Sugar Baby Beautiful(61)

Breathe. Felicity, you got this. You are new to dancing—

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

We all turned to find Violet, who was holding on to her cane, her leg in a brace, glowering at us. She had cut her hair shorter and dyed it lighter too.

“Violet, you shouldn’t be here—”

“It’s bad enough I can’t be on the stage, but you replace me with her!” she screamed at Walt while pointing at me. “Thousands of dancers in this state, and you chose a former waitress. How dare you insult me like this.”

I noticed that more than a few of the other dancers didn’t disagree with her. They scowled at me, shaking their heads.

I knew that look. I saw it in my nightmares.





Theo


I think I might love her. It was all I could think about the last couple of days. Watching her practice. Seeing her laugh and smile, spending hours upon hours pushing herself. I was happy for her and torn at the same time, because I wanted us to go back to Ambler, North Carolina. I wanted to spend more time with her. So this morning I had told Walt not to run with her, that I would go. And I would have been fine just being beside her. Even if she hadn’t said one word, I would have been okay, but I blurted it out: I think I might love you. Once it was out, there was no backtracking. There was nothing I could do but accept what I had said. Seeing her wrestle with it for a moment and then ask for a date, well, that was something even I couldn’t have foreseen.

“Why are you smiling?” Tori asked when I entered the gala venue. The staff was already putting up the banners, changing out the lights. Everything was supposed to be white, gold, and black for the evening.

“I’m not smiling. This place still has a ways to go before Sunday,” I muttered. Every year our annual fundraising gala was held to raise money for the arts. However, it soon became somewhat of fashion show event for celebrities since all of our clients came. The red carpet was madness, everyone dressing up in some sort of costume for the cameras. The number of artists and actresses on stage had been capped at twenty-five this year.

“Well, we kind of have a problem,” Tori muttered.

“What kind of problem?”

“Nothing major. Everything is going according to plan—”

“But?”

“Violet’s here.”

Sighing, I followed her into the stage hall. I should have known Violet wouldn’t be able to let this go. If she couldn’t dance, then she was going to want to control everything else. It was who she was.

“Violet, you have no say about who dances for me!” Walt snapped in her face at the foot of the stage. “I understand you are upset, but every moment I waste trying to tend to your ego is a minute not training them.”

“She isn’t good enough to replace me,” she hissed through her teeth.

“In your mