The Hit List (9 page)

I stare at the imperfections in the floor beneath my face.

“How’s L. A.?” It blows.

Latin beats fill the small studio. Half the song is in Spanish and I don’t understand it. I wonder if Luke played it intentionally. He glances back at me, flashing me a brilliant smile, and sits close to me to stretch. I refrain from rolling my eyes at him. It’s not a question anymore. Clearly, he did.

The song is on repeat and it plays five and a half times before our teacher comes in. Finally. I’ll be singing it in my sleep.

“I’m Miss Tasha. I’ll be your partner teacher.” She holds out her hand for me to shake. “Nice to meet you, Sadie.”

Miss Tasha has short blond hair. She’s small, but her muscles are toned. She’s probably stronger than me. She looks younger than most of the other teachers, probably in her early thirties.

“Miss Tasha,” Luke says, nodding in her direction. “You’re looking lovely today.”

Miss Tasha rolls her eyes at him, like she expects nothing less coming from Luke, but a faint blush rises to her cheeks. She’s flattered.

“Seriously? Is there anyone you won’t flirt with?” I’m so sick of him. I wish I could push him down the stairs.

Luke looks at Miss Tasha. “Someone’s feisty today.”

I’m about to tell him exactly how feisty I am when another guy walks into the studio. I swear I saw him taking class here last week even though he looks like he should have finished school a few years ago. He wears a pair of black shorts and a black tank top, but he removes the shirt within five seconds.

At least I’ll have something nice to look at today.

Luke is off the floor in less than two seconds. He looks at Miss Tasha. “Why would they put Brandon with us?”

Brandon smiles. “Someone has to make you work this year.” He glances at me, his eyes leaving my face and focusing on other parts of me for far too long.

Brandon’s a full head taller than Luke. His shaggy blond hair hangs down below his forehead, almost concealing his blue eyes. The tension between them crackles. Any more and there would be sparks flying. Not the good kind. The kind when rock strikes metal and the resulting spark creates a fire that devastates everything nearby.

“Brandon is my senior assistant this year. He’ll be helping choreograph.” Miss Tasha plugs her iPod into the stereo and grabs the remote so she can control the music. “Here’s what we’re going to do. I’ll have you watch us dance first, then we’ll start on the choreography. I want you to get a feel for the dance and the emotions and the music before that. Sound good?”

Luke speaks for both of us. “Yeah.”

I walk up to the front of the room and sit down with my back against the mirror. Luke sits next to me. If I move my leg slightly, I’ll be touching him. My muscles tense as I try to stay completely still. I don’t want to have to explain moving farther away from him so I stay put. The heat from his leg radiates against my thigh and I cross my ankles, hoping to get some sort of relief.

“The concept of this dance is about a boy who is falling in love with a girl, but the girl is trying to work through some major issues. The boy won’t let her fall and continues to love her. He fights to stay in her life and he promises not to give up on her or their relationship.”

Because why not? Everything else is going so well in my life. Things needed to get a little harder for me.

I have to force myself not to roll my eyes as my heart stutters at the similarities this dance shares with my real life. Why couldn’t the concept be us hating each other? I can handle that.

Miss Tasha presses a button on the stereo and guitar chords fill the air. I’m familiar with the song, but I never imagined myself dancing to it. Miss Tasha and Brandon start to move. Brandon is there to support her for every lift, catch her every jump. The choreography melds together so well, the dancers in perfect sync with the music, with the emotions.

Patrick doesn’t kiss me when he enters the studio. He used to touch me at every opportunity. A kiss before rehearsal begins, his fingers graze the skin between my tank top and my shorts as he leads me to my starting position, a squeeze of my hand before he separates from me. It’s almost a superstition at this point. We do little things at every rehearsal, things he hasn’t done in the past week
.

“What’s wrong?”

He smiles, but the skin around his eyes doesn’t crinkle. “Nothing.”

I’m not stupid. We’ve been dancing together for two years. He can’t hide anything from me. I know him better than I know myself
.

