Heaven's Ballroom

by Aiden Bates

  “Someone like me?” I chuckled. “Man, don’t flatter me. Of course I remembered your name—we’re coworkers now, aren’t we?”

  “Until Noah fires me, I guess.” Brett ran his fingers through his hair anxiously, wincing at the way moving his shoulder like that must have made his muscles twinge. “I’m not exactly on your level yet. Obviously. I don’t think I performed a single number tonight without screwing up my steps.”

  “You’re improving,” I promised him genuinely. “Seriously—no one even fell over tonight. None of us learned how to do this overnight, you know.”

  “I guess so,” he admitted with a laugh. “You just make it look so easy…”

  “Practice.” I eyed the way his shoulder was still drooping from the weight of his gym bag—either he was hauling rocks in that thing, or he’d pushed himself to the point of complete exhaustion. “Among other things. You’re sore from the gym, yeah?”

  “Among other things.” Brett gave me a shy smile. “I’ve been trying to work out as much as possible—and when I’m not working out, I’m working on my steps—”

  “Can I give you some advice?” I asked, knowing how annoying unsolicited helpfulness could be.

  “Please,” Brett said eagerly. “At this point, I’ll take anything.”

  “Your body can’t recover if you’re not sleeping enough, for one.” I moved to him, lifting his gym bag off his shoulder and shifting it onto mine. My theory turned out to be right—for me, the bag barely felt like lifting anything at all. He was spent. “Those bags under your eyes are heavy enough, it’s no wonder this thing feels like it weighs so much.”

  “Shit,” he swore with a laugh. “Is it that obvious?”

  “A bit. You drive here, or did you take the subway?”

  Brett cocked his head toward the parking lot. “Drove. My car’s not far, I can—”

  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I’ve got this. Lead the way.”

  As I followed Brett out to his car, I couldn’t help but glance down at his wrists. The bones of them were so prominent, I could see them shifting beneath his skin as he turned his key in the door to unlock it.

  “Thanks, Anders.” Brett sighed as he opened his passenger side door so I could toss his bag inside. “I know how pathetic it must look, me not even being strong enough to carry my own shit around…”

  “It’s not about being strong,” I told him gently. “It’s about taking care of yourself. Look, I don’t want to pry…but are you eating enough?”

  Brett looked away, blushing. “I…I didn’t want to overdo it. Can’t have abs like yours if my body fat gets too high.”

  “Can I give you another piece of advice?” I asked, recognizing that look of embarrassment and shame all too well.

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “You’re working out hard. You need to fuel your body to compensate for it. Believe me—you’re not going to get fat when you’re splitting all your time between the stage, the studio and the gym, and you’re not going to build muscle if you don’t have the calories to build it with.”

  Brett opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with me—but one glance at my bicep beneath the sleeve of my t-shirt seemed to make him think better of it. “I guess you’re the expert. Can’t argue with visible results.”

  “Exactly,” I said, giving him a smile in parting. “Take care of yourself, okay? You’re gonna burn out if you don’t—and Noah values hard work over immediate results.”

  “Thanks, Anders,” Brett said again, returning my smile as we exchanged little waves goodbye.

  As I watched Brett’s taillights disappear down the street, I couldn’t help but wonder how well I was taking my own advice. I knew exactly how easy it was to avoid taking care of yourself—just like I knew the way stress had a bad way of making old, rotten habits come roaring back to life. Earlier, when Blake had suggested we grab some dinner, I’d wanted to bite his head off for it. And now, my own stomach was rumbling with hunger in the absence of a square meal.

  I was being an idiot, I realized. Back during my ballet days, over-exercising and skipping meals had been standard practice. Even after I left them behind, I’d managed to hit a wall every time I got too stressed out. When my stalker had first reared his ugly head, I’d spent an entire week tempted not to eat at all—and until I’d talked to Brett just then, I realized I’d been just on the precipice of a relapse myself.

