by Mia Madison
“Well if it happens to you, I hope I’ve got your back too.” I’m really grateful to her for holding me up out there.
“Stop yakking and get your antlers on,” she giggles.
I’m throwing off my clothes even as we’re talking. There’s no time for shyness backstage. We’ve got seventy eight seconds to change a full outfit. We throw off our costumes at the same time our dressers bundle us into the next one. All the stage hands are too busy to give us a second glance. They’ve brought the full size red double decker bus down from its storage space suspended hanging up in the ceiling and soon as we’re ready, we’ll be climbing on board. No one stares at me as I strip down to my underwear in front of more than two hundred people.
No one but him.
He’s gazing at me from a distance with an intensity that makes me tremble. I’m panting and it has nothing to do with the dance number. I refuse to be sucked into his realm. I’m not interested in being someone’s Mistress or whatever the word is these days. Not only is he married, he also has a kid, an adorable one at that. She looks completely intoxicated by the show as well as the frantic hustle backstage. Her head flips here and there, taking it all in, while his - Noel’s - is frozen, with no interest in anything but me.
Well too late for all that. Not gonna happen. Never would. I was burned by that once, I won’t be fooled again.
I ram my arms down into my costume then spin around for the dresser to button me up. When I turn again for her to get the back, Noel’s standing right in front of me.
I let out a nasty squeak as I draw a gasp. His presence is so overwhelming it sends shivers rolling through my body.
Keep it together I tell myself for about the thousandth time in the last five minutes.
The intro music for the Christmas in New York number rolls up and I know I have less than fifteen seconds to get to my mark.
“Lana, I have to talk to you,” he grits out through a clenched jaw.
How did he move that fast with a crutch? Some kind of superman.
“No time,” I shake my head as the dresser slides between Noel and I to fix my headpiece in place.
“When then?” he hisses over the dresser’s shoulder. “It’s important.”
Five, four, three….
I hurl myself with a dancer’s swift turned-out run to my place, hanging on to the pole on the bus platform. Seconds later, it begins to roll out onto stage.
Fixing my megawatt smile and my fixed gaze direct at the fourth wall - that black hole behind which thousands of pairs of eyes are watching, expecting perfection and fantasy, I focus on the number. I very determinedly do not allow my eyes to snap to the wings where I feel Noel’s eyes burning into me.
What is he doing here? How can he be standing right there barely out of sight of the crowd? God I hope he isn’t an angel - one of the producers of the show. Because that would mean I’d be obliged to be nice to him. What with him being my boss.
The oohs from the crowd come exactly on cue as the snow starts to fall, fifty pounds of the stuff that twenty stagehands have to sweep up after every performance.
Then the number’s over and the bus is rolling back into the wings and we change outfits again. It’s madness but it’s exhilarating to hear the applause and know that the audience is loving the spectacular show.
“Lana, please can we talk,” Noel is beside me again as I rip off my double breasted sparkly coat to change back into a tiny christmassy dress. My dresser moves as fluidly as a dancer, we’ve got these changes down to a lightning routine. She continues as though Noel’s invisible and isn’t right on top of us, getting in her way.
“Sorry,” Noel says as he takes a step back so she can refix yet another headdress.
“No worries.” She nods and slithers around him. “Think of me as the Ghost of Christmas.”
“Past,” I say emphatically, glaring at Noel with a look that says ‘Go away’.
“Future,” he corrects, with a grin.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I quip.
“I could say the same,” he comes right back. “Hallie and I will be happy to sit here every show until you agree to hear me out.”
“How can you even be here at all?” I snarl.
The music’s starting again. The front end are already kicking their way across the stage. Each girl adds herself to the end and effortlessly adds her leg to the dance, high-kicking in perfect unison. I need to join the line. I need to be as perfect as the thirty nine other girls.
Noel watches, mesmerized as I slide in beside Randi. Her arm comes around me as mine goes around her. I feel the buzz rise through my body, with a final glare at Noel I throw my leg up higher than it’s ever gone.
8
Noel
She moves like she’s flying, like it’s effortless. I can’t take my eyes off her.
I wonder how many times we worked in this same room, through the months of dress rehearsals while I set up the special effect to co-ordinate with the routines. How did I never notice this knockout woman? I could have been dating her for weeks. We could be a confirmed Christmas couple. I could be heading to Tiffany for… shit, what am I thinking?
Just a hook up would be good. My wood is letting me know it’s been way too long. Being on crutches has made it difficult enough to keep up with scouring my usual joints around downtown Manhattan. Now being a single dad has made it all but impossible.
A small hand slips into mine and I look down to see Halliday’s eyes shining brightly as she watches the high-kick routine.
“How about you and I go to the carousel like I promised after this?”
She looks up and nods eagerly but still doesn’t speak. Her eyes never leave the dancers on the stage and I can see my dreams of making a techie out of her might have to be put on hold.
Like always, the final number brings down the house, as they say. Although I position myself to one side but still in direct line to grab Lana as she runs offstage, I don’t get the chance. The girls dash through the wings straight to their dressing rooms, all chattering and high with performance adrenalin.
