by Skye Warren
I’m ready to escape, several steps down the aisle, when the lights go back down. What the hell? The audience doesn’t know what to do with this. “What are they doing?” an old woman to my right says in a tremulous voice. “Is there an encore?”
Marlena takes center stage then, a portable mic in her hand. I didn’t recognize her in the ensemble without her sultry attitude. She puts on a hint of it now while she speaks into the mic. “Good evening.”
Those two words are enough of a cue for everyone to take their seats. Everyone who’s interested, anyway. Some people—assholes—file out through the side doors and let them shut loudly behind them.
“We’ve prepared a special finale.” Marlena’s voice is smooth. Unafraid.
Landon looms in the wings on stage right. He looks fucking furious. So it was a surprise for him, too. Good. Marlena does something to the bottom of the mic and flies on tiptoe to intercept him. She drags him back into the shadows.
A single beam of light lands on the stage. Bethany’s there, her head bowed.
She’s changed out of her costume and into a simple black leotard and pale pink tights. It’s the costume a child would wear for ballet class, but no one could mistake her body for a child’s. For a moment she stands perfectly still.
My heart trips over several empty beats.
The music comes in. One. Two. Three. A different beat. Something dark and fast, like a river at night. Like the molten core at the center of the earth.
Bethany comes alive. I’ve never seen her dance like this. Not once. These steps—they’re something totally new. But I recognize them as intimately as I’d recognize her skin under the palms of my hands or the roll of her hips when she comes. I’ve felt this every time we’ve ever touched.
It’s the essence of her. The power of her.
Her performance fills the room. The music in the air and the sound of her skin connecting with the stage are the only things I can hear. All other noise is irrelevant.
All other people are irrelevant.
I’m entranced by her. Consumed with her. The real her. This woman. This queen. When the music stops, its echo ringing through the auditorium, I’m the first to my feet. She might never know I was here. I might never have the chance to tell her. So I clap until my hands feel raw, until my throat feels tight with emotion, and then I clap some more. In this moment I’m not anyone special. I’m just a man who loves her—like every other man in this room. Every other woman. We’re all in her thrall. We’re all her subjects as she gives us a simple, elegant curtsy and exits the stage.
Bethany
The old swing behind Mamere’s house should probably be torn down. It’s creaky and rusted over, but it can still bear weight. There’s a lesson in there, if I cared to learn anything from all of this.
There’ll be time to learn later. When my heart comes back to life.
If it comes back to life.
Even if it does, I know it won’t beat the same.
“A sorry sight, you here alone on that swing. Not even the spirits to keep you company.” Mamere shades her eyes against the setting sun. “Does it help?”
“To swing?” I try to imagine a set of circumstances that would be helped by sitting on a derelict swing. None of them look quite like the one I’m in. I finally got to show the world the dance of my soul. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, because I had no one to share it with. A theater full of people. Alone. “No, Mamere. It doesn’t.”
The breeze runs its fingers through my hair and pats my cheek, as if New Orleans is comforting me. Not completely alone. I have Mamere. I have the city. I have dance. What I don’t have is the man I love, because he’ll never let me in.
Not five years ago. And not now.
No more, Bethany. No more hoping he’ll come back. No more wishing for pebbles against my window. All that is done. Someday I’ll feel peace about that. There will be wise words about serendipity and the vagaries of the heart.
Someday isn’t today.
Mamere shuffles through the tall grass and grips my shoulder. I put my hand over hers, feeling the papery skin and the tendons in sharp relief. She’s always been this way, ethereal and so very real. We stand that way for a long time, my toes pressed into the grass, my gaze on the pink-orange sherbet sunset.
Then she releases me and goes back into the house. I lift my feet from the ground to let the swing move again. Back and forth. Back and forth. The creaks become a sort of music. They mark a slow and steady rhythm.
There’s beauty in everything, even heartbreak.
