She couldn't recall any instances of even hearing his voice in a scene. It was kind of a big no-no, the off-screen people making their presence known on-screen. Before this season, she'd talked to Leo only a few times and only briefly. She still wouldn't know him well if she wasn't on the show this season—she'd gone on location a few times, but her role up till now had been mainly hanging out in the bullpen, watching tape in editors' cubicles or sitting in closed staff meetings, not handling the gathering of raw footage.
He was very good at his job. He was always there with a camera or a crew at exactly the right moment…or the wrong moment, now that her perspective had shifted. He captured tension like a champ, frustration like a pro, humiliation like a mind reader.
Take the triathlon, for instance. He knew Erin was upset Ben wasn't participating. So what did he do? He filmed her running alone. Biking alone. Swimming alone. Wait…is that why he didn't film me with Ben after the race? What's he trying to pull?
Her head snapped up from her computer screen. Nah. She was being paranoid. After all, she worked on the show. She could nix anything she didn't like during production. She took a deep breath and got back to work optimizing and scheduling her post.
But then something else popped into her head, something that had nagged at her the last couple of weeks that she kept trying to ignore. It was Leo's other comment after her last cooking class. If I were him, I'd never let you climb a mountain without me.
Had she imagined it? Heard him wrong?
Probably.
After all, it wasn't as if he was hurting for companionship. She'd only been working with him for a few months, and she'd seen him with at least four different women. His pickup skills were so impressive it didn't even matter if he spoke the right language.
If she hadn't misheard him, surely she'd at least misunderstood him. Yes, he was a womanizer, but he wouldn't hit on her. He was just making a statement. A statement that her husband was being a jerk.
Erin immediately felt protective of Ben. He was overworked, yes, and ambitious, but his intentions were good. He was anything but a jerk.
In fact, she should probably cut him some slack.
As if on cue, Ben keyed into the back door just as Erin clicked schedule on her post.
"Hey, hon." She snapped the lid of her laptop shut and grinned at him as he walked into the living room. Then she sauntered over to him and raised onto her tiptoes as he leaned down for a kiss. "You're home early tonight."
It was only six-thirty. Impressive.
"Yeah, we're almost done now with our part of the Lester trial. Or the Levamentin trial, I should say. The Lester family doesn't have anything to do with the general clinical trial. The audience now is the FDA."
"How's Audrey doing?"
Ben's brow furrowed. "Last I heard, it was still too early to tell. It's a waiting game now, waiting till the next set of scans to see how the tumor reacts." He shook his head. "I can't imagine how that feels."
Erin mulled over the comment. "How her parents feel, you mean?"
"Yeah. It's got to be a private hell. But it's not private for them with the crowdfunding campaign and all the publicity, and I don't know—don't you think that'd make it even worse?" He paused, thoughtful. "Or maybe better since they have support. It's a very lonely situation, having a sick child. Even though I'm in the lab, not hands-on very often with the families or the kids, I've been around enough of it to see that."
A flutter of something, some mix of nervousness and fear of the unknown, shook Erin's stomach. Of all the adventures she'd undertaken in her life, even with her lists, no amount of risk taking came close to No. 35: Get pregnant. It was the biggest goal she'd ever written down, the biggest risk she'd ever take. It was something over which she had zero control, which was terrifying.
She flashed back to the time around four or five years earlier when she'd gone a couple weeks thinking she might be pregnant. It was while she was in the middle of 30 First Dates, and it had happened with Devon, the one guy in the midst of all her dating escapades she'd cared seriously enough about to sleep with. She remembered feeling inadequate, unprepared, unready…unstable, even.
Things were different now, though. She was married. Ben would want the baby as much as she did, and he'd make a great dad…as long as he made time to do it. Back then—even thinking she was carrying another man's child—Ben had offered to help her raise the baby. That was the first inkling Erin ever had, in the two-plus decades they'd known each other, that Ben had feelings for her. A lot had changed since then, but not Ben.
He would make a great dad.
