CURTAIN CALL: Driven Dance Theater Romance Series Book 1 (Standalone) Read online

  I lead him to the fun house. How scary can a fun house be?

  “Okay, but you have to finish your cotton candy first.” He tears off some of the fluffy pink ball that he bought at the canteen and waits for me to open my mouth, which I do reluctantly. But he pulls the fuzz away from me at the last minute and places it in his own mouth.

  “Who are you?” I blink up at him.

  “What, did you want some?” He tears off another hunk, stuffs it in his own mouth, and chews like it’s supposed to make me jealous. I roll my eyes and shake my head. He smiles at me, having way too much fun, and tears off a tiny piece, presenting it to me to make amends. I lick it back as he watches me and then grab a handful from the wad and shove it into my mouth as he laughs.

  We hand over our tickets, and the children’s ride takes us through a maze of shifting floors and rotating walkways with funny noises and tacky murals. I have to keep myself from looking at him, because every time I do I almost die laughing. Just seeing the man who intimidates everyone by his mere presence in a fun house, being silly, and wearing a ball cap is enough to lose it.

  He gives me a look of warning when I laugh at him, and I zip my lips together in response. For a while I forget who we are, or at least who he is, and we’re both lost in the moment, being goofballs.

  I’m thinking about how glad I am he suggested this absurdity when we reach the part of the ride with fun house mirrors. I grab his hand. “No way.” That’s until he lets go of my hand and starts walking toward one of the mirrors. If I was laughing at him before, I fold over, clutching my gut, when he steps in front of the one that makes him short and wide. He eyes me with warning, and I force a straight face, as does he, but we are both barely holding back the laughter. He waves me over.

  I stand my ground. But he scoops me under the butt and I squeal as he throws me over his shoulder before standing me in front of the mirror. He doesn’t take no for an answer. I try to avoid looking at my warped image.

  “I am horizontally challenged as it is,” I blurt without thinking, and his lips drop out of a smile. I try to laugh again, but it comes out awkward. I slide my hands into my pockets, and my shoulders creep up.

  He looks at me in a serious way, placing his hands on either side of my neck. “Why would you say that? You’re gorgeous, Branwen.” He moves closer so we’re both in the frame and tucks his chin over my shoulder. Even a fun house mirror could not take away from his beauty.

  “You said it yourself. I am curvier than most dancers, I have an ‘untraditional body,’ remember?” Not that it matters anymore. I brush it off. “Come on, this ride is for kids. Let’s try another one.” I pull away from his grip and walk out of the fun house to the paved fairground. Kent is still looking at me, and I can’t bear to catch him in the eye. I don’t know how things got to be so intense again, but I guess it’s unavoidable with him.

  He rubs the back of his neck. “If I’d meant it, I wouldn’t have hired you.” His gaze becomes distant. He stops himself.

  “That was ages ago. Let’s get a slice of pizza.” I try my best to abandon this uncomfortable topic so we can get back to the unusually light-hearted mood that was making this one of the best days I’ve had in years. I want to go back to the carefree side of him and pretend to be conventional, even if we suck at it.

  He swallows, and that “director” tension is back. He’s not going to let it go. “I did that to create a distance between us, because I felt something the first time I saw you. I’ve been resisting it ever since. I’m tired of resisting, even if it’s the right thing to do.”

  There’s a genuine, if tight, opening in his eyes, and that’s enough for me. Did he really just admit what I think he did? It explains a lot, and I want to acknowledge it, but it seems too presumptuous. I don’t want to have to think so hard. All I want is to be in the moment with him again.

  “I still can’t believe you’re wearing a ball cap.” I shoot him a playful look over my shoulder and pull him by the hand to the pizza stand line.

  We suck down an extra-large plain cheese pizza with extra tomato sauce, my favorite. The pizza eating is much less creative than the cotton candy, and I think about challenging him to see who can put a whole slice inside their mouth at once. But it’s no use—my mood is not coming around. There are more serious things on my mind.

