Lead and Follow(53)

“When do you get off?” she asked, her voice rough. Tears pressed against the backs of her eyelids. “Work, I mean.”

Paul glanced at an art deco wall clock. “An hour.”

“One last romp before you head for Westchester?”

“Lizzie…”

“What?”

“Do you think that’s such a good idea?”

“I don’t have any others. I need to get him away from her and out of here. I promise, I’ll talk with him in the morning. We’ll smooth it out and make it work.”

Paul’s mouth twisted up in a bunch. “You sure?”

“Yeah, just not…shit, not tonight. I have to sort through this.”

No matter that she’d had more than a week. Watching Dima walk out of that diner, his back ramrod straight but his neck bowed low, should’ve triggered something. Something stronger. More certain. Maybe an all-encompassing need to call him back and make it right. Why hadn’t that happened? Jesus, what if she wasn’t ever going to be able to feel anything but intense friendship, even desire and possession? He was her whole world. A piece of her was broken if she still wanted more from him.

After what he’d sacrificed on her behalf… Dima deserved better.

“So you’d rather sort it out after doing two guys?”

She playfully slapped his arm. “Shut up! It’s not like you don’t like it too.”

“Never said otherwise. Besides, those regrets I mentioned? I don’t have any when it comes to what we’ve done.” He exhaled slowly. “So. Okay. You go work on him. I’ll come check on you both when I’m off my shift. Make sure you’re still speaking before my dick gets any ideas.”

Lizzie wanted to protest—of course they’d still be talking—but Paul had returned to the bar, and she wasn’t certain at all. She leaned against the wall and admired his back, his ass, his long legs. In her head, Dima wasn’t ever going to be just a friend again, and Paul wasn’t ever going to be her lover, free and clear of complication. She’d muddled them too closely in her memories. Dima could stand tall on his own, but Paul was too new. He would always be a living, breathing reminder of this heartache.

Before she could chicken out, again, she forced her sluggish body back into the main room of the club. Declan’s newest hire, Jack, was on stage. He was a wiry, graceful jazz dancer with a spray of fluffy hair at the top of his head, while the sides were much more close cut. He practically owned the audience. Every flashy move and giant gesture played to their applause and their silences. He told stories with his body. Made her watch, made her wait, made her feel.

She’d never known anything like it on the circuit. She’d been respected and adored by judges, but that wasn’t the same as feeling five hundred people breathing with her. They breathed with Jack. Stiffness was all Lizzie saw in the mirror when she tried to loosen up. She’d been a pro for too long, until even the sexiness and sensuality of Latin dance had become proscribed.

The wild cheers and applause said Jack was well-received. Not that it mattered when Lizzie spotted Dima. With Svetlana. Practically in his lap. She’d lost weight, if that was possible. Her hair was most definitely a wig. And, ugh, the fake tan. It looked garish and plain wrong on a Siberian woman who’d probably been born as pale as a three-day-dead trout.

Did wanting to rip her nasty wig off and burn it in the table’s lone votive constitute a personal or professional jealousy? Lizzie couldn’t tell the difference anymore. She just wanted the woman disintegrated.

“Hello, Svetlana.”

“Hello, Elizabeth.”

Dima shifted. His body language said uncomfortable but his face remained stoically detached. God, she wanted to shake him. “Will you have a seat, Lizzie?”

She took more room than she needed, pushing her leg against Dima’s. It was a compromise against what she really wanted, which was jabbing her heel into Svetlana’s calf. “You’re looking…well.”

“You haven’t put on so much weight as I expected.” Svetlana pursed her bright red lips and sipped tonic water. “You know, with the injury.”

“Is that something new you’re doing with your hair?”

Dima grabbed her hand under the table and clasped it. Yet he quirked his eyebrow only slightly. How often had he given her a similar warning through the years? Back off, it said. We’re grownups. She sure wished she believed that. Nothing had changed since they were in junior high. Only these catfighting combatants wore more makeup and higher heels.

All she could think was that Dima had chosen her over Svetlana. Terrifying, but also glorious.