Ben leaned down and kissed her again. "Anyway." He cleared his throat as he headed toward the back hallway. "How's work going for you? Filming's over soon, right? When do you go to L.A.?"
Erin followed him to their bedroom, flopping onto the bed as he loosened his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. Smiling, she said, "I'll try to tackle those in order."
"Sorry." He shot her a lopsided smile as he disappeared around the corner of the bathroom door.
"Everything's going fine." She spoke loudly so he could hear her from the bathroom. "Right now we're just waiting on all the film to come in. Leo's working with me and two others, and there are two more field producers handling the rest. Leo will be back here a week from Wednesday for my last segment, the dance classes."
She paused, her forehead wrinkling.
"You remember the dance class, right?"
Ben poked his head around the doorway, grinning at her. "Yes, dear. I remember the dance class. Friday night."
Erin blew out a breath. "Can't be too sure with you these days." She said it in a jokey tone, remembering her earlier vow to cut him slack. "Just sayin'."
He came back into the bedroom in khaki shorts and a gray short-sleeved pullover and shrugged. "I deserve that. I can't pretend otherwise."
"If you try, I'll pull up the wedding pics to prove my case." They'd gotten a link to their final proofs earlier that week. Ben was notably absent in the photos—missing from the entire first half of the album. Now that the wedding was several months behind them, she was starting to find a smidge of humor in the situation.
"You're going to be bringing up how I almost missed our wedding at every opportunity until we're old and gray, aren't you?"
"You bet I am," Erin said. "Our grandkids will think it's hilarious." She glanced at the alarm clock on Ben's nightstand. "It's not even seven yet. If I'd known you'd be early, I might've tried out one of my Cordon Bleu recipes on you."
"Yeah, that I've got to see."
Erin smirked. "I'm still going to get you to a class with me. Just because filming is over doesn't mean I don't still have a lot to learn. And cooking together would be way more fun."
"We can do that another night," he said, pausing at the door as Erin moved to follow him. "Tonight, how about we go and get some Bob Amstrong dip?"
It was a "secret" menu item at Mattito's, over near Erin's old apartment. A gooey, layered mix of queso, ground beef, guacamole, sour cream, and spices. A heart attack in a bowl. Heaven.
"OMG. That sounds awesome," she said. "Wow. Dinner together before the sun's even gone down. We're like a true old married couple now."
"It's nice, isn't it?"
Erin trailed him into the kitchen, walking past him to the hall tree in their tiny mudroom to slip on sandals. "Very nice, actually." She grabbed her purse off the hook above the shoe shelves.
"Hey, you never answered about when you're leaving for L.A.?"
"I don't know the dates yet," she said. "I'm thinking it should be around…" She paused by the wall calendar hanging on a sliver of wall by the back door. "Holy cow," she said. "It'll probably be less than three weeks. That's just nuts."
He frowned as he leaned around her to peer at the calendar. "And I'll probably be back in Baltimore between now and then," he said. He turned to face her, staring down at her long enough for a buzz to charge up Erin's spine. He circled her waist with one arm and pulle
d her in, parting her lips with his and kissing her till her toes tingled.
When he let her go, Erin was breathless. "What was that for?"
He was patting his pockets for his keys and, realizing they weren't there, turned and jogged back to the bedroom. When he came back into the kitchen half a minute later, she was still in the same spot, looking at him expectantly.
Ben smiled, seeming almost shy. And then he met her eyes. "I don't want to take this for granted."
He pulled open the back door and made a sweeping motion with his hands. "After you."
It took her a few seconds to follow, her heart was so swollen with love for Ben. His words draped over her on the drive to Uptown. They covered her up and reverberated in her mind as they ordered their food, chatted and waited, and the whole time they ate—their first languorous meal together since Italy.