The routine we’ve done a million times is a disaster today. He can barely look at me, like I’m the one who did something wrong. But I haven’t done anything. He’s the one who’s changed. He’s the reason we’re falling apart
.

They finish as the music dies off.

“Now it’s your turn,” Miss Tasha says.

This is going to be horrible.

“We’ll go through it slow. You have nothing to be worried about. I’ve seen you dance.” Brandon’s reassurances are lost on me. He’ll never be able to make me believe I can do this.

Luke walks to the middle of the floor and I follow slowly. This is it. The moment we find out if I’ll be able to pull this off. I’m not confident that this will end well at all.

When I’m a couple steps away from Luke, I turn around to face the mirror so my back’s to him.

“You need to be closer than that.” Miss Tasha puts her hands on my shoulders and walks me backward until Luke’s body is pressed against my back.

I close my eyes and take a few deep breaths. My body is completely rigid and my hands clench into fists at my sides.

“Where are you going?” My arms hurt from the crutches, but I hobble over to him while he gathers up his stuff
.

“There’s no reason to even stay here. You can’t dance. We’re not partners anymore, Sadie. Let it go.” He doesn’t look at me as he wanders through the studio collecting various things that have somehow managed to end up here
.

I think he does it on purpose because he knows I can’t follow him. I haven’t gotten the hang of this whole crutches thing yet
.

I stop in the middle of the floor, turning every so often to keep my eye on him. “It’s so nice to hear that I mean nothing to you.”

He sighs, running his hand through his hair, and drops the shirt he’s holding into his bag. “It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Then what is it like, Patrick?”

He drops the bag and walks back to me, taking my face between his hands. For a second I think he’ll kiss me, and my heart jumps in my chest
.

He leans in and kisses my forehead. Like I’m his friend. Or his fucking little sister
.

“Good luck.” He grabs his bag and disappears out of the studio
.

I hear his footsteps on the stairs, making his way down to the street. He can’t be leaving. This can’t be happening. I fight through the pain and move as fast as I can with my injury
.

Just before the steps, one of the crutches comes down on my pant leg. It slides out from under my arm and there’s nothing close by to grab onto to keep myself from falling. I land hard on my injured hip, crying out against the intense pain. I try to get up, but the pain is too much. Instead, I curl in on myself, sobbing against the floor, wishing life had gone differently
.

I hope he hears. I hope he comes back
.

But he doesn’t
.

He’s gone
.

“How’s L. A.?” I don’t even know what that means, but apparently it’s the best he can do. I doubt he even cares. He’s playing at some game to get something out of me after all this time. Maybe he found out about the fucking game and wants to collect some points for himself.

“Sadie, relax.” Miss Tasha grabs my left arm and swings it back and forth, trying to loosen my muscles.

My arm loosens against her grip. She doesn’t notice that every other muscle in my body is still tense.

“Better. Okay, Luke, I want you to put your left hand on her stomach and your right hand on her chest, just below her throat. This will be your starting pose.”

Luke’s hands slide against my skin. They’re softer than I remember. My heart rate spikes as I meet his eyes in the mirror and see the affection in them. Not the kind that we fake every day with the people we dance with to make it look real. The real kind of affection, like he cares, like what he’s feeling is real.

Patrick looks at me and the world falls away. It doesn’t matter that we’re in rehearsal or that there are a handful of other people in the room
.

This is the reason I dance with him. When he looks at me, I feel loved. He doesn’t look at anyone else that way. It’s like if he lets me out of his sight, I’ll disappear
.

He always finds me. Whether we’re on the stage or out in the city. And he always looks at me like that. Like I’m the only one he sees. Like I’m the only one he’ll ever see
.

We finish dancing and he frowns at me. “Are you okay?”

“Never better.”

I can’t handle Luke’s look anymore and my gaze shifts down at our feet in the mirror. Sweat beads on my forehead and slides down my temple. I’m trapped between Luke’s body and his hands.

I’m fine. I can do this. It’s just a dance. I don’t have anything to worry about.