I once sat on this swing as a terrified little girl. Then I grew up into a scared young woman. I’m not afraid anymore, and I wouldn’t go back to what I was—not even for the man I love. He’s too afraid to be vulnerable; that’s the irony of strong men.
The wind stills. A presence makes the hair on the back of my neck rise. My heart pounds faster. I couldn’t say what changes, whether I feel the bend of the grass or the shift in the air. It could be anyone. It could be no one. My soul whispers: Josh.
I know better than to hope for that. Don’t I?
My breath catches. I turn around to prove myself wrong.
The sunset provides a saturated spotlight. Peach light limns his tanned skin. It skates over the stubble on his jaw. It turns away from heavy shadows on the angles of his face. Objectively I know he’s a handsome man. Rugged and masculine. My heart jumps into my throat. I’m not objective. He doesn’t look handsome to me; he looks like fire.
How did I think I could swing and swing and swing?
How did I think living without him was an option?
“Josh. You’re here.” I stand, abrupt and clumsy, without an ounce of my dancer’s grace. The swing doesn’t want to let go. One of the rusty chains scrapes against my palm, leaving a thin line of blood. I hiss, more surprise than pain, but I barely glance at it. I’m transfixed by the man standing in the yard, the light trapped in his emerald eyes.
He closes the distance between us with his long strides and takes my hand in his. He turns it over, and I’m struck by the memory of reading his palm. He’s reading mine—not the lines in my skin. He’s reading the pinpricks of blood. His eyes flick up to meet mine, and a shock both foreign and familiar ripples through me.
“You’re going to need a tetanus shot,” he says, his voice grim.
A wild laugh tears from my throat. The sound floats above us on the breeze. Josh cracks a smile. “Is that all you have to tell me?”
“There were a few other things. They can wait.”
Such practical ideas—bandages and Neosporin. I have no desire to walk through those rituals. I have no interest in the lines on my palm. They don’t decide my fate. That’s in the hands of a man with violence and anger and unspeakable tenderness. He came back. “You walked away from me, Josh.”
“I’m an asshole.”
That makes me smile. “I know.”
He glances away. A muscle ticks in his jaw. “That probably won’t change anytime soon. Not at the core of me. Even if I—”
“Do you think you’re telling me something I don’t know?”
“Christ.”
“You’ve been living in this space a long time,” I say, understanding Mamere’s words more than before. “Haven’t you? Very much alone.” He stands like the tower against a starless sky. The tower means danger. It means upheaval.
It means destruction.
He drops to his knees, all six feet plus of him.
The tower, falling. Or maybe a better word would be dismantled. He’s choosing to bring it down. For me? Or for himself? They might be the same thing. I feel the impact through the soles of my feet. My non-bloody hand slips easily through his hair. I tilt his face up so I can see his eyes.
“I came here to tell you that I’m a bastard. That I’m sorry for everything I said. For everything I didn’t say. Most of all I’m sorry that I didn’t have a front row seat at the finale, because you were a goddamn goddess.”
It feels like my heart’s expanding. Overflowing. “You were there?”
“I wouldn’t have missed it. I’m too selfish to miss it.”
A watery laugh. “You’re trying to convince me to forgive you?”
“No. God, no. In the history of time. In the history of humanity. There has never been a bigger bastard than me.” He turns my bloodied hand over and brushes his lips against my knuckles. “Don’t ever forgive me.”
He’s kneeling in front of me like I’m a queen. Like he’s a knight. That’s what we are, in a way. I can point in a direction; he’s the one who fights. “What if I want to forgive you?” I don’t mention that it was already done. Forgiveness isn’t really a decision. It’s threaded with love and trust. It’s his whether he wants it or not.
“You really shouldn’t.”
“What should I do instead then?”
He holds my hips with two large hands, almost enveloping me. He rests his forehead against my sternum. “Start with a tetanus shot.”
I press a kiss to the top of his head. “I forgive you.”
“Don’t.”
