it to me one day. They looked good together both blond
both beautiful. So far they’d been together going on two months now, a record
for Dante. I nodded and they turned around and we walked out.

“I called the limo around,”
Dante said. One of the perks being one of Dante’s friends, he came from money.
Lots and lots of it. He didn’t need a roommate, he simply wanted one. He didn’t
like the idea of living alone. When he’d decided he wanted to become a
professional ballerina, his parents got behind him. They’d always supported his
dancing. His mother had been a ballerina in Paris thirty years ago. They even
bought him the two bedroom condo loft in Manhattan. Not cheap. And he had an
account with a local limo service he used whenever he needed to get from point
A to B and didn’t want to walk. Yeah, his parents loved him and supported him
in everything he did. The one thing he said he couldn’t bring himself to tell
them was he liked men as well as women. But he was fine with that. As long as
when he went home to up state New York, where his parents lived, for a visit he
made sure it was a woman he took with him. For some reason that was always me,
which led them to believe I was his girlfriend. Perhaps next time he’d take
Christy.

We waited in the hallway for
the driver to pull up around the side when the phone in my purse tinged letting
me know I had a text. I pulled out the phone and glanced at the text.

“What’s wrong?”

I glanced up and looked at
Dante, unable to form the words. “I…I need a minute.”

He glanced down at his own
phone. “Guys go on out. You know the fans are out there wanting autographs
anyway, we have to go through them first to get to the limo. We’ll be right
behind you.” He swatted Christy on her ass to get her moving. She frowned at
me. Christy and I had always been friends and friendly competitors; she’d been
with another company but was hired about a year ago. I always got the roles she
wanted, but she’d never seemed to hold that against me. It wasn’t until she and
Dante began sleeping together that she’d acted a little put off with me. I was
no competition for her as far as my roommate was concerned.

Once the door closed behind
Christy, Dante turned back to me. At this point I was propped against the wall.

“Okay spill, what’s up?”

“Maze.”

Dante frowned. “Okay, what
about him?”

I looked into his baby blues
and grabbed his arm squeezing his biceps. “He’s here.”

“Get the fuck out!” Dante’s
eyebrows rose toward his hairline and he glanced around like he expected Maze
to be right behind him.

I laughed. “No silly. Not
here here. He’s down the block at Carmines.”

“Well fuck that.” He grabbed
my hand and turned toward the door. “Let’s go. I want to meet this dude.”

I stopped before he could
pull the door open. My heart raced at the mere thought of seeing Maze again,
knowing he was so near. But under no circumstances did I want my first meeting
with him in years to be in the company of Dante and the rest of our friends.
“No, Dante. I have to meet him on my own. Alone. Let’s just get through the
autograph line and then drop me off at the corner.”

He turned and stared at me.
“You sure?”

“Yes. I’m sure.” I squeezed
his arm. After that, I pretty much went on autopilot. Like dancing a piece of
chorography I’d danced many times before. We walked out of the theater into the
alleyway and our fans surrounded us. We signed a few autographs and stopped to
take a couple of pictures, but all the while walking steadily toward the car
and the driver standing beside the open door. Christy had just stepped in, then
Bloom, and we weren’t far behind. I let Dante get in before me because I knew
I’d get out first. I told the driver to spot at Carmines, I’d be getting out
there. He merely nodded and shut the door.

When the car stopped at the
end of the block and the driver threw the car in park, Christy spoke up. “Why
are we stopping here?”

“Ivy’s getting off here,”
Dante said.

Bloom turned to look at me.
“Aren’t you coming with us?”

“No, sorry. I’m…I’m meeting
someone.”

“Who?”

The question came from
Christy, but by then the driver had opened the door and I saw him. I had to
hold on to the doorframe to get out of the car, it kept me standing, otherwise
I might have fallen. My eyes took him in like a blind man starving for light. I
dissected the parts, yet it was all the same,
Maze.
Still heartbreakingly beautiful, but now with even more of an
edge.

He wore all dark colors; his
hair was a little longer, not as short as he wore it that summer. He seemed to
have bulked up a little more. Hard to tell with the leather jacket he wore how
much was muscle and how much material. The lines of his face were sharper, more
pronounced. When he stepped forward into the light, I could see him clearer.
There was a new cut over his left eye on his eyebrow, but it didn’t detract
from his exceptional looks. It made it even better. But it was his eyes, those
eyes. The gray of the clouds, just before lightning struck. I remembered that
color. Did I think Dante the more beautiful of the two? I changed my mind. Yes,
Dante’s skin was flawless, but Maze’s was the face of a man who’d seen struggle
and was still standing. The difference between an angel who played a harp up on
a cloud and one that marched into battle.

I shook my head, trying to
clear the distractions out of it to reply like I was an educated person to
Maze’s question. Afterward, he led me into the restaurant. I remember suddenly
sitting, not remembering the walk to the table. I know we sat there long enough
for the waiter to approach us twice and still neither of us had picked up a
menu, nor had we said a word. All we could do was stare. Drinking the other in.

Finally, Maze leaned forward.
“I’ve missed you.”

I held my hands entwined in
my lap, but I raised them and placed them on the table leaning forward, too.
“I missed you, too.”

He raised both hands and
covered my own. His hands felt larger, stronger than I remembered them. But
electricity zinged between us again, my gaze went from our joined hands to
stare into the burning gaze of Maze. The connection was still there, flaring
between us, and he felt it, too. This time when the waiter approached the table,
Maze glanced over at him then back at me. “Do you need time to look at the
menu?” Maze asked.

“No.” I glanced at the waiter
and smiled; I’d eaten here many times and already knew what I wanted. “I’ll
have a cheeseburger medium rare no fries, coleslaw and just water’s fine.”

Without taking his gaze from
me, Maze said to the waiter, “The same.” He had yet to let go my hands. He just
raised his elbow so the waiter could grab the menus trapped under his arms,
then the waiter disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” Maze said.

I almost asked him for what,
but I knew. We lost touch with each other, faith, as much his fault as mine. At
the time I pushed him away. A necessity, he was leaving me anyway. And yet,
here we were. The feelings were still there. The electricity crisscrossed
between our joined hands. The blood rushed through my system as though I was
ready to step on stage and perform twenty fouettes, turns where I stand first
flat then on point with one foot while the other leg is raised but bent at the
knee, and making
quarter circles with each turn
. A heady feeling indeed.

“I’m sorry, too,” I said, and
squeezed his hand.

He sighed. “Believe me please
when I say I had no choice at the time, and really neither did you. I
understand.”

I thought perhaps he did
understand. The fact that he’d taken the time to track me down wasn’t lost on
me. What did it mean? I wanted to ask, but while the connection between us was
still there, I didn’t know him well enough to ask. So I thought to start with
the obvious. “How have you been?”

Chapter Nine

Maze