by Tonya Plank
Still holding my hand, she inched as close as she could, lying at my side, wrapping herself in the crook of my arm. I reached around her with my other arm and held her.
“I can feel your whole body shaking, Sasha.”
I said nothing. We sat like that for a while.
“It’s okay,” she finally said. “I don’t think I’ll be forgiving them anytime soon for snatching me up on the street and doing whatever they wanted like that. It is a crime. And it’s equally wrong for them to just take it upon themselves to go whisking your sister back to Russia against her will. Despite her heart condition. But I would never turn you in. Don’t be ridiculous. I love you. And I forgive you. You are not your family.”
I pressed my lips into her head, and released our handhold so I could wrap my other arm around her body. She melted into me, my body still shaking. We rocked each other side to side.
“It is really eerie though,” she continued after a few moments. “I mean, that Tatiana and I look so much alike. Is that why you looked at me like you did when you first saw me?”
I laughed lightly. “No,” I said firmly. “I mean, yes, okay, you reminded me of her. But I knew you weren’t her. I looked at you like that, Rory, because you captivated me. Your presence. I don’t know what it was, but I was just completely spellbound. Somehow I just knew.”
“Knew what?” She wiggled herself farther into my side, then looked up at me. Her eyes were now bright, twinkling.
“That we would work together,” I said.
“What do you mean? How did you know that?”
“I just did. Just one of those things you know. It’s…unexplainable.”
“I believe you.” She giggled.
The most wonderful sound in the world: Rory’s laugh. Especially after the hell we’d been through. Then she yawned. It was well into the morning and we needed to get up in only a few hours to sign autographs and pose for photos at Daiyu’s tent. This seemed like a good note on which to snuggle up together and go to sleep.
In bed, we held each other tightly under the covers. Even though it had only been a few days since we’d arrived at Blackpool, it felt like an eternity. We’d waited so long for this night. But we’d been through way the hell too much drama, to put it extremely mildly, for mad-crazy hot sex.
“We’ll make up for it tomorrow night,” I whispered in her ear, nibbling her earlobe.
“Mmmm, you’d damn well better believe it,” she said. “I mean, after everything that’s happened, let’s not forget—we frigging WON Blackpool!”
Damn true! The night had gone on for so long, it seemed like weeks ago that we were on that ballroom floor.
Chapter Fifteen
We ordered room service for breakfast. Rory was finally tired of the traditional English breakfast with the fried, greasy sausages and breads. So we splurged on Eggs Florentine, home fries and mimosas. Tatiana ate toast drenched with butter and jelly and a bowl of Fruit Loops cereal. She was twenty-two but in some ways she seemed much younger. She grew up fast, like you had to where I was from. Maybe she was demanding the childhood she never had. She wasn’t speaking a whole lot. I think she was intimidated by Rory because whenever she was around, Tanya was silent. She spent a lot of time in her room, alone, watching TV or playing with my iPad. Despite the fact she’d been in the U.S. for several months, her English remained very weak. I caught her eyeing Rory several times. I couldn’t read the look—whether it was a bit of envy or adoration or inquisitiveness. Or all three.
I hadn’t completely decided what to do about the apartment situation back in L.A. I definitely had room for Tatiana in my house but she might come out of her shell better in her own place. And I’d love more than anything for Rory to move in with me. I planned somehow to broach the subject with both of them soon.
As much as I didn’t want to let her out of my sight, I let Tatiana talk me into allowing her to stay at the hotel while Rory and I went back to the Winter Gardens for the signing and photos in Daiyu’s tent. The police assured me our suite would be constantly guarded. I still wasn’t sure I completely trusted my uncle yet, despite the fact he’d come through on finding Tatiana and on getting Rory back. I couldn’t imagine they’d subvert the police security guards though.
I gave Tanya my credit card so she could use the hotel’s amenities, like the spa and indoor pool and sauna. She deserved to pamper herself, for once. She hadn’t yet told me and I really didn’t want to think about all that she’d been through.
