“Well, I think if you can’t fight in a relationship,” Declan offers, trying to smooth over the situation like he was bound to, “then it’s not a completely great relationship in the first place.”
“Oh, says Mister ‘We never fight’,” Kaelan laughs.
“Maybe not fight but discuss,” Declan amends sheepishly.
“Yes, he loves his discussions,” Karin smiles at him sweetly, taking his hand next to her orange juice. “Always speaks his mind, that one.” The way he squeezes her hand back tells him he understood the dig just fine.
Their day off comes and goes, much like the following couple of days, without Karin and Declan gaining any clarity on the Karin and Declan of it at all. After the night of the Baby Challenge Elimination, Karin had started to let herself hope again, but two days later, she’s barely even sure that it happened at all in the first place. Whenever they are alone, Declan is pleasant but aloof. There is no other way to say it.
He doesn’t broach the subject of sex anymore. He doesn’t really broach any topic other than superficial playing around. He campaigns hard for a brand new show and then they watch some sitcom every night until he conveniently falls asleep during it. Outside of their room when there are cameras and people around, though, he’s tactile as ever. He massages her neck and shoulders whenever they’re in reach and his hands aren’t otherwise occupied. The night before they’re meant to get started on shooting the challenge for episode three, while watching a movie with Kaidan and Kaelan, he actually pulls her half on his chest and starts rubbing her back. There are no cameras. This is entirely for their competitors’ benefit but Declan goes for it with a vengeance anyway.
Ten minutes into the movie, she wonders if he plans on ever stopping. Twenty minutes in, he is still doing it and it’s making her drowsy. She can’t help it and she wants to be a little frustrated with him because of certain reasons but she can’t. She’s just so comfortable. Eventually, during a car chase happening on screen, his fingers dip under the hem of her shirt where it rides up at the back because she’s lying curled up, her arms folded on his thigh. He stops in his tracks and pulls back his fingers, but Karin isn’t having it.
“Please,” she whispers, which should do the trick, and cranes her neck up to look at him. He stares at her for a second, like she’s just brought on some sort of existential crisis with her request, but then he works his hand back to where it had slipped before as Karin puts her head back down on his leg. Next thing she knows, Karin has lost all interest in the movie, all of her focus devoted to the way Declan’s fingertips run up and down in circles on the skin of her lower back. She tries really hard not to sigh and moan by accident, but it’s a task and a half. He adjusts her a couple times, probably because her weight is unevenly balanced on him, her sharp cheekbones cutting into his flesh where she lies. The last time he does it, towards the end of the flick, he half-pulls her hair to move her head a little to the side, and that’s the one time she can’t hold back the moan. He tenses under her and she feels embarrassed. He isn’t really supposed to know how much she liked that just now, how much she would really like to ask him to do it again. Just a bit harder, maybe. Of course she doesn’t. She just stays where she is as the movie ends.
Stubbornly, she doesn’t move for the entire time the credits roll either, putting her weight harder on Declan’s body, just to keep him there. However, he doesn’t seem antsy to pull away, either. In fact, his hand is still underneath her shirt when the credits are all the way over and the DVD menu is back flashing on the screen. It’s still there when Kaidan and Kaelan say goodnight, and she counts 23 long seconds after they have rounded the corner into the living room and out of sight until Declan finally stops touching her. He retracts his hand from her back and gives it one last pat above the reinstated platonic boundary of her shirt. “We’re done,” is what that pat says and she takes it, because what else is she going to do? Throw a fit because he won’t keep touching her when the show is over?
That was never what they agreed on and one forehead kiss isn’t going to change that, even if it had been the hottest forehead kiss in the history of mankind, potentially. It had been like all the other impulsive things Declan has ever done – it probably felt good to him in the moment and then lost its appeal once he’d tried it. Like getting a platinum blonde buzz-cut in middle school or buying his own home even though he could barely afford it. It’s all very par for the course, she doesn’t know why she’s even surprised.
She pushes herself up from his knee and then sits, watching him stretch beside her. Inevitably, his shirt hikes up, revealing his abs which she has seen a lot, it’s not a new sight, alright, but it’s still unnecessary.
“Thank you,” she tells him when he’s done.
“For what?” He asks her and yawns heartily.
“The hands, you know,” she glances over her shoulder to indicate her back so he gets it faster. “It was comfortable.”
“Yes, no problem,” he says, voice almost comically shaky and looks at his feet.
Why was he behaving so strangely?
“So, I’m going to head to bed,” she tells him, rises from the couch and fully doesn’t expect him to enlighten her, simply going off of those past few days. When he doesn’t follow, she looks down at him quizzically. “Do you want to watch another episode?”
“Yes,” he nods but doesn’t move. “I’ll just stay here for a second and then I’ll be there.”
“Declan?” She raises her eyebrows. Does he have another situation?
“Please, don’t say anything,” he says, not meeting her eye, not even lifting his head. “I’m working on it.”
“We could also just talk about it, you know?” Karin says, starting out at full volume and then dropping to a whisper when she hears Courtney and Bobby come back from a late night swim, wet feet slapping down the marble tiles in the living room.