  It wasn’t about getting thin anymore, I knew. It was about control. And between the man who was apparently breaking into apartments so he could stare into mine every night, and Blake’s sudden invasion of my carefully decorated home with those ugly blackout curtains, I’d been starting to feel like I’d lost control of everything all over again.

  “Anders, you dumbass,” I grumbled to myself as I headed back inside. I needed to find Blake and apologize, I knew. Explain to him why I’d been so short with him earlier. Maybe find some kind of common ground on the curtains—ideally, over a bowl of that pasta he’d suggested earlier.

  But before I could go find Blake, the backstage door swung open, revealing my new personal bodyguard’s tall, broad frame.

  Looked like he’d found me first.

  “Jesus, Anders,” Blake said with a relieved sigh, tucking his phone back into his pocket and coming toward me. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “Yeah, well, here I am,” I said, my voice a little tense as I clocked the concern in his tone. “Sorry. I was just helping one of the other dancers out to his car—”

  “Yeah, I can see that. But I’ve been worried fucking sick—all your shit was still inside, and when I saw that your phone was out in the parking lot—”

  I stopped in my tracks, holding a hand up to keep Blake from coming any closer. “What do you mean, you saw my phone was out here?”

  Blake paused, blinking at me. “I just meant, I came out here to find you—”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head as I felt my stomach churn. “I heard what you said. You tracked me out here by my phone?”

  Blake reached behind him, rubbing the back of his neck and looking all too culpable. “Your login info was still stored in my phone from that day you lost yours. I wasn’t trying to be creepy—just, you weren’t where I thought you’d be, and no one knew where you’d gone, and with that fucking stalker of yours still lurking around…”

  “Blake…that’s not okay.” I took a step back, feeling sick with this new revelation. Now, not only did I have some stranger following me around the city—I had Blake tracking me as well. “It’s bad enough to have one stalker. I don’t need another just because I stepped outside the building for a second.”

  “I…I know. I know. I’m sorry,” Blake said—and he almost sounded like he meant it. “But—”

  “No. No buts. That’s an invasion of my privacy, and I think you know that.”

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do, Anders?” Blake shot at me, his brow furrowing with frustration. “One minute, everything’s fine—then the next, my boyfriend’s snapping at me over something so simple as getting dinner! Then the next, you’re just fucking gone—”

  “Boyfriend?” At any other point in time, hearing that word from Blake’s mouth would have left me elated. Flushing with excitement. Boyfriend—he thought of me as his boyfriend. Not just some casual fuck or some piece of arm candy he could show off to his friends, but as an actual partner—any other time, that would have meant a lot. But now… “Look, that’s cute and all, but you and I…we’re not a couple if this is how you’re going to treat me. I’m not one of your soldiers, Blake. Your job isn’t to keep surveillance on me like some kind of CIA operative—”

  “No,” Blake agreed, “My job is to keep you safe. Which—”

  “Which you’re not doing if you’re tracking me by my fucking cell phone!” I shouted—then took another step back as I realized exactly how much I was raising my voice. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier, and I’m sorry I made you worry—but I’m alr
eady stressed enough with one Alpha constantly watching me and breathing down my neck. I don’t need another. That doesn’t make me feel safe. At all.”

  “Fuck,” Blake swore, shoving his hands in his pockets and turning away. I could practically see the wheels turning in his head as he puzzled it out—the disparity between his need to keep me safe and my need to feel like I wasn’t living under some kind of violation of the Patriot Act. But when he finally turned back to me, his gaze had softened. “I’m sorry, Anders. Really. I…I let my own sense of protectiveness get the better of me. Shouldn’t have. It was a shitty thing to do.”

  “Yeah…well, I shouldn’t have snapped at you over the offer for dinner,” I returned, shaking my head to try and loosen the hold of the anger that had been throbbing at my temples. “Or for the blackout curtains. I…I know how you must be worrying. I’m worried too.”