Her husband and his men were all in a holding facility. The prosecutor told us they’d likely go to trial here for kidnapping Rory, attempting to kidnap Tatiana, and for illegal possession of firearms and charges related to that crazy shootout, in which, miraculously albeit not surprisingly, no one was hurt. My uncle told me they clearly had no experience with weapons, the way they shot. And they’d tied Rory up with duct tape, failing to see she’d get free a lot easier than with something like rope. And it was the husband’s son who threw the water balloon onto the dance floor. A water balloon? He’d told police he’d aimed at me, thinking if Tatiana saw her brother hurt she’d come out of hiding and they’d pounce on her. But how much damage could a water balloon do? It was like they wanted to be thugs but were too stupid to do it right. Well, I guess we should be thankful for that or it could have been a lot worse. The man seemed to be a farmer who became really desperate to get his wife back and would stop at nothing. I’d told the prosecutor I’d gladly offer to pay the husband everything he’d given the Tokyo agency for Tatiana’s debt. I wanted him to leave us alone for good. She waved me off, saying it was beyond her jurisdiction and I could talk to his lawyers at a later point if I so desired.
“I still can’t believe Cheryl had nothing to do with this,” Rory said to me on the way to the Pavilion.
“I can.”
She squinted at me. “I know she’s a no one here, as you and Greta said ad nauseam, but after what she did to me at the studio, you still didn’t think she wouldn’t try anything?”
“I didn’t say that.” I looked at her straight on, eyebrows raised. “No. After what she pulled before, I made sure she wouldn’t hurt you again. After you saw her here, I made some calls, had Valentin and our friends watching her like hawks. Believe me.”
“What? You coulda told me!” Rory squealed, play-jabbing me in the arm.
“I didn’t want you to worry in any way, and I knew you would if I let on I was concerned about her. So I acted like it was nothing. And see? It was.”
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Well, I’m glad you were looking out for me.”
“Of course. I want nothing more than to look out for you for the rest of your life.” I said the second sentence under my breath.
“What?” But her rosy cheeks indicated she’d heard.
She turned to gaze out the window, leaning her forehead against the cab’s door. I squeezed her hand. She squeezed back.
“So, Tatiana will live with you, I assume?” she asked after several moments. There was worry in her voice.
There had definitely been moments of awkwardness and tension between her and Tanya so far. They’d get to know each other, I was sure. It wouldn’t last. At least I desperately hoped it wouldn’t. They’d come from vastly different places, geographically and psychologically. Sometimes it took a while to connect with someone whose life experience contrasted so sharply from your own. Rory would never have gotten herself into the mess Tatiana did. I was sure of it. I knew she didn’t judge her for it though. Rory wasn’t like that. But for some reason I felt the need to defend my sister anyway. “Tatiana is young but she is a very complex, complicated person. I mean, we all are.”
“I know that. I guess I will never learn to penetrate the deep, dark Russian soul.” She took my arm and wrapped it around her tightly, but still looked out the window. There was going to be weirdness between her and Tanya for a while perhaps. Hopefully only a while.
“I actually meant all human beings,” I said
with a laugh.
“Oh, yeah. Very true.” She laughed with me briefly, before changing the subject. “The sea really is beautiful here. I’m actually kind of looking forward to coming back to testify. I mean, not to relive everything but to see how a criminal trial here is different from one in California.”
I smiled. “No matter how many competitions we win together, how much we perform, I will always love the lawyer in you, my sweet. Always.” I bent my head around hers and kissed her forehead. She giggled and her laugh was genuine this time.
***
The signing was a blast, as always. This despite the fact that there were absolute loads of paparazzi because of what had happened. Reporters from the main news stations and papers, far outside of Blackpool, all wanted to talk to us, but fortunately, Blackpool personnel—along with police—were there to insist they refrain until after our scheduled signing. We couldn’t talk to them anyway, with the criminal investigation happening.