My body betrays my thoughts. I inhale for the first time since Luke touched me. Everything sounds hollow around me, like I’m in a tunnel. Black dots close in on my vision as my lungs fight for more air and I gasp for breath, but Luke’s hands act like a vice around my lungs, preventing the air from going in.

The studio is cold today. Maybe because it’s snowing in New York. Maybe because I haven’t talked to Patrick in fifty-eight days
.

I need to get over this. I need to get over him. But every day this studio breathes life into the memories and it’s like he never left. It might be time to find a new studio
.

The door opens behind me. My heart flutters in anticipation. “Patrick?”

Miss Leah shakes her head. She smiles like she knows how my heart breaks over and over again every time he doesn’t show up for our rehearsal. But she doesn’t know. She could never know
.

I know he’s not coming. He hasn’t been here in two months
.

It’s too late. My body’s already shutting down.

Brandon frowns at me. “Are you okay?”

I shake my head no. If I talk, I’ll start crying and freak everyone out.

Luke tries to help me, but I jerk away from him. I need to get away from him. The room spins around me when I take a step. I trip and my hands fly out to catch myself as Luke’s arm wraps around my stomach.

“Brandon, go get a cool washcloth,” Miss Tasha says.

Brandon’s feet pound across the floor as he runs to the door.

Luke walks me to a chair and I collapse into it. He pushes my head down between my legs. “Take deep breaths.”

He kneels beside me and rubs my back. I don’t want him to touch me, but the nausea that overwhelms me makes it hard to move away.

The door opens again and seconds later a cool towel is placed on the back of my neck. It feels heavenly.

“I heard she worked really hard this weekend. She’s probably just worn out from that. Plus, it’s really hot in here. No wonder she almost passed out. Can we get a fan to circulate some air?” Luke sounds annoyed, but I don’t think it’s directed at me.

How does he know I worked all weekend? I try to focus on my breathing and push the thoughts out of my head. The tightness in my chest releases, the nausea disappears. I pull myself up into a sitting position. Luke’s hand falls off my back and I meet his worried eyes.

His eyebrows pull together in a frown. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I move to stand up, but he pushes down on my shoulder and I sit back down hard.

He doesn’t move his hand from my shoulder. “Stay there for a couple of minutes. If you get up too fast, you’ll end up on the floor.”

“We’ll just take a break for ten minutes or so and then start again. Brandon, can I talk to you in the hall?” Miss Tasha asks. She shifts her weight from foot to foot, looking nervous.

They leave and I’m left alone with Luke. I’m painfully aware of how close he is to me again. I want to run out of this room, but I know I can’t because if I leave now, I’ll never be able to come back. I’ll be on my way to New York with my dreams shattered. Again.

“What’s going on?” Luke asks. He continues to rub my back.

“What do you mean?” He doesn’t need to know. It’s none of his business.

Except that it is because this affects him.

“You almost passed out twenty minutes into rehearsal. I know you can do better than that. What’s going on?” Luke leans back against the mirror, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Nothing. I just have a lot on my mind.” I can’t tell him. He wouldn’t understand.

“Well, you better figure it out pretty fast. You won’t last here if you do this in every practice.” His stare is icy, a complete change from the way he looked at me when his hands were all over me.

I throw my hands up in the air. “I’m so sick of you. One minute you’re nice and the next you’re a total asshole. I’m well aware that you’re just trying to get points for me, but I’d think you’d actually want me to like you before I did. Or do you really just think that highly of yourself? That girls will fall all over you because you’re an asshole to them? It’s not a turn on.”

Luke’s brow creases. “What are you talking about?”

His feigned innocence does nothing for my mood. “Don’t be dumb. You know exactly what I’m talking about. You’re playing that stupid game.”

He can’t seriously expect me to believe he isn’t. There’s no way. No one would really be dumb enough to believe that.

“What game? You’re confusing the hell out of me.” He laughs when he says it.

The sound makes me want to rip my hair out. “That fucking sex game.”

He shrugs, his eyes wide. I guess there’s something to be said about his persistence to maintain the lie that he doesn’t have anything to do with the game.

“You know what? Forget about it.” I’m done with this. We’re not going to work.