I’d be happy to sit and wait for Lana to emerge all day, but I promised my daughter a treat.
I take a few final moments, waiting for Lana but she doesn’t emerge. None of the girls do and finally - faceplant - I realize that they have more than one show to do.
“How many more shows this shift?” I ask Brad as we head for the backstage door. I can’t believe my chance is slipping away yet again.
“Two to go,” he says. “Why?”
“I needed to speak to a friend.”
“Oh, who’s that?” He asks trying to be casual a bit too hard.
The intro music starts up and Hallie’s hand squeezes mine as she pulls me back toward the side of the stage.
“You want to watch again, Baby?”
She nods.
I laugh and then scoop her up to sit on my shoulders so we aren’t in the way as a hive of worker stagehands rush around prepping everything for the next scene, coming right up. Hallie’s little hands on my ears, tweak the lobes as she leans down to whisper.
“I could watch it a hundred times.”
“Me too, Baby. It’s amazing.”
So we stay. When Lana comes up for the first number, I know exactly where to look for her on the far end of the line. I’d know her anywhere, even if she’d swapped places with one of the other girls to throw me off. I could pick her out of any lineup in the dark. She’s spectacularly amazing and outshines all the others. Like Hallie I can watch this show over and over again as long as she’s in it.
I glance back and see Brad over my shoulder, eager to get us out. But he won’t say anything now that the show has started and he has to get back to make sure no one sneaks into the backstage area. I can watch Lana without harassment.
After not recognizing her, which I’m guessing is what annoyed her at the cocktail event, I will never make that mistake again. Her perfect features are burned into my memory. Her p
erfect body inspires all sorts of thoughts that I have to repress.
She startles when she notices me in the shadows, standing out of the way, with Hallie still riding my shoulders.
“Phantom of the Music Hall,” she hisses as the troupe shuffle past onto the stage and the audience applause erupts.
I don’t get why she’s so mad at me. As soon as I explain about her beanie hat covering her hair, her bright blue eyes misdirecting me, she’ll understand I’m not a dick. Not to her. Hallie seems content to watch the spectacular a second time around just as much as a third. And although I know this show inside and out, so much so that a tune will fill my head at inopportune moments and I can’t get it out, I want Lana to know I’m going to wait for her until January if necessary. And then I’m going to follow her wherever she’s going back to and convince her that I’m not an ass.
Not any more.
Most of that I put down to Hallie’s influence but I know that Lana’s sweetness when I was laid out on the sidewalk has a lot to do with my change of heart. I’m not that same guy I was before I was hurled out of a window.
Lana pointedly ignores me, so I move behind the scenery backdrop to the opposite side of the stage, where we’re right beside her.
I hope I’m not putting her off. And that she doesn’t think I’m some sick stalker. This is cute behavior right? The kind of thing girls appreciate. I wouldn’t know for sure having never chased a woman so hard. I’ve never had to. And there’s never been one I thought was worth the effort until now.
Now that I’m close to her, just ten feet away, my head swirls with the need to possess her. Those incredible legs lift all the way to her ears and seem like they could just keep going. Over and over, she scissor kicks and smiles, kicks and smiles, until the crowd go wild for her. And so does my blood.
Heat pushes at my skin lining and a hunger rises until I feel like I might burst out of my skin on some feral leap of desire. I’m starting to understand where all those legends of werewolves come from. A man can be driven deranged by the sight of the thing he wants so close but just out of reach.
Now that we’re stage left I don’t get the chance to speak to Lana when she comes offstage for a change and it’s just as well. From this distance I see her strip down over and over, to change costume and all I can think of is stripping her all the way out of that underwear and planting my mouth on every part of her delectable body.
I’m not one for resolutions at new year. I make mine when required and that surety in myself has served me well in business. I always get what I want and rise to the top. In terms of relationships I always win but real love is so elusive I was sure it’s fiction. Now I know that before this year is over I’m going to claim those delicious long curves and make her mine.
An hour and a half spent watching her in a kind of rapture, and the show’s over. Of course I can’t go down to the dressing rooms but I wait for Lana with Hallie, close to the gold backstage door.
This time she emerges. All wrapped up in her hat and multiple scarves.
9
Lana
“Who is that guy? The one with the kid?” I ask the girls as casually as I can manage with my heart in my mouth, once we’re all back in our dressing room. It’s cramped but I love it, being surrounded by my crew mates as we strip off our make up and talk about the show.
I’m trying not to appear too interested in Noel - which of course I’m not. I just wish he didn’t incite so much heat in my body. “Is he an angel?”
A couple of the girls let out a guffaw. The ones that have been here a while.
“Furthest thing from that,” Lolo says.
“How so?”
“He just likes to flirt, he’s harmless,” Eloise says with a ‘don’t be mean’ flash of the eyes at Lolo.
“I’m just saying,” Lolo pouts. “I mean the guy’s a player. How many girls has he dated from the show?”