  “Guess we’re both working through some stuff,” Blake said, forcing a lopsided, close-lipped smirk onto one side of his lips. It brought out the dimple in his cheek—which, annoyingly, made him look just handsome enough that I was tempted to forgive him. “I really am sorry. Feeling like you’re being watched, even by the person who’s trying to protect you…that was a shitty thing for me to do. It won’t happen again.”

  My shoulders slumped as I nodded, taking a few steps toward him so I could wrap my arms around his waist. “And I’ll try to be more careful. This is all still pretty new, huh?”

  “New is one way to put it,” Blake agreed, pulling me a little closer as his arms curled around my back. “Let me make it up to you? I don’t want to upset you again, but neither of us have had anything for dinner yet…and that Italian place is still open…”

  I smiled softly, moving my lips up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Yeah. Yeah…I’d like that.” My stomach growled fiercely as I felt the warmth of his skin beneath my lips, and I laughed. “I guess we’ve both got a lot to work on still.”

  “But we’ll work on it,” Blake said with conviction. “If you’re up for it…so am I.”

  “I’m up for it,” I agreed, my smile growing. “So…boyfriend, huh?”

  “You got a problem with that?” As he looked down at me, I thought I could see a tiny flash of fear shooting through his eyes.

  I moved my lips to his, doing my best to wash that worry away with a second, harder kiss. “I could get used to the idea, yeah. Discuss it some more over pasta?”

  Blake returned my grin—and dove back in for another kiss, even warmer and firmer than the last. “Nothin’ I’d like more, sweetheart.”

  13

  Blake

  The pasta was good, but watching Anders enjoy it would have been better. Every time I met his eyes on the walk back to his apartment, I watched him force a smile—and even though I appreciated the effort, it hurt to feel like he thought he had to fake it.

  It seemed like making this work was going to be a hell of a lot harder than just agreeing to try.

  “You didn’t even touch your wine, you know. If you didn’t like dinner…” I held my arm out, pushing him back so I could enter the apartment ahead of him. Everything was still exactly as we’d left it when we headed out that afternoon, blackout curtains and all, but I still preferred to go in first—just in case.

  “It was so good, Blake,” Anders insisted, a certain chipperness in his voice that didn’t seem to meet his eyes. “I promise. I really appreciated it. It’s just that—” He paused, scowling at me as he closed and locked the door. “Do you really have to do that right now?”

  “Do what?” I asked, pulling back the blackout curtains and checking behind them for anything that might have been lurking there. I was met only with a view of the street outside—a few lost tourists and a handful of college kids making their ways home from the local bars, but nothing any more sinister than that. “Check for intruders?”

  “The door was locked,” Anders pointed out. “You’ve secured this place pretty well, if you ask me. Do we still really need to do the whole paranoia thing every time we come back here? It puts me on edge.”

  “Sorry,” I grumbled, even though I wasn’t. If Anders was on edge, maybe he should have been. I’d promised to do my best not to make him feel watched, but that didn’t mean I was cutting any corners on my security measures. Feeling on edge was the appropriate way to feel, given how serious this stalking situation had become. “Just let me check the bedroom and the bath, and then—”

  “Blake, no.” Anders moved toward me, winding his way around the couch to take my hand in his. He turned it over in his fingers, smoothing his thumbs over the lines of my palms as he looked up at me with pleading eyes. “I have something I want to tell you, okay? If you feel like you’ve really gotta check behind the shower curtain for an ax murderer after…”

  “I do, yeah,” I insisted, squaring my shoulders and clenching my jaw. First the curtains on the windows, now the shower curtain too? Curtains—hell of a hill to die on. Maybe even literally, if Anders kept trying to stop me from doing my job. “I dunno if you’ve realized it, but you might have an actual ax murderer out there trying to peep in your windows at night.”

  “Blake…” Anders hit me with that puppy dog look in his eyes, the kind he must have realized by now made me melt on contact. “Just…sit down with me for a second, okay? I want to get this off my chest.”