Fans were just as excited to get Rory’s signature as they were mine. Since we’d never actually posed for pictures as the champions, because of what went down immediately prior to the naming of the final winners, Daiyu chose a photo of me kissing Rory on the lips after one of our rumbas. The crowd had gone so wild whenever I’d done that, I thought it was an excellent idea. It made me so amazingly happy to see that photo every time I signed. I didn’t want to cover our lips in any way, or any of our connecting body parts, so I signed in the white space over my head. Rory must have felt the same way because she continuously signed over her dress.
Rory looked beautiful, of course, despite the bruise on her cheek. Icing it all night had decreased the swelling tremendously, and Daiyu’s excellent makeup artist was able to cover the purpling.
Even after everything that happened, it was still a bit surreal to know we were actually the Blackpool Latin Champions. Finally. What I’d waited for all my life. I was sure it would take weeks for that to fully sink in.
“My face is beginning to hurt from smiling so much,” Rory whispered with a giggle. “But of course I’m loving every second! I’m a Blackpool champion!” She was in disbelief as well.
The second we signed our last poster and posed for our last picture, the reporters descended on us. Every single newspaper and TV station wanted an interview, and they could have cared less of course about our lives, our path to glory. They just wanted to hear all the gritty details of the kidnapping and shooting. It was like we were being attacked by killer bees. It definitely wasn’t a good kind of being the center of attention. I didn’t want to relive everything or force Rory to, and we couldn’t talk about specifics anyway. We certainly didn’t want to do anything that might result in a defense attorney’s claim that Tatiana’s husband—who, we now knew, was a billionaire from Napa named Arnold Tucker—had his right to a fair trial prejudiced by our blabbing to the press about factual details. With the police’s help, we managed to fend them all off.
Rory did grant an interview to the Blackpool Daily, so long as no questions were asked about the criminal incident. She’d wanted to clear some things up that were said in that article that I’d never read.
We went into one of the back practice rooms. The guy—a youngish English gent—didn’t ask any prying questions. Could’ve been because I was sitting next to Rory, my arm around her protectively, shooting daggers at him in warning every time he opened his mouth. He asked her where she grew up, how she met me and how she felt her ballet background helped her to learn ballroom so quickly. She told him she wanted to make it clear she’d been accepted to the School of American Ballet in New York but wasn’t ever able to attend because of her father’s death, followed by her developing a nasty case of anorexia. Her mother wished her to stay at home to overcome her eating disorder, which she did. She’d told me she wanted to be honest and open about her illness; didn’t want skeletons in her closet coming back to haunt her later.
“It’s very generous of you to be so forthcoming about this,” the reporter said. “A great many young dancers—particularly females, and particularly ballet dancers—have a run-in with an eating disorder. You are definitely not alone. And congratulations to you for overcoming.” His face was full of sincerity.
“Thank you very much,” she said.
I couldn’t be prouder of her in that moment. I knew she’d been embarrassed by the mental illness. Probably as embarrassed as I’d been about my family, before she set me straight on that. I put my arm around her and squeezed her whole body, planting a big kiss on her cheek.
When she told him she’d met me because she’d joined my studio after moving to Los Angeles to work as a lawyer, he was quite amused.
“I know of some amateur competitors who are in other professions,” he said with a chuckle, “but not many pro dancers. And lawyer—it uses quite a different mental skill set from dance, no?”
“To make a massive understatement!” she practically shouted, glancing at me. I shot her my crooked, loopy smile. “You don’t know how hard he made me work on using my muscle memory over my analytical mind. You really have to shut off that part of your brain and just force yourself to feel. To feel the music, and the movement, and your body and your partner’s body. It’s a huge challenge not to think everything out all the time. Huge!” She squealed with delight that someone else had finally understood her.
He chuckled. “I also can’t imagine working a full-time job—any job—and training for a competition like this.”
