Stay With Me 2

by Jessica Aniston

Declan pauses and tilts his head at her, frowning at the innuendo she only realizes she made in that second. “Get big? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” she huffs.

  From the other side of the room, Sinea claps her hands and when Karin looks up, she sees that Gorman’s already filming. It is also why Sinea recaps their task description once again, even if they just went through the challenge in detail on the way over. Now it’s exposition for the viewers. “As you know, for your music video challenge, you are supposed to build a story around the song you have drawn from the jukebox.” Theirs is an upbeat but sensual pop song. “But because it’s very hard to plan and choreograph a full-length song, you’re supposed to build your project around the unused footage from your home story. So for the two of you, we actually have footage of you dancing together, which is obviously a special treat for me and Foster.”

  Sinea picks up a tablet from a nearby chair that Brody undoubtedly put there before they started rolling and meets Karin and Declan in the middle of the room.

  “Let’s see what we’re working with, alright?” Foster says, trailing after his wife. “Oh God,” Declan groans at the prospect of the two of them seeing him and Karin dance.

  “He’s shy now,” she tells the dancers, watching Declan fidget so badly, it looks like he’s trying to pry the skin off his one hand with the other. “Come on, it’s not bad.”

  Together they watch the three minutes of dance footage they managed to get from the three hours on the small dance floor. Declan winces beside her the entire time, even if what they did is quite decent.

  “That wasn’t bad at all!” Foster says at the end of it, giving Declan’s back a few encouraging pats. “You just dance together for fun?”

  “Yes, it was an hour or two every other week,” Karin replies. “We choreograph a little for his dancers.”

  “That move you’re doing is very impressive,” Sinea says and sounds genuinely impressed. “Very advanced.”

  “It’s our one big trick,” Declan mutters shyly, his neck flushed red and still not looking at either of them.

  “Either way, it is beautiful,” Foster reiterates. “Why did you never make this a dance partnership?”

  “Declan already had a partner and I was accepted into ballet school,” Karin shrugs, “and when he and his partner split, I was in training full-time. So it was never really a possibility.”

  “Your connection is really good, very natural and powerful. We can work with that, definitely,” Sinea praises and then adds, after considering for a moment: “You know you would have had spectacular potential together.”

  There it is again. The ‘what if.’ Karin thinks about it a lot as they set out to build an off the floor choreography to go with the footage they already have. During the process, choreographing with Declan, collaborating with Sinea and Foster to find ways to work around and into the music, she ponders what a life she might have lived if things had been different. It’s because the truth is, this whole effort is fun. For the first time in forever she feels like she is doing something with purpose, with a fire in her heart. School and waitressing and all the things she fills her time with fails in comparison to working with Declan and what the most incredible thing is: choreographing doesn’t hurt. Yes, after the allotted three hours her shins are burning but her body feels light nonetheless. She isn’t sad, she’s quite the opposite.

  In bed that night, they are too busy recapping the day to be strange with each other, they talk through everything like overly-excited teenagers who have just met their favorite pop star until they remind themselves that they need their rest if they want to perform well in the morning.

  “Do you think it’s true what Sinea said?” Declan asks her in the dark after they technically already said goodnight, because apparently that is one of those ‘what if’s that won’t quite let him rest. “About us dancing together?”

  “Maybe,” Karin muses. “In another life.”

  “Dancesport champions Karin Hanson and Declan Shelton. Wow,” Declan says, as if he was a sports announcer. Then stays silent for a while, apparently having turned what he says next over in his head a couple of times. “I think I would have kept going with you. I wouldn’t have quit.”

  “Oh, you would have gotten sick of me so fast,” she says, even if his confidence in making that statement tugs at her heart more than a little. “Training day in and day out, grumpy in the morning. The hours we’d have spent together,” she huffs. They’d have had to spend nearly every waking hour together to accomplish something like winning Dancesport. “Besides, you hate my cold hands.”

  “I wouldn’t have,” Declan insists. “I’d have bought you gloves. If anything, you’d have gotten sick of me.”

  “The sad thing is, I really don’t think so,” she mutters, quiet and honest.

  “Yes, right,” he chuckles. “So we’d have just been dancing together forever?”

  “Who knows?” Karin asks and rolls to her side to look at him. “Why not?”

  Maybe there is still a little room for strangeness, because for a moment he looks at her like the thought of having spent all those years dancing with her day in and day out is some really magical, wonderful thought. It makes Karin’s heart grow full to bursting, the expression on his face and the thought of being together with him for life, even though it’s not exactly in the way she would like.

  “I’m sorry I was an idiot all day,” he mutters, at long last. “After this is all over, we’ll talk about, everything. I promise. But let’s just try and get through this thing first, alright?”

  “I just wish you would trust me a little bit more,” she whispers and wonders if the big conversation he’s just teased for some time down the line is as big a thing as her thundering heart seems to think it is.

  “I trust you with my life, Rinny,” he tells her, sounding tired. “I don’t trust myself, that’s the problem. But let’s not get into this. We have a music video to come up with, and I’m sure you’ve got a million ideas so let’s hear them.”