“What’s the point?” He says and then his jaw clenches so hard, she fully expects it to snap at any moment. “It’s just a guy thing.”
Is it just her or does it sound like he’s frustrated with her? Why is he angry at her? She didn’t do anything to his dick tonight, she kept her very respectful distance, she’s sure of it. It’s not her fault that he moved from embracing getting turned from the pretend kissing to feeling disgusted by it. She can’t control his responses, so what is he mad at her for?
If possible, her eyebrows climb even further towards her hairline, but she can tell by the way he holds his body that he’s done talking now. He looks exactly like he had at ten and eleven, when he got out of one of his temper tantrums and afterwards punished the whole world for existing by shutting it out. It’s fine, if he wants to act like a child instead of a mature adult who could confront awkward situations to make them less awkward, she doesn’t have to sit around and watch him do it. She’s watched half of the episode by the time he gets in bed and she wordlessly starts it over from the top. She knows that if she didn’t, he’d ask her every two minutes what happened before and since he doesn’t want to talk, they’re simply not going to be talking. See how he likes that.
For all intents and purposes, Declan does not seem to care that they’re not talking. Not when they go to sleep after a second episode and not in the morning. At noon, just before the production team gets in to set up for the taping of the new challenge announcement and then getting started on whatever new task they have come up with for them, he finally breaks, though. He’s standing in the kitchen, getting a refill of Courtney’s homemade lemonade when he decides to play unfairly in order to get her to acknowledge him again, which is by exposing her. He does care after all then, she muses.
“The only thing that’s freezing me out today, is my girlfriend,” he says, a lame pun on something about the freezer and the ice cubes for the lemonade and Courtney and Bobby chuckle, sitting at their spot at the kitchen island. Always the same spot, with Courtney standing beside Bobby, sitting on a bar stool, with her arm draped leisurely around his
shoulder so they look like they are constantly photo-ready. Bobby laughs at Declan’s joke and Courtney makes a face.
“Oh, trouble in paradise?” the blonde coos but there’s an edge to it, somewhere at the base note of her tone. It makes Karin remember instantly that this is still a competition.
“She’s mad at me because I spoiled a movie ending for her,” Declan sighs pitifully, lying shamelessly through his teeth. “And I apologized a million times, but she still won’t forgive me.”
This is just vile because now she has no choice. Now she has to be adoring and funny and tell him that it’s fine and walk over to him to let him pull her against his frame and tuck her hair back between her ears and purr a “Thank you, babe,” when he compliments the tight white summer dress she has picked for the challenge announcement. She has to pretend she isn’t freezing him out all the way to them sitting down under the gazebo, eyes trained on Tag who is poised to begin.
“You’re not off the hook,” she whispers to him, just before they start rolling. “We’re going to have to talk about this stuff eventually.”
It’s remarkable how fast his face switches from obvious unease at her words to well-spirited adoration, the moment they call out that they’re rolling on the first take of the day and the cameras start recording their every move. She is not angry at him for it, not per se, but she also isn’t particularly happy with him either. Plastering a grin onto her face, she turns around to watch Tag get powdered down one last time before everything is set up and he talks freely, like he always does. He might not be the most talkative or even approachable fellow when the lights go down but he’s definitely a pro, always well prepared and hitting all his marks on camera. Karin has to respect that.
“Couples, for this week’s challenge our motto is ‘Take Me Dancing’ and it’s, you guessed it, all about movement,” he announces and Karin perks up where she stands in between Declan and Kaidan. Dancing! That’s perfect.
“In your two-part challenge you will plan, shoot and edit your own music video to a random song drawn from this cute jukebox that I have right here,” Tag continues. “And for the second part, prepare a three-minute choreography to a song of your choice to put on a show complete with costumes and makeup sizzling enough to convince your fellow contestants that your chemistry with your partner is also in the dance.”
Karin and Declan turn around to grin at each other at the exact same time. He’s annoyingly unclear about his intentions and frustratingly evasive with any tangible communication, but as her partner in this competition, he’s right there on the same page with her. If the challenge is dancing, they have already won and it’s the fierce competitors in both of them that smirk at each other already triumphant. The others have seen nothing yet. Karin and Declan are going to crush this. He winks at her, confident and a little smug. She loves it.
“Now, obviously not all of you are born dancers, so we have a special surprise for you,” Tag goes on and Karin resists the urge to turn her head towards the commotion left of them from behind the bushes. “Two people who live, eat and breathe dance, namely ballet dance.”
Next to her, Declan gets antsy with heightened curiosity, this is getting more and more up their alley by the second. To the left of the gazebo, a man and a woman appear with Marietta as she points out the spot where they’re going to walk into the frame of Hank’s camera. Declan grabs Karin’s hand and holds it tightly just as she recognizes who they are.
“Please give a very warm welcome to your dance coaches and guest-judging couple of the week,” Tag hollers. “Sinea Lacoste and Foster Demmet!”
Everybody claps. Everybody but Karin and Declan, because he won’t let go of her hand in his clasp. “Karin!” he hisses, voice buzzing like a live wire.
