WMIS 07 Breathe With Me (6 page)

“Hundreds,” I reply and spread a thick quilt over the wooden pier, right at the edge and gesture for her to sit. It’s just starting to get dark and the lights around the lake are twinkling. A sailboat drifts by slowly and we wave at the captain. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” she says with a smile. “What did you bring me?”

“Salmon with salad and water and chocolate cupcakes for dessert.”

“Gimme.”

I chuckle and plate her meal, then my own and we eat in silence, watching the water.

“Still quiet out here,” she says.

“Mm.” I nod and watch her as she finishes her fish and salad and sets her plate back inside the cooler then takes my empty plate to join hers. “How are you, M?”

Her hands still for a moment, then she turns to me, pulls her knees to her chest and wraps her arms around her legs. “I’m getting better. It’s been a rough few months.”

I nod and frown. “I miss her too. Did she ever tell you that I still came to see her over the years whenever I was in town?”

“No.” She shakes her head sadly. “She knew that talking about you hurt me, so she never brought it up.”

I blink and watch her beautiful face. “I saw her at least once a year. I’d make repairs on the house and help her out in any way I could.”

“Thank you for that,” she whispers. “Mark, I’m sorry for the way it ended—”

“Stop.” I take her hand in mine and kiss her knuckles. “There’s nothing to apologize for, M. It was a long time ago.”

She nods and bites her lip but then shakes her head and presses on. “No, I need to say this. It’s important to me.” She squares her shoulders and clears her throat and I just lean back on my hands and listen. “I know it’s been a long time, but we never talked after that day, M. I didn’t
want
to break it off. I knew that that’s what I was doing, but it killed me. I’d been in dance class one day, and I wasn’t concentrating, and the teacher called me out on it. She knew I was daydreaming, and explained that I needed to get my head in the game.” She frowns and shifts like she can’t get comfortable, then shrugs. “I just knew that we were so young, and that if dance was what I wanted, I had to go for it.”

“I get it, Mer.” I push a piece of hair that’s fallen out of her bun behind her ear. “We were young. Chances are we would have broken up eventually. It hurt like crazy at the time, but hindsight is 20/20, right?”

She nods and releases her legs, crossing them in front of her.

“Tell me about New York,” I say unexpectedly, surprising us both, but I realize, I want to know everything about our time apart. Every detail. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything.”

“Really? You want to know?”

“Absolutely.” I let her hand go and take a sip of my water as I watch her gather her thoughts.

“I didn’t want to get on that plane,” she begins softly, her eyes off in the distance, watching the lights of the boats on the water. I can’t look away from her. Fuck, I’m still pulled to her in a way I’ve never been able to explain. It was there when I was seventeen damn years old, and it’s just as strong now. “It was torture, knowing I was leaving you. The first week was scary and so much harder than I ever thought it would be.”

She swallows and glances at me, then back at the boats, like she’s nervous, so I scoot next to her and link her fingers with mine.

“I found an apartment and started dancing right away. From day one, it was twelve to fourteen hour days, dancing pretty much nonstop. I met Jax that first week too.” She smiles as she thinks back on that time. “He was a couple years older, but also new to the area, so we bonded. He has quite the story to tell.” She frowns suddenly and then turns those baby blues up to mine. “Maybe someday he’ll tell you about it. Anyway, we worked pretty much all the time. Classes went late into the evening, so sometimes we’d just sleep there at the studio and then get up in the morning and start all over again.”

Holy shit. I knew it would be a lot of work, but I had no idea it was all-encompassing. Is this what she tried to tell me that day on her porch?

“I thought my body was conditioned for it, but I hurt everywhere for a year solid. My feet, my joints, my mind. I was constantly exhausted. The auditions were nerve-wracking. I ended up in some small parts in shows. I did the Grammys and Tonys and began to make a name for myself in the community.” She smiles proudly and I squeeze her hand.

“I’m so proud of you, M.”

“Thank you. It was a lot of work. Physical and mental. So much fucking competition. And oh my God, the things girls will do for parts! They’ll sleep with anyone!”

I immediately tense up and she laughs. “No, M, not me. But I admit, as I got older and the younger ones would come along, sniffing around a director or producer, my back immediately came up and I was like, ‘Oh no you don’t. You’re not going to sleep your way into my part.’”

“How did you end up touring?” I ask.

“You knew about that?”

“I paid attention,” I reply.

“Jax. He’s an awesome choreographer. The best there is. He choreographed shows for Justin, Beyonce and Pink. And then one day, Starla called.”

She smiles, lost in thought. Starla is a megastar, and I know that Mer toured with her for quite some time.

“Starla wanted Jax to choreograph her
Belladonna
tour, and he insisted that she hire us both, since we usually work together, especially when it comes to couples choreography, and she agreed. We had that gig for about four years.” She grins and takes a sip of water. “We traveled the world, M. I didn’t see much of it, because we worked so much, but it was fun to perform in front of all of those people every night. And Starla is just spectacular. What a performer. She works just as hard, if not harder than the rest of us.”

“You became friends.”

“We did.” She nods and shivers. I check my watch and realize that we’ve already been here for a couple hours. I grab a blanket for each of us, wrap one around Mer and then one around myself and sit, ready to listen to more. “And then Mom got sick.” Her voice turns softer and more distant, and she’s still watching the water like she’s watching it all play out like a movie. “I knew I had to come home. At first she didn’t want me to. She insisted that she was okay, and honestly if she’d still had Dad or Tiff here, I probably wouldn’t have come home when I did, but she had no one, M.”

I nod and rub her back soothingly, letting her talk.

“I was close to retirement age anyway.”