“Yes, well, I decided to take a hiatus from my job. I thought, I’m young now, it’s now or never for me if I want a career in dance, and I had to know what I was capable of. I fell so in love with ballroom—and with Sasha…” She giggled and nodded in my direction. “I found myself so much more impassioned by the art of dance than by the art of lawyering that I decided…I decided to leave the legal profession and give this my all.” She shrugged and held her head down.
Had she really decided to leave the legal profession for good and dance full-time with me? We hadn’t had a chance to discuss it yet.
“Well, that decision paid off quite well,” the reporter said.
“Yes. It most certainly did,” she said, holding her head back up, her eyes moist and happy.
***
We stayed in Blackpool for the rest of the week, to speak with investigators and to watch the other competitions. Valentin, along with Maurizio, from our studio, competed Friday night and we’d planned to stay to cheer them on anyway. Awesomely, Val won his comp too. The two of us were both world champs now! And Maurizio finaled. It was a good night, a happy ending to a quite crazy comp. The police guarded our room 24/7 as long as we stayed. We had such a gorgeous view, overlooking the ocean. We had to invite our close friends—Paulina, Raj and Sam, Greta, Val, Sergei, and Max—to have our final Blackpool toast out on our lovely balcony.
“So what now?” Samantha asked Rory. “You guys going to keep competing and give Greta and Dean a run for their money?” She giggled.
“I haven’t thought it all out. My life in L.A. seems so far away right now. But that’s what I’m thinking,” she said, raising her eyebrows, confirming what she’d said to the reporter.
“Well, that would be some feat,” Raj said. “They were on top for, what, ten years?”
Rory laughed. “Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. In ten years we’ll be thirty-five and thirty-six, respectively. According to the Blackpool organizers, we’d be considered seniors!”
“You can do it, honey. If anyone can do it, you can do it!” Paulina sang.
“Are you going to teach at Infectious Rhythm? Or are you just gonna be a, you know, kept woman?” Sam cackled. Then both Rory and Sam looked at me.
I raised my eyebrows, letting them know Rory was more than welcome to be the latter.
“Oh you’re such a goofball!” Rory shook her head. “Definitely a kept woman. I don’t want to ever have to work for a living. Hell no! I mean, gross!” she joked.
“I could see you a
s a teacher. I’d love to be in your class, honey,” Paulina said.
Rory’s light began to fade a bit, and a slight frown took shape on her face.
What is going on?
“I can’t really see myself as a teacher. I’m just a consummate student.”
“But you’re a champion now, silly. So you kind of know what you’re doing!” Samantha chirped.
But Rory looked around the room, now lost in thought. I followed her gaze, first to Tatiana in the corner, snuggled into the plush cushions of the sofa, happily entertaining herself with my iPad, which now had a pink Hello Kitty cover. Then she looked at Greta, in the opposite corner, wearing another of her magical floor-length dresses, surrounded by people, her champagne flute held high in the air. She threw her head back laughing at something someone said. Rory seemed dazed.
“Rory, oh my gosh, what’s wrong?” Samantha asked.
“Yes, a penny for your thoughts?” I echoed, wrapping my arms around her waist, rubbing my lips on her cheek.
She laughed.
“What?” I said.
She turned to me, her eyes sparkling. “You know what I’m laughing at. You and your Americanisms!”
I rolled my eyes.
“They are pretty funny.” Samantha giggled.
Rory continued gazing into my eyes, her jade irises soft and dreamy. “I’m just so happy you’ve achieved your life’s goal. At twenty-six. I mean, that’s so amazing. How many people can say that?”
“What about you? You’re only twenty-five,” I said.
“Yes, me too, of course!”
But I spied a smidgeon of doubt in her eyes. Would she really be completely fulfilled being a competitive ballroom dancer? What about me? There were more competitions to win, for sure, and we could give Greta and Dean a run for their money, as Samantha had said, and try to go for more than ten wins in a row. But did I want to do only that? Was there more?