  “Do you ever think about what it would be like to have a different life?” I ask Kent, curious what it would be like to spend quality time with this side of him more often and wondering how much more of this side there is to develop.

  His oblique eyes are focused when he turns the question back to me. He has no idea how much I think about having another life, especially because the decision might be made for me, and it makes me more afraid than anything has before. Yet, there isn’t anything more relevant.

  “In this other life, hypothetically speaking, where do you think we would live?” He eyes me while reaching for a slice of pizza. I’m about to stop and ask him if he really used the word we when my imagination kicks into gear.

  “Well…” I dab my greasy lips with a napkin and think about what he is asking me. “We would definitely have to live in a proper house with a yard, so Manhattan would be out of the question. Because our two-and-a-half kids and our dog and cat would need a house, and the city wouldn’t be a very safe place, and I am not sure we could afford it anyway. Plus, I’ve always wanted to live in a house and have my own yard, haven’t you?”

  He smiles lazily as I sip on soda through a straw, tilting my gaze at him. He leans his elbows on the table. “Hypothetically speaking—if we were to sell the Manhattan penthouse that the Driven board gifted me—where would this house be?”

  That’s a good question, especially now that he’s increased our budget drastically. I cross one leg over the other and roll my ankle in a circle. I grew up in Santa Barbara and my dad lives there, which means there’s no way I am going back now. But if that look on Kent’s face in Cayman when we were on the beach together could be recreated every single day, now that would be something to fantasize about.

  “What about North Carolina? I’ve heard it’s nice and has great normal potential.” And they have amazing beaches. I press the straw of my drink to my smiling lips, having fun.

  “I like North Carolina,” Kent says, looking at me in a different way. And I like pretending that I fit inside his make-believe world, and the fact that he is able to imagine me there at all.

  What the hell? Are we really fantasizing about our future life together when we aren’t even dating?

  “We need a white picket fence, of course.” I quickly change the topic back to fantasyland. “Or else the dog might run away chasing a neighborhood cat and get hit by a car.” Okay, that might have been a bit gory.

  The conversation gets my imagination going, and I can’t help adding more and more details to this pretend life as we gaze at each other.

  “We would obviously work extremely undemanding jobs from nine till five, and then every evening we would have lots of energy leftover to cook dinner together. You would mow the lawn, and I would help the children with their homework. We would walk the dog side by side while the sun sets, and on weekends…” I sigh because this is my favorite part. “On the summer weekends… we would have a family picnic day at the beach. Let’s say it’s every Sunday, and we’d pack up the Jeep.”

  Kent is still watching me.

  “Do you like Jeeps?” I ask, and he nods. “Anyway, so we pack up the Jeep with our coolers, towels, blankets, and beach chairs, Frisbees, water toys, and such. And we set up an umbrella so our kids don’t get sun cancer, and lather lots of sunscreen on them, maybe I read a novel—one that has no artistic value whatsoever—and spit sunflower seeds into a cup, and you play football or Frisbee with the kids, and then we bury them in the sand and they giggle while we take pictures, which will undoubtedly go on our fridge and on our desks at our very undemanding workplaces.”

  Kent smirks, still looking at me in his intense
way, with his head propped on his muscled forearm. Is it my imagination, or is that a look of peace on his face?

  “Hypothetically speaking,” I add, while I examine his face for a response. There isn’t much to latch onto other than that sexy smirk, which makes me want to take him back to our suburban paradise, rip off his normal clothes, and make those damn babies already.

  “Hypothetically speaking,” he repeats. His eyes look heavy, his grin is crooked, and his eyes are somber. But even with the ball cap on and in this odd environment, you can see the genius oozing out of his pores. If Kent Morgan were to trade in what he has for something so simple, it would be a supreme waste of talent, and even though he discusses the vision with longing, and it does sound very nice, he, like me, would never be satisfied. It is just a fantasy, and it would never work out.

  “But you and I were not made for mediocrity.” I finish up my drink and crumple my napkin onto the empty paper plate on the table.