  “And I want to get the safety of this apartment off my chest,” I grumbled—but even as Anders pulled me to the couch with him, I knew that I must have sounded like a kid who’d just been grounded from the county fair. He was right, of course. If he wanted to talk, then we’d talk—and if anyone in a hockey mask wielding a butcher’s knife came barreling out of the shower while we did it, I could deal with him then. “Okay. Okay. I’m sitting. We’re talking. Let’s talk.”

  “I…” Anders took a deep breath, letting it out as his shoulders slumped forward with exhaustion. “I’ve been feeling sick to my stomach lately. The last week or so, even more than usual.”

  “Something you ate?” I asked, listening to the couch creak in protest as I lowered my weight onto it. “Is that why you were weird over dinner? We’ve been sharing most meals, and I haven’t felt anything, at any rate—”

  “No.” Anders shook his head, biting down on his lower lip before continuing. “I think it’s…I don’t know. Anxiety, maybe. Maybe something else. I told you I used to do ballet, right?”

  “Yeah. Your mom put you up to it. I remember.” I licked my lips, casting a nervous glance down the hall—but to Anders’ credit, there were no ax murderers in sight. “I don’t know what that has to do with the way you were twirling your spaghetti on your fork all night instead of eating it, though.”

  “Ballet is…it’s a different world, Blake. Believe it or not, I didn’t always look like this.” He gestured up and down his torso, making it impossible not to notice the way his t-shirt clung to his muscles perfectly. Normally, staring at Anders like that would’ve made my dick hard as steel—but I could tell from the look on his face that he was getting ready to say something important to him. Which made it something important to me.

  Down, boy, I thought, clenching my thighs as my cock rose to half-mast against my jeans anyway. I guessed the horny, sex-crazed Alpha cliché might’ve had some credence to it—but the least I could do was ignore how bad I wanted to pin Anders down on the couch and kiss him better while he told his tale.

  For a little while, at any rate.

  “So you used to be thinner.” I placed my hand on his knee in a way that I hoped was comforting. “So what? I was a beanpole hick of a country boy before high school rolled around and puberty hit.”

  “I used to be way too thin. Like, scary thin, Blake. Muscles and bones, but not much else. Mom had me on this crazy diet, and I was training like a madman day and night, and—”

  “You had some kind of…what? Eating disorder, or something?”

  Anders laughed in half-amusement. “You’re a sweetheart, Blake, but sometimes I
swear you’re thick as a brick wall.”

  “You never had any problem with my thickness before,” I pointed out. “And I’ve never had any problem with yours.”

  “I’ll say.” Anders gave another laugh, then stayed quiet for a moment before continuing. “It’s not a body thing, though. Not anymore, at least. Eating disorders are about control, you know? And ever since the stalker came into my life… You can imagine what a loss of control that must have felt like.”

  “Ah.” I nodded slowly as his words sank in. I might’ve been a little slow on the emotional uptake from time to time—but I wasn’t dumb. “Same kind of loss of control you had when I took down those pretty curtains you had and put up the blackouts, huh?”

  “And when you tracked my phone,” Anders admitted softly. “I’m not saying it’s your fault—”

  “Kinda is, though, when you put it like that.” I squeezed Anders’ knee, feeling a wave of self-loathing sweeping in. “Everything I’ve been trying to do to protect you has just made you feel like I’m taking over your life. To the point where you’re not even wanting to eat anymore… Shit, is that why you got all twitchy when I suggested dinner earlier?”

  “A little. But I don’t want you to feel like I’m out of control on that front too, you know? The last thing I need is you coming in here with a feeding tube, a bag full of cheeseburgers and a blender.”

  I blanched, sticking out my tongue at the thought of a cheeseburger milkshake. “Yeah. Yeah, all right. That’s fair. So…so you’re struggling with this eating disorder thing.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Not because you don’t want to eat, but because you feel like you’re losing control of everything right now.”

  He smiled with only a hint of patronizing. “Now you’re getting it.”

  “And you’re feeling sick to your stomach because…”

  “I’m stressed out. And worried.” He bit his lip again, staring down the blackout curtains like his stalker was standing just behind their draping. “And a little scared.”