“You were twenty-seven.” My voice sounds exasperated to my own ears.

“Most dancers peak at twenty-five.” She shrugs, as if it is what it is. “Touring life gets old after a while, and Mom needed me.”

“Why did Jax come with you?”

“He’s older than me, and we’d been together since week one.” She bites her lip and watches me quietly for a moment. “Jax is the closest thing I’ve had to a sibling since Tiff died, M. We’d talked about opening a studio for a long time, and it felt like this was the time. And I’m glad we did. The studio is doing really well.”

“One more thing that I’m proud of you for,” I reply and kiss her knuckles again. “Keep going,” I say.

“Well, that’s pretty much it. The CliffsNotes version, anyway.”

“Will you go on tour again?” I hold my breath, waiting for her answer.
Please say no.

“No,” she shakes her head. “That time of my life is done. We have been asked to choreograph Starla’s routine for the VMA’s next month, so we’ll be in LA for a few days for that, but things like that will be hit and miss. Our business is here.”

“Why does Jax call you all of the crazy nicknames?” I ask.

“Oh.” She swallows and cringes. “Well, eating disorders are pretty common in the dance world. That’s no secret.”

My hands fist in spite of myself and my whole body stills as I think of her hurting herself that way.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t get caught in that trap. Well,” she cringes again and bites her lip. “There was one director who was just a hard ass. More so than anyone else. He told me I was too big in the boob area.” She rolls her eyes. “I can’t help that I have boobs. But I thought that if I went on a diet, I might loose some weight. Jax caught on and gave me a verbal tongue lashing.”

“Good for him,” I murmur, pissed that anyone would even
think
that Meredith is fat. If anything, she’s always been too slender.

“That director made snide comments about my chest almost every day. It was hell. But I was determined that he wasn’t going to make me quit. I worked my ass off on that job. Years later, he called and asked me to audition for another role, and I turned him down.”

“I bet that felt good.” God, she’s so fucking amazing. She’s turned into such a strong, confident woman.

“It was awesome to tell him to kiss my fat ass.” She giggles and leans her head on my shoulder. “So, ever since then, Jax calls me things like twinkie and cheesecake. It’s just a joke.”

“He seems like a funny guy.”

“One of the reasons we’re friends,” she says with a grin. “He makes me laugh. And he puts up with my moody shit. And there’s no chance in hell he’ll ever hit on me.”

“And for that, he’s
my
new best friend as well.”

She laughs and then grows quiet. The boats have slowed down and the crickets and frogs around us are talking. It’s late in the evening now, but I have no intention to leave any time soon.

“And you? What are you doing with that impressive science degree of yours?”

“How did you know I got a science degree?”

“We still know a lot of the same people, you know.”

I take a deep breath and nod. “I’m not doing a damn thing with it. I worked on fishing boats in Alaska for a while, and now I’m working construction.”

“Okay, that’s the extreme CliffsNotes version. Expand, please.”

I sigh and push my hand through my messy hair. Fuck, I need a haircut. I always need a haircut.

“My degree was in aerospace engineering.”

“Holy shit,” she replies with wide eyes. “You’re a fucking rocket scientist?”

“No, I’m not. Haven’t you been listening?”

“That’s just semantics. You could be a rocket scientist. How did you manage to do that so quickly?”

I shrug and watch an owl fly over the lake. “After you left, all I did was study. I worked my ass off to get through college as quickly as possible. I was consumed with formulas and algorithms and if I was exhausted from school and work, I couldn’t concentrate on missing you.”

I cringe and look over to see her eyes fill with tears again. “It’s okay, M,” she whispers. “It’s the truth. I did the same with dance.”

“So, I got my undergrad and master’s in five years and then decided I didn’t want to live in a lab. I went to Alaska with a buddy of mine from college one summer. He worked the boats to put himself through college. I liked the solitude of it. I made good money.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Her eyes are wide as she watches me.

“It can be.” I’m not about to tell her about the times that I was so scared my bowels wanted to give out on me. No need to burden her with that.

“What brought you back to Seattle?” She lies on her side, her head supported on her elbow and watches me silently.

“My brother got married to Natalie and it just seemed like there was a lot going on with my family that I’d be missing.”

“Luke has a beautiful family,” she replies, that wistful tone back in her voice.

“They’re amazing,” I reply softly and let my eyes travel over her beautiful face. “The Montgomerys have become part of our family too. So, I decided I’d been away from home long enough and came back a couple years ago, around the time Jules and Nate married. Jules’ oldest brother owns a construction company and I run one of his crews.”

“I’m surprised.”

My eyes find hers as I cock an eyebrow. “Why?”

“You loved science.”

“I loved you more,” I reply without thinking and then wish I could pull the words back and throw them in the water.

Real smooth, Williams.

She clenches her eyes closed and then sits up and gazes over at me. “Do you know, whenever I got nervous, whether it was in an audition, or right before a show…
whatever
, it was your voice I heard?
Breathe with me, M.
I clung to that more times than I can tell you. You were with me, every day. Even when I tried to forget you.”

“Were there other men?” I ask with a steel in my voice I can’t hide.

“It’s been ten years. Are you going to tell me you never slept with anyone in ten years?”

I blink at her and then look out at the water myself. “No, I can’t tell you that.”

“I’m not going to give you a play by play, M, because I don’t want that from you either. It would fucking kill me.” Her voice is strong and sure when I turn my gaze back to hers. “But I’ll say this: you will never know how much I wished for you. Even though I knew it was selfish and wrong, I just wanted
you.
”

I open my blanket and pull her against me, rest my lips on her forehead and relish how it feels to have her in my arms. She buries her face in my neck, the way she always did, and takes in a long, deep breath.