“And I love you. That’s never been a question.”
“I’m not sure I can take it.” His voice is unsteady, and I know that he’s telling the truth. Blood and guns and treason. That’s the language he speaks. Forgiveness is a foreign word. It’s beyond anything. It’s everything.
“Do you love me, Joshua North?” Blood races through my veins. I know the truth, and maybe that’s enough. It’s not. It’s not enough unless he can admit it. He needs a woman strong enough to forgive him. I need a man strong enough to ask for it. “That’s the only way this works. Do you?”
His hands tighten on my hips, as if he can feel me slipping away. “I love your loyal heart. Even if you forgive more than you should. I love your beautiful body. Even though the world doesn’t fucking deserve your talent.”
I tug on his arm, and he stands. “What do you love?”
“I love you.” His green eyes burn with unspoken pain.
“You love me, even though…”
“Even though it kills me. It kills me to need you.”
“Same,” I whisper, putting my hand on his chest. His heart thuds against my palm. We were both in towers, both so bent on destruction in order to be safe. I feel that seismic shift as I look into his eyes—the foundation beneath my feet cracking, the endless fall. This is what it feels like to fall in love. It isn’t a moment. It’s forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Loie Fuller was a burlesque skirt dancer in the late 19th century who experimented with the effect that gas lighting had on her silk costumes. She developed a form of natural movement and improvisation techniques that were used in conjunction with her revolutionary lighting equipment and translucent silk costumes.
Josh
In my dream there’s a tower crumbled to pieces.
I’m walking through the rubble, pulling aside chunks of concrete, searching for someone. Bethany. The name is enough to bring me back to waking.
A dark room. Stillness.
I’m alone in bed. I know that before I open my eyes, before I swing my arm across the cool sheets on the other side. There’s no surprise, only a low throb of inevitability. Of course, of course. Of course she left me.
It’s an old wound, the way a broken bone aches in the winter months.
Being abandoned. Doing the abandoning.
Both of those have left their scars in my body. I’ll never fully escape them. The bone has healed, but the scar tissue will always be there.
Bethany won’t abandon me.
I know she won’t, because there’s something stronger than muscle and weapons—there’s love. I almost lost her a thousand times, but she’s with me anyway. She’s with me because she’s strong enough for the both of us.
Knowing that she won’t leave doesn’t stop the dread in my body every time she’s away. That’s the thing about childhood pain. It sets in deep.
It never really goes away.
She could be having a cup of warm tea in the kitchen.
She could be practicing her new routine in the gym upstairs.
Instead I find her on the floor in the living room, a fire blazing in the hearth despite the warmth around us. I’m already feeling the heat as I sit cross legged opposite her. She has a deck of tarot in front of her, her hands resting lightly on her knees, eyes closed.
“Thought you didn’t go in for that mumbo jumbo,” I murmur, and my voice comes out hushed because there’s a strange energy in the room. The same energy I feel in Mamere’s house.
“Smoke and mirrors,” she says, a smile playing at her lips.
“You’ve seen how the sausage gets made.”
Her eyes open, and I’m looking into brown eyes that are a thousand years old, an eternity of wisdom. “That’s the thing. I’ve seen people looking for comfort, for solace, for hope—and I’ve seen them finding it. There’s a kind of magic in that, don’t you think?”
There’s magic in you. It sounds too sappy to say out loud, even for a man head over heels for a woman. Instead I gesture toward the deck between us. “Are you looking for hope?”
She raps her knuckle on the deck, and I know from what she’s told me that she’s clearing out the evil spirits from the cards. A gentle push and the deck is closer to me. “Are you?”
I look askance at the cards. I don’t know if I believe in what they say, but I’m more concerned that Bethany believes it. What if the cards tell her to dump the bastard she’s with? What if they warn her that I’m going to walk away? That’s the crazy thing about abandonment. I can never be sure other people won’t leave. I can never be sure that I won’t leave, either. I don’t trust anyone. Especially not myself. Her eyes glisten with understanding. “Shuffle them.”