Her lists were about experiencing life to the fullest. Making sure that when she was "old and gray," as Ben had said earlier, she had no regrets. Ben approached the whole YOLO concept in a different way, she realized. He ran marathons, sure, but he wasn't an adventure seeker. His satisfaction was in the small stuff. Maybe that, along with his workload, was why he wasn't taking the show as seriously as Erin wanted him to. Ben didn't need to ballroom dance or run a race or climb a mountain to squeeze more happiness out of life. And he certainly didn't need the world to see him doing it.
He was just happy they were able to go out to dinner together tonight.
If it were possible, Erin's heart expanded to love her husband—busy schedule, forgetfulness, bashfulness, and all—just a tiny bit more.
CHAPTER TEN
Dirty Dancing
July 19, ten months, three weeks to thirty-five
On her hands and knees, Erin pushed around the haphazard mass of shoe boxes in the back corner of her closet. "Where are those stupid purple shoes?"
Thirty minutes earlier, and an hour before she needed to leave to meet Ben and Leo at the Stephen C. Rise Dance Studio all the way up in Richardson, Erin had Googled what to wear to a ballroom dance lesson. She hadn't put much thought into it—obviously—but she'd figured Chuck Taylors or Adidas would work fine. From Google, however, she'd learned that suede- or leather-soled shoes were best, and if proper ballroom dance shoes weren't available, dress shoes would suffice.
And so now, she was freaking out. She didn't own leather-soled dress shoes, and apart from a couple pairs of party-worthy stilettos, the only heels she owned were the lavender pumps she'd bought for Hilary's wedding. She didn't remember putting them in a giveaway pile, but where the hell were they?
She opened the lid of the very last box. "Eureka!" she shouted to the empty room.
And then, pulling them out, she frowned. They looked awfully stiff. And they didn't really go with the striped cotton skirt and black scoop neck tee she'd picked out to wear to the lesson. On that, too, Google had enlightened her. She'd figured she'd wear exercise clothes, something she might wear on a run, but instead of Spandex, the website said it was best to wear something "looser and flowing."
She missed the days of having fashionista Sherri as a roommate. She'd have had the perfect outfit ready and waiting for Erin to borrow, accessories included.
"Oh, well. I'm only dancing on camera for a national television audience. No need to look like a non-idiot, right?" She gritted her teeth and stood to get dressed.
Next she poked around in the closet to find something appropriate for Ben to change into. His lab clothes would probably work—the website said men should wear a shirt and nice pants (Men always had it so much easier.) and to think business casual. But she didn't remember what he'd left the house in that morning, largely because she'd still been asleep, and in a fashion-conscious moment that would make Sherri proud, she wanted to make sure they didn't clash.
She snagged a black button-down shirt with a subtle pinstripe and pale khaki pants from their hangers and then dropped to the floor again to dig for Ben's black dress shoes. By now she was running ten minutes late, and traffic heading north on 75 was bound to be a nightmare. Her right heel snagged a tile as she darted through the kitchen to the back door. Catching herself on the edge of the countertop, she stopped and spun toward the mudroom, deciding she'd be better off in sneakers until she reached the studio. Heels weren't her forte.
"Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap." She repeated it all the way to the car, which was parked in the detached garage. It wasn't like her to run this late.
She hit every red light between her street and the access road. "Murphy's damn law," she muttered. Just when she was thinking she needed to call Ben to let him know she was running late, her phone started ringing in the passenger seat.
"I'm running late," she said, skipping the hello.
"Uuuummmm," Ben answered, and Erin's heart thudded into her throat.
She knew that tone. She'd heard it a lot in the past few months.
"What?" Her voice was ominous.
"I am so s—"
She cut him off. "No," she snapped. "No, no, no, no, no. I have beaten myself up to get to this place, and Leo and his crew are already there waiting on me, I'm sure, and I cannot take a ballroom dance class by myself. Ballroom dancing requires a partner. You've heard the phrase, 'It takes two to tango?'" She drew in a shallow, shaky breath, losing steam. Her next words were like a verbal pout. "And what's it going to look like for the show if you're missing once again from one of my scenes? We shot all that footage together in the beginning, remember? The interviews where we discussed together how we were completing the items on my list together."