“He’s a dog,” someone behind me adds.
“Bad hombre.”
Okay I get it.
“But how does he get to be backstage if he’s not an angel?”
“He is an investor. But before that he created some brand new design effects. The digital stuff that makes the set appear so realistic and transports the audience to far off lands.”
“Yeah pretty soon there’ll be real dancing robots.” Eloise moans. She’s been on the show the longest.
“Naah, they’ll never be able to invent a machine that can do three hundred highkicks in time with thirty nine other robots.”
A heated discussion breaks out about female robots taking over not only dancing but all the tedious aspects of life, including domestic duties and all romance after the first six months when the guy’s pulling out all the stops chasing you.
“I’d like one that did the blowjobs for me,”Annette says. “I’d pay to opt out of that gagging and just take the fun part when he comes inside me.”
I leave the girls planning a quickie happy hour, saying I have to see a chiropractor. I should probably go with them but I’m too bewildered still by the way Noel looked at me through every show. My body is clenching and tense from pent up - something. I just want to take some alone time to think it through. To try to get him out of my head where he’s stuck like an irritating pop song. If only he wasn’t so damn hot.
I scrunch down into my cocoon of scarves but my eyes scan side to side looking for his gorgeous body. I tell myself I’m not disappointed that he’s not still here. I keep telling myself that, hoping to make it stick.
He’s gone now at last, having hung around backstage for three and a half shows. I feel sorry for the sweet little girl, his daughter of course, being forced to watch the same show over and over so Daddy can - what? What is it he wants from me? If he really is the player the girls seem to think he is, how does he manage that with the little cutie along?
“I think I owe you one of those,” Noel says from out of a dark shadow piled high with props.
“Ohmigod you scared me.”
My heart tries to lurch into my throat when I see him and I have to take a deep inhale trying to calm back down.
He’s sitting on a ladder step with his cast stretched out and his little girl by his side, leaning over it. He’s grinning so cockily, like he’s pleased with himself for catching me unawares. I throw him my best hard frown, determined that I’m not gonna make this easy.
“Scarf,” he says, pointing to my neck. “You used one on the ground for me.”
“I’m surprised you remember,” I snip.
“Oh I remember every second of our first meeting,” he smirks. “Especially the part where you fulfilled my final wish.” “Prematurely as it turns out.” “We could always continue. See where my wishes take us next.”
God he really is sure of himself. And did I mention, gorgeous?
“It’s fine,” I brush him off. “I went back for it when I remembered, but it was gone.”
“Let me buy you a new one.”
“Really its okay, as you can see I’m not short of knitted neckwear. And I’m surprised you remembered, seeing as you didn’t even recognize me at the cocktail thing.”
The arrogant bugger smirks again and I could high kick myself for letting him know how that bothered me.
“My saving angel,” he says. “You were so bundled up that day I couldn’t see anything but those incredible eyes, the perfect lips. It wasn’t until I saw you up close that I knew it was you. And then you disappeared.”
“Yeah well that was because your Wi…” I stop, recalling that a child is sitting there, listening to this drivel and probably bored out of her mind.
I shouldn’t say anything about her mom. I wonder why she isn’t here. “Did you enjoy the show?” I ask her.
She looks up at me but doesn’t say a word.
“Halliday isn’t talking at the moment,” her father says, cupping the little girl’s head tenderly. He may be an ass with women but he seems like a great dad. “She’s taking a little bre
ak from communicating aren’t you, baby?”
He throws me a meaningful look but I don’t get the underlying sentiment.
“I have to go,” I say, suddenly feeling awkward and out of my depth.
My life as a ballet dancer means I’ve never been around children. Neither of my stepsisters is married and no one at the ballet company was a parent. All I know about little girls is that ballet is their dream world.
“We’re going to the carousel,” he tells me, stroking the little girls hair.
“That sounds like fun, cutie pie,” I say, but she still doesn’t respond. Could there be something wrong with her? She seems far away.
“Why don’t you come along?” Noel asks, although it sounds more like an order.
Seriously this guy knows no boundaries.
“I can’t.”
“My momma is in the ground and all covered in snow,” Hallie suddenly announces.
Shit.
My face falls like an avalanche and Noel is also in shock, I can tell, when our eyes bat to each other joined in stunned amazement. He looks stricken as though he can feel a ton of pain for the child and wishes he could take it away. I also feel like a real bitch for refusing to hear his story, just assuming he was married because of that phone call.
“Well she only went to the ground for a little while,” I tell the child as kindly as I can. “She will have traveled up to the stars now.”
“Are you sure?” She looks up at me with huge eyes.
“Yes I am, cutie pie.”
“That’s good. I won’t worry about her then.”
“Thank you,” Noel mouths at me.
“If you still want me to take that carousel ride, I think we should go now?” I say.
The child nods agreement and takes my hand, her father in the other and leads us out to the street.
We cab up to the park as it’s freezing out and Noel insists he can walk just fine but still, it would take forever. I get that he’s being a real alpha about his injury and refusing to be an invalid.
