Lead and Follow(72)
“Are we in this together?”
Lizzie swallowed. “You tell me. You’re the one who hasn’t opened up.”
A knock on the door shocked her back a few steps. Janet called, “It’s an intermission, Lizzie. We wanted to introduce you both around. You coming out?”
“Of course. Be right there.” She glanced at her partner, heartsick with worry that they’d shared their last dance. “Ask yourself who ran the other morning and why Svetlana’s back in your life. Hell, why you haven’t renewed your contract with Declan. Then be prepared to let me into that head of yours. I know we’re both braver than this.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Until Lizzie was injured and staying with her parents, Dima had never realized how much life she breathed into their tiny apartment. No more salsa music pouring through the sound system in the living room. No more singing—badly—under her voice as she dusted and cleaned. No more late-night movies with her feet kicked up on the couch, eating air-popped popcorn.
That their place was equally quiet now settled like lead in his stomach. They lived together, but she might as well be gone. She stuck to her room, much as he stuck to his own space.
She looked at him, though—not like the three days after they’d made love in the dark, when they’d ducked each other like they were on the run from the police. No, she watched him silently.
It hurt worse.
Every day she went out to dance and he still didn’t know where. She returned to the apartment with that special combination of exhausted and thrilled that came from working on new material. That she spent so many hours in someone else’s arms wasn’t the worst of it. He mostly worried she’d set her own path. That he’d lost her forever.
Because she’d been right the other day, at Woodruff exhibition. He’d run. He’d always sworn that he would only take Lizzie where she wanted to go, but that didn’t count when he ran blindly. All his talk about plans, all his maneuvering. He’d walked away from them all.
His goal certainly hadn’t been the big dance tonight. He and Jeanne weren’t the partnership he wanted. He still hadn’t signed the renewal contract, and Lizzie had been right about that too.
Even as he grabbed his dance bag from his room, then filled his pockets with wallet, keys and cell, he realized he was waiting. Listening. Searching for some hint of sound that said she was getting ready, though in her own sweet time. Because as awful as this strain was between them, he didn’t know how to experience any important event without her at his side. She was simply, solidly always there.
As he walked past her room, he couldn’t help himself. He stopped and knocked. The pause and silence stretched like saltwater taffy.
The door opened.
Right away, he knew the answer to his question. Low-slung jeans. A tight T-shirt with a Rangers emblem. Bare feet. Not exactly dress-code attire for Club Devant.
“You’re not going.”
Her gaze dropped somewhere near his throat. Tiny violet shadows draped under her eyes. Not enough to claim she was exhausted, but their presence was shocking in comparison to her normal vitality. If she was coping as poorly as Dima, then she hadn’t been sleeping.
She idly thumbed a bit of nicked wood on the doorjamb. Funny, her close-trimmed nails were in full competition mode, glossed with a deep red color. “I’m tired,” she said.
“Oh.” He wanted to touch her. More than that, needed to. His skin pulled and tingled with flat-out desire. “Paul texted me. He’s going to be there.”
Fuck if that wasn’t the dumbest thing he’d ever said. Terrified of admitting everything going on in his head—and his heart—for so long, he dangled another man in front of her, much as he had resented of Lizzie the night Sveta appeared at the club.
At least he’d severed that tie. Svetlana had called again, and he’d told her they were done. That wasn’t somewhere he wanted to go. She didn’t intend for them to proceed in a solely professional capacity, and he certainly wasn’t prepared for anything more.
Not when he was so very in love with Lizzie.
He was beginning to suspect that was half the problem. He’d loved her even before her injury. For too many years to see clearly, he’d trusted in a deep, endless connection. And still, he’d been unable to keep her safe. Hell, she’d fallen right out of his arms.
Maybe it was shitty of him, but the fear wasn’t so potent when he danced with Jeanne. Still there, but manageable. He only needed to pull her a little harder and guard her a little closer. Taking the weight of it was what the male partner did.
He couldn’t imagine what he’d do if he let Lizzie down again. Break in two? Like his parents, once they no longer had the structure of their careers? Perhaps he would spend the next fifty years sitting on a plastic-wrapped sofa with a tumbler of vodka.