  He clears his throat, rolling his shoulders back and squaring his tall posture. He pulls off the ball cap and rakes his fingers through his hair. “This hat is making me itchy, and don’t forget, we’re expected at the fundraiser soon.” There’s a sinking sound in his voice that reverberates in me.

  “Divine,” Londyn purrs, eyeing the room.

  Polite smiles, fake laughs, and endless back patting set the choreography. The dancers mingle with their postures ramrod straight and toes turned out, like marching penguins.

  “Only The God would have a fundraiser like this.” Sterling moans in my ear. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen Mr. Larger-Than-Life since this afternoon. And then I think of him mowing the lawn in a ball cap, and I can’t help but smile to myself.

  Daniela brushes by me, her high-profile parents hanging off her arms like souvenirs. They fail to recognize me or look me in the eye, even though they’ve seen me dance a zillion times at Julliard. Her mom once complained about having to clean the sheets after I slept at their Long Island home one night, as though she had to wash them herself and I wasn’t standing right there to hear her.

  Then the birds stop chirping, and the clinking of glasses winds down to silence. Kent walks into the room like the tsunami he is, wearing a slightly upgraded suit. He’s immediately pulled into the tight circle Daniela and family are occupying, adding to their collection of adornments. I look for someone easy to talk to like Sterling, almost afraid to be alone in case Charles shows up. He wouldn’t, would he? He was no longer Driven’s biggest backer.

  I decide to freshen up in the ladies’ room. I wash my hands, lathering the pump soap from the wall in my palms before drying my hands and placing my purse on the counter. I open it up and click open a powder to dust my nose.

  With time to kill, I floss my teeth, and I’m practicing one of my favorite sections of choreography in the mirror—when two women’s voices emerge from behind the bathroom door. I quickly hide in the closest stall, embarrassed about the breakout dancing.

  It’s Daniela and her mom in a heated conversation. They walk to my section of the large bathroom and stop at the counter in front of the mirror. There’s the sound of a zipper opening and a lid lifting off a tube of lipstick.

  “You’re always relying on your father and I to save the day. It would be nice if just once we didn’t have to do your dirty work.” I can imagine Mrs. Harrington primping in the mirror. She smacks her lips together.

  “Maybe if you’d been around more, I would have learned a few things about being enterprising.”

  “Is that the nonsense that expensive psychiatrist feeds you?” Her mother scoffs. “What a waste of money.” She leaves the washroom, and I hear Daniela lean against the counter and let out a pained moan. Is she crying? It’s so hard to imagine. The bathroom door closes, and the faucet runs. Daniela blows her nose in a paper towel and lets out a heavy breath; her heels click on the floor. I try to keep quiet, but there’s a tickle in my throat. I suppress it, but a small hack emerges. The clicking stops, and the room is silent. I freeze, and—phew—she walks out the door.

  Sterling approaches me in the main hall “What’s your pain?” He looks around the room.

  “I have a bad feeling about all of this. It’s such hypocrisy. Who are we anyway? Do we even matter?” A pastry puff rectangle goes down the wrong tube, and I violently cough.

  “We are artists,” Sterling says. “Do you need Heimlich?”

  I wave. I’m okay. “Are you sure we aren’t pawns?”

  “Depends how you look at it. By the way, I can see all the way down to your panties when you bend over.”

  This dress is pretty low cut. I claw at it.

  “Another thing: you should stare less at The God. He has a big enough head as it is.” Sterling leans into me, but I’m not paying attention. “You and everyone else. I just hope he cuts the crap and gets to his presidential speech already.” He yanks on his black jacket collar. Daniela keeps it low-key after what I overheard.

  Then that lead ball winds up into full swing: the financier I saw with Kent has her hand on his shoulder, and she whispers in his ear.

  Boom.

  Sterling taps away at his phone and gives me a grim look. “You aren’t going to believe the latest Driven tweets. There are a few of them.” Sterling hands me his phone and I read the text below: “Kent Morgan’s new focus Branwen O’Hara left this town four years ago and for good reason. Click to see why.” It’s been a while since I last looked at the embarrassing video; it was something I tended to avoid, but what the hell. I take the phone as the old painful clip ends by playing the same words over: kill myself, kill myself, kill myself.” Sterling sucks a breath high into his chest.