“I know,” she whispers back. Those are his favorite dancers of all time.
“Oh god,” he mutters, breathless. He’s so boyishly flustered and excited that, try as she might, Karin can’t keep being grumpy with him. His eyes are lit up like Times Square and he’s still clutching her hand, like she’s the only thing keeping him from bursting.
It’s not every day that a small town’s resident dance instructor gets to meet ballet royalty like them. Karin honestly can’t count the hours Declan has made her sit through watching their dances, picking them apart and asking her to help him stage an approximate of this or that move into his body so he can then teach it to his own students. She knows he met them in passing once, but he’d been too afraid to say anything which was saying a lot considering the type of person Declan is, how outgoing, unafraid and confident, the fact that he was too nervous to approach Sinea and Foster when he had the chance to, leaves no doubt in her mind that this is a big deal for him.
“Sinea and Foster, legendary dancers,” Tag says, introducing them once they have joined him under the far end of the gazebo, almost close enough to touch. “What dance secrets are you prepared to pass down onto our contenders?”
“Well, we are going to be working with each and every couple,” Sinea starts, a heavy and charming French accent coloring her speech, “to create a vision for their music video as well as a nice ballroom or Latin routine that plays to their strengths and illustrates the dynamic of their relationship.”
“Yes, our goal will be to bring the couple’s love out in their dancing,” Foster agrees, his accent a little less pronounced but still there. “To make it visible in the movement.”
“You do have experience with that, since you are also husband and wife in real life, aren’t you?” Tag asks.
“Yes, we are married, so we will of course also be having an eye on the chemistry and individual partnerships here,” Sinea replies with a sly grin.
“We’ll be very observant, so maybe at the final vote, we will be able to spot the fake couple ourselves,” Foster agrees.
“This will be fun!” His wife chirps.
“We’re counting on it!” Tag enthuses with his bright, TV-ready smile. “Now, before you have a chance to get to know our couples, I would be remiss not to tell you that you have a giant fan in our midst.” In a flash, Declan crushes Karin’s hand enough for her to wince, but he doesn’t let go. “He has been coaching since his teens and danced himself as a kid. When we asked him who his favorite dancers were he said your names so fast!”
“We’ve already heard,” Foster smiles kindly and looks at the four couples in front of him, eyes eventually landing on them, likely because Declan has gone rigid and short of breath beside Karin.
“Sinea and Foster, meet Declan,” Tag says, confirming Foster’s suspicion, and starts walking the dancers towards Rinny and her fake boyfriend who is having a very real moment of panic.
Karin’s eyes flit from the dancers to Declan, to the dancers and back to Declan as they shake hands. Declan barely manages a “Hi,” and he’s blushing fiercely and sounds thirteen and adorably shy.
“So nice to meet you,” Sinea says and follows her handshake with a hug in face of Declan’s adorable fluster.
“Oh my god, this is so great,” he mutters, like he can’t believe this is really happening and then clears his throat, visibly fighting for composure, for some semblance of coolness, and puts his arm around Karin. “This is my girlfriend, Rinny. I mean, Rinny.” He shakes his head sheepishly, as if to get it to function properly again. “I mean, Karin.”
Karin chuckles and gets a hug from Sinea and Foster, too. It’s not that she isn’t excited to meet them as well, but she keeps it together so that Declan can freak out in peace, which is why she refrains from squealing when a few hours later the four of them - Karin, Declan, Sinea and Foster - are standing in the nearby tennis club’s gym turned impromptu dance studio, starting to work on the concept for their music video.
For full disclosure before they start shooting, Karin tells their coaches about her injury and about how sometimes she has to take a break and walk a bit of the tension off but that she is fine to dance most styles for a couple of hours at a time. Sinea runs her palm so
othingly down Karin’s back as she recounts the story of quitting ballet and tells her she understands, having such bad luck spoil a huge opportunity is something she knows from her life as an amateur dancer, from the biggest possible stage.
“But so, what?” Sinea says and shrugs, “So, we withdrew from Dancesport. Bad things happen. It was terrible at the time, but it didn’t ruin my life. Now, I have a wonderful family and a great marriage; I don’t need a trophy to make me happy. Every setback is good for something, I believe that. Without your turn of fate, maybe you and Declan would never have ended up here. That would be sad because then we could not work together.”
The theme of “what if’s” winds itself through the whole training session. They’re resurfacing time and time again. At first though, as Karin and Declan warm up in a corner while Brody and Gorman go through some production-related things with Sinea and Foster, the only ‘what if’ that’s on the front of Declan’s mind is ‘What if I make a fool of myself in front of my dance heroes?’
“I’m panicking,” he whispers to her, stretching into almost a split on the floor.
“I can see that,” she says.
“I can’t dance, Rinny. I’m not a dancer like you,” he whines. “They’re going to laugh me out of the room.”
“Declan, you’re fine,” she reassures him. He might not have the most refined moves but he has a great innate ability to feel music and that surely constitutes as a definite strength. “You just have to let go a bit. Don’t be afraid to get big.”
Stay With Me 2 Page 7