Love can make a man do crazy things. It can make him hope for a happily ever after. It can make him shuffle a worn deck of tarot cards. I do until she looks satisfied and set it back down on the floor between us. She asks me to cut the deck, and I do that, too. She could ask for anything. I’d follow this woman off a fucking cliff, so it’s easy enough to make three piles and put them back together.
Her slender hand falls to the deck, almost protective the way she pauses. There’s a shudder deep inside me, a fear that she’ll pull that same card—The Tower. That it will prove I’m meant to be alone. So much destruction. That’s all my life has ever been. I tried to destroy Bethany, too, with cruel words and cruel actions, but she was too strong to break.
The Chariot. A man in armor stands tall in a chariot, two lions ready to pull.
She taps the card with her forefinger. “This is a card for a warrior. It’s about determination and action and success. It’s almost the exact opposite of The Tower.”
“I’ll tell my brother,” I say, because he’s been hounding me about getting back to work. Of all people he knows what it’s like to find love, he knows the obsession that comes with it, but North Security has more business than it can handle. I’m staying with Bethany until she stops having nightmares about Connor. And then maybe I’ll stay longer. I’ll stay fucking forever.
“There are stars in the curtains. Moons on his crescent. This is not just a card of physicality. It’s about finding success inside you, not accidentally, but with pure willpower.”
“Willpower.” An interesting way to describe love. The right word for someone who was burned early and often in life. It took determination to decide to work for it again. To fight for it again. To risk everything on one little dancer who stole my heart the very first time I saw her spin and leap in a derelict warehouse.
Bethany
I try not to wake him up. In my dreams it’s not Josh standing behind Mamere’s house. It’s Connor, who never even visited there. It’s my brother, who’s in the city committing crime. It’s my father, who once read bedtime stories. Before he decided I looked too much like my mother. Before he drank too much to tell the difference between us. At six years
old I learned not to trust anyone.
It took a lifetime to learn to trust again.
I stack the tarot deck again. “I’m sorry I woke you up.”
He gives me a baleful look. “You didn’t.”
Of all people, of all men, I learned to trust Joshua North. He’s a self proclaimed bastard, an injured animal biting anyone who comes close. Auribus teneo lupum. I have this particular wolf by the ears, which means I’m going to get bitten—and I’m choosing not to let go. “I tried to be quiet, but you always hear me anyway.”
“I told you to wake me up when that happens.”
“What’s the point of both of us being awake?”
“The point is that you shouldn’t have to be afraid alone.”
My heart squeezes. “I hate that he can still affect me like this.”
As I say the words I’m not even sure whether I’m talking about Connor or my brother. Or my father. I hate that fear can still emerge when I’m sleeping, when I’m helpless to keep the dark images at bay.
“A bullet was too fucking quick. I want to kill him again.”
I squeeze my eyes closed. Not fast enough. A tear escapes down my cheek. “He wanted me to dance for him, and I could have just—I could have just done it, you know? I’ve danced for thousands of people. But I couldn’t do it. Not like that.”
A low growl from my wolf. “Of course not.”
“And I keep thinking… what if he broke me? What if I can’t dance for anyone? Not just on stage, but dancing someone else’s steps? That’s my job, but more than that, it’s what I’m good at, the only thing I’m good at. What if I’ve lost that?”
“Then you’ll dance for yourself.”
“The dance company—”
“That fuckface director doesn’t deserve you. No one does, actually, but that’s beside the point. You dance what you want, when you want to, and if anyone says otherwise, I’ll ride my fucking chariot over them.”
I have to laugh at that, despite the heavy weight of my nightmare, despite my serious worry about my future. There’s no doubt in my mind that Josh would fight any battle I want him to. If anything I’ll probably be holding him back. “You know, Mamere always said that dancing was no better than being a stripper.”