  “These tweets are under Driven’s name?” I swallow. How is that even possible? My voice shakes.

  “They’re actually retweets from someone called Drivenless, and they are getting a huge following. But don’t worry, you’re not the only one whose getting the shit kicked out of them.” Sterling looks at me, but all I can do is look at Kent, who is still talking to his ‘friend.’

  “When I said ‘kill myself,’ it was part of a larger sentence. Daniela edited it, and anyway I was speaking hypothetically, not for real. I was upset.” My words are haphazard, because the public humiliation doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it did.

  “We’re artists. Being a drama queen is part of the job.” Sterling cocks his lip. “I’m going to bug Londyn. Let me know if anything interesting happens.” Sterling struts away.

  A warm hand slides up my back, and I spin around in a zing of electricity. Armani suits are so hot they should really be illegal. After our afternoon together and shared fantasy, Kent looks more handsome to me than ever, like a well-blended version of his two personas.

  “How are you making out?” He scrubs the back of his neck with a crooked grin. My spirits are already lifting.

  “I hate this shit.” I smile and look over the room as he rolls his eyes in a way that says, you have no idea. Normal sounds pretty good about now.

  “I keep thinking of you packing that Sunday picnic in your ball cap. Would the sandwiches be chicken salad, or maybe Italian cold cuts on a sourdough bun?”

  “Cold cuts,” he grins, and my hearts lurches.

  “You make the best homemade potato salad; it’s on the left side of the bottom shelf of the fridge in a glass container all ready to go.” I blink up at him. “I’ll slice fresh strawberries on the counter beside you as the munchkins and fur babies chase each other around the sofa.”

  “Branwen.” His tone switches to serious as he pulls his grip from mine. There’s a dark look in his eyes.

  I really don’t like the look in his eyes.

  “We need to talk.”

  He’s probably right.

  But the sound of a microphone being adjusted cracks over the room. We both look up at the stage before Kent dashes toward it, only to be stopped by the woman who didn’t want to wash my sheets, her voice ringing through the ballroom.

  The roo
m becomes otherwise silent.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, it is our honor to have you as our guests this evening. My husband and I are proud to have been the biggest sponsors of Driven this past year and during its recent explosion of success. We need you to join us in our mission more than ever, to see that this world-class company continues to bring high art to our beautiful city. In honor of our ongoing contribution and friendship with Driven Dance Theater, we’d like to take this opportunity to announce that our talented daughter Daniela Harrington will be taking the lead in the upcoming performances. I am sure this will come as no surprise, as she was the star that helped make this company famous. Thank you for your generous patronage, and please have a wonderful night.”

  I swear you can hear it if you close your eyes and strain your ears—there are a million tiny insects buzzing away. Buzzing just enough for you to wonder if they are really there, or if you are slowly going mad.

  People are talking to me, but I’m not listening. I shouldn’t be that shocked, but I am. Maybe it was the execution. There was something grim about it: rigged. I look for Kent and can’t see him. Sterling is missing too. So many people are staring at me. It’s YouTube all over again.

  An apprentice stares at me with pity in her eyes, Lexi mutters something under her breath, the woman that was with Kent crosses her arms over her chest with a smirk.

  Londyn. I look up, and her focus sifts toward me from a few bodies away. I turn around and bump into Daniela and the Harringtons. Mrs. Harrington is smiling from ear to ear, and her voice is bubbling over, like it belongs to a different human than the one who was in the washroom earlier. Daniela swallows back the champagne and nods by her side, hardly triumphant. She looks small and lost. More like the unloved little girl crying in the washroom.

  “Congratulations.” I am being genuine about it, but there’s no way I can smile. Sometimes more than anything I just wish Daniela and I could go back to being friends. I never understood how she could turn on me the way she did. We did everything together.