Erin was caught somewhere between screaming with frustration and bursting into tears, in part because Ben was flaking out again and in part because she'd never snapped at him like this. His long pause told her he was just as surprised as she was. As many as forty-five seconds passed before he spoke again.
"I'm sor—" He cut himself off, started again. "So, here's the deal. The Nemesis failed to tell me"—Erin raised an eyebrow at his choice of words. Ben never used Erin's nickname for his boss. He clearly knew he was in trouble—"or anybody else in my lab that our annual inspection was moved to this afternoon. It was supposed to be Tuesday." His voice lowered. "Things have been crazy in here all day because we're not ready. We've been too focused on the Levamentin trial to worry about a stupid lab inspection. I was hoping it'd be over by now, but there's all this paperwork, a mountain of boxes that I have to check, and—"
"And you're going to miss the dance class," Erin finished for him, her voice dull. "And you're going to spend another Friday night in the lab."
"I'm sorry," Ben said after another long pause. "What else can I say? This is my job."
Erin was sitting at a red light on the access road, the fifth or sixth car in a long row of cars about to enter the ramp. She squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose with the hand that wasn't holding her phone.
"I know," she said. "I'm sorry to give you a guilt trip. But this is my job, and you're involved in it. Or, you were supposed to be."
The light turned green, and Erin eased the car forward. She was about to tell him she'd figure it out and not to worry about it—not meaning it—when he spoke up again.
"Melody's storming over here." He said it in a loud whisper, the words running together. "E, I'm really, really sorry. I'll make it up to you. I have to go."
She heard some muffled shuffling, and then Melody's shrill voice, followed by Ben's quieter baritone. "Bye," he said and then hung up before she could reply.
"I love you, too." she muttered to the empty line. She glared at the phone and then tossed it onto the seat beside her.
* * *
When Erin finally arrived at the studio, the first thing she noticed was Leo's expression. Eyes expectant as she burst through the glass front door and then, when no one entered behind her, a split second of raised-brow surprise, and then a small smirk, a definite smugness.
Traffic was as bad as she'd expected, so she was f
ifteen minutes late—red-faced, already sweating before the lesson even started. She was twenty minutes early for the private class, but still. It wasn't an auspicious start to an already challenged evening.
"No Ben." He phrased it as a statement, not a question.
Erin busied herself arranging her bag on a bench, ignoring him, then sat down and untied her shoes to change into the Godforsaken heels from hell.
"Is he on his way?"
She fussed with the buckle on the left shoe and took her time answering him.
"No," she said, not looking up from her feet. "He got tied up at work."
Leo's silence conveyed his lack of surprise.
"Is the instructor here?" Finishing with the second buckle, Erin finally looked up.
At this Leo pushed himself from the wall he was leaning against and glanced into the room behind him, a wood-floored, wide open space with a sheet glass mirror covering a long wall Erin could see from the lobby. Disco balls hung at even intervals, interspersed with cut glass chandeliers and shining recessed spotlights.
She'd been so rushed—and pissed—on the way to the studio that she hadn't had time to get nervous, but now, seeing the big, empty dance floor, her stomach gave an edgy jolt. And then she heard footsteps—brisk, purposeful heel clicks that surprised her. She wasn't sure why, but she'd expected a male instructor.
"Hi, Erin. It's so nice to meet you."
The dance teacher put a hand forward, and when Erin grasped it, the woman's long, tapered fingers were cold and slightly damp, like she'd just pulled a soda from the fridge. Her voice, by contrast, was warm and her handshake firm. "I'm Evangeline, your instructor for tonight's lesson."
She was lean and lithe with olive skin and long, luscious hair that was black-brown with russet streaks—not a natural color. It crossed Erin's mind that she was exactly Leo's type, apart from the fine lines at the corners of her eyes that showed her age to be late 40s, possibly early 50s. If past experience was an indicator, Leo liked 'em young.
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