  She humors him, lets his cryptic contemplations go because she doesn’t want to pick a fight and tells him what she has envisioned for their video. He’s right, she’s already come up with a lot of ideas. She’s planned the whole thing.

  Of course nothing ever works out the way you plan it, least of all in TV production, so what Karin had pitched as a stylish Bauhaus kind of location turns into a parking garage above a gym, and the choreography they have worked out with Sina and Fos - they get to call them by their shortened names now, because they’re friends - is too intricate to do in front of a single handheld camera, so they have to reduce it to lots of holding each other. But then again, Declan has forgotten half of it overnight so it’s probably a good thing in the end.

  Another thing Karin hadn’t planned for was what the dancing with him would do to her. She should’ve known. Silly woman. They’re not really doing much, a lift here and there but mostly it’s just Declan pulling her close, again and again and again until they get the take just right. But every time he does, he holds her a little bit tighter and looks a little bit deeper into her eyes. By the end of the day, Gorman shows them a small segment that he’s plucked from the footage of the day that has Declan running his hand up her bare skin softly, where her leotard has a cut out at her back, and she feels the goosebumps he’d put there reappear just by seeing it. It’s taking her breath away a little bit, how they move together.

  When there’s just one more segment to shoot, Sinea and Fos drop by with Hank who is following them around as they slip into the shots of every couple, commenting on their progress.

  “Now you came for the most boring part,” Declan drawls when they say hi between two takes. “This last one is just Rinny and me standing there.”

  It’s true, they are just standing around, forehead to forehead looking at each other, it’s so not spectacular, and Karin feels Declan’s slight disappointment that they haven’t come over for
something cooler, like the lift. Beside her, he looks a bit like a slightly miffed school kid whose parents arrived too late to the school play.

  “But that is the most challenging thing,” Fos says, fatherly. “Just standing there and creating something from it, that is a skill. Let’s watch you try.”

  With that, Karin and Declan go back to their marks on the floor and get back in position. It’s her with her arms around his neck and his arms around her waist - or technically the top of her ass if she wants to be precise about it - forehead to forehead, standing and breathing together. That’s it.

  “See and that’s where you have to start feeling it,” Sinea says from outside the shot. “Feel it so we can see it.”

  Declan moves his hands further down her ass and breathes in deeply; she does the same.

  “Now think about the love you have for each other, the trust and the passion,” Sinea continues and Karin lets herself follow the direction, allows herself to accept the somewhat terrifying feeling of being in love with him again and tries to find the joy in it. The happiness that goes bone deep when he does touch her, the moments when she can believe, just for a second, that he might, maybe, just feel the same way about her. His fingertips dig into her skin as he exhales, his breath warm on her cheeks. She’s looking at his chin but she can see him smiling from the corners of her eyes and it’s suddenly hard to catch her breath.

  “That’s it,” Sinea says. They did nothing. “C’est parfait.”

  “Really?” Declan says, not moving.

  “Actually, yes,” Gorman chimes in. “I’d say copy that, we’re good. It’s a wrap, everyone.”

  It seems that’s how you make a music video.

  With that task done, they are carted back to the villa where Aileen and Rickard are having lunch in the living room. They don’t seem half as happy with the day’s proceedings though.

  “It’s not going so great, man,” Rickard says after Declan asks what’s up. “I don’t know, I guess we’re not all that great at creating things together.”

  Karin sits next to Aileen as she pushes around her grilled vegetables, looking grim.

  “We would be just fine if someone wouldn’t talk down every idea their partner has for being unsuitable,” Aileen says pointedly, sounding even more prissy with her British accent. She won’t look up from her zucchini.

  “God, don’t give me that passive aggressive attitude, Aileen,” Rickard grumbles and sets his cutlery down on the table with some force. “I’m trying to figure out how to make it good and you’re not working with me at all.”

  It’s probably good that all the cameras are out still shooting Kaidan and Kaelan and Courtney and Bobby’s videos. The producers would have a field day with this emerging fight.

  “But it’s not good. You’re not a gangster rapper and I’m not your slutty side-piece twerking in front of you,” Aileen says. “Do you know how stupid it is to perpetuate that stereotype?”

  Karin shoots a sideways glance at Declan, who makes a face at her like he regrets very much having asked.

  “Oh my God, can you stop?” Rickard groans. “Not everything is a march on Washington.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Aileen says, sounding livid and hollow at the same time and then she leaves the table without clearing the plate.

  The silence that follows is the most awkward thing Karin has experienced in the villa so far, and that includes everything that has happened between her and Declan.

  “She’s completely off the rails with that activism thing,” Rickard hollers eventually, looking at both of them like he expects encouragement. “So, I’m not what she wants me to be, let a guy live.” Rickard keeps looking at them, not so much at Karin as he does Declan, because he’s the man and guys stick together.

  “To be quite honest, I don’t feel qualified or educated enough to say anything about that, buddy,” Declan replies apologetically. “But if you want help with choreography, I guess Rinny and I can maybe help a little?”

  “Yes, maybe we’ll take you up on that,” Rickard sighs. “But first I have to go and say I’m sorry.”

  It sounds like he’s not actually sorry at all.

  Rickard leaves and Declan looks deeply uncomfortable, a notion Karin shares.

  “Let’s go listen to some music to pick for the dance,” she says quickly, wanting to leave this unfortunate scene in the past as quickly as possible. He follows with no complaints.

  Picking a song is a lot harder than she thought it would be. Not because they can’t agree on anything but because they agree on too much. They bring ten different songs into dance rehearsal with Sinea and Fos the next day, unable to even narrow it down to five.

  “Help,” Karin says, showing the dancers the list of hopefuls they had put together the previous night.

  “Yes,” Sinea starts and smiles a little, “and you can’t tell the others about this, but Foster and I have been talking a bit about something we think could maybe work for you, something we would very selfishly like to see you dance to.”

  “Oh,” Karin very nearly squeaks. “That’s so nice.”

  “Just give it a listen and see if it could work,” Sinea goes on, already moving to connect her iPod to the boom box by the mirror. “If it’s a fit, you’re already going to have a good direction for costumes and everything.”

  “By which she means, she already thought of something you should wear,” Foster says with a wink and Karin giggles. Declan just looks like he can’t believe what’s happening. That his dance heroes liked what they were doing enough to get inspired to pick music for them, which is a perfect fit right at the first note. Karin knows the second she looks at him and he starts swaying to it.

  “Don't talk just hold me closer, let me sit on top of your knee,” a raspy, low woman’s voice sings over a sexy, slow old-timey mix of strings and trumpets. Oh yes, that’s a good one. Before they’re even through the song once, Declan has already pulled her up to her feet and started moving her. On the second repeat, Sinea and Fos are starting to adjust things, suggesting turns and twists and even managing to work in a lift. Working together is just as fun, if not more, than the day before. It just flows, the music, the movements, the ideas. Working with Declan like that and choreographing in earnest is magnificent, it’s everything she never thought would make her feel fulfilled.

  Or maybe it’s everything she was scared of feeling, to let dancing back in her life even if it can never be its center again ... even if she’ll be forever at the sidelines watching other people move. But then she’d still get to create, she would still get to leave her mark, even if it would be somebody else’s legs dancing her steps. Maybe that would be enough after all.

  Four hours later, they have finalized the choreography. Karin has burning legs, too, but that’s a price she is willing to pay. For the last hour, Gorman has been getting footage for the show and when Tucker takes Karin and Declan into Georgetown to shop for their costumes, he rides along as well. Sinea has been making herself quite clear on what outfits she’s envisioning for their number; a red tight dress for Karin and a black, unassuming ensemble for Declan, so it’s “sexy and classy without being flashy” and Karin finds herself agreeing wholeheartedly.

  Besides, it’s so nice to get out of the house for once. They overdo it a bit on the sightseeing, stretching out the time it takes to find a shop that sells anything other than souvenirs and floral shirts on purpose, so they can take in the quaint little restaurants and bars lining the streets, and Karin is really happy that the camera is there, because she can take Declan’s hand and walk around like the most touristy of tourists, discovering a new town holding the hand of the man she loves. It’s not the ideal way for this to happen but it’s happening and the sun is shining, so she is fine with it for the time being.

  She’s a bit sad when they finally walk by a store that has a pretty perfect dress right there on display and they have to get in and get it. Declan’s outfit is easily assembled from their stock as well. Decl
an eyes her for a while, after she comes out with the dress on, and she wonders if that’s a bad sign.

  “Not good?” she asks him, looking down on herself to see if she’s missed something ill-fitting in the changing room mirror.

  “No,” he says. “I like it. You don’t wear red a lot.”

  “It’s not really my color,” she shrugs. She’s always felt a bit too visible in red, a bit too loud out there in the world. He laughs, almost sardonically.

  “Not at all,” he says and takes a step towards her to brush his fingertips lightly over the spaghetti straps. “That’s absolutely your color.”

  Gorman doesn’t have a permit to shoot in the store and he wouldn’t want to give the dress away anyway, so he hasn’t come in. He’s taking a cigarette break outside somewhere. This is why Declan has no business looking down at her like he does. Like she’s dinner and he’s been starving forever, like he’s getting lost in the sight of her, and he absolutely has no business saying what he says next either.

  “I don’t know how to get through this week, Rinny,” he breathes, still enraptured by that strap on her shoulder, running it between his thumb and index finger absentmindedly.

  “What do you mean?” she asks him, her patience with his strange behavior wearing very thin. Instead of answering, he hooks his fingers around the strap until it’s caught within his fist, and pulls her with it, his other hand landing on her face, cupping it, caressing, light as a feather.

  “I missed seeing you dance,” he says, which isn’t an answer but distracts her from her annoyance anyway. “You’re a terrific dancer.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself,” she tells him but her voice comes out shaky and a little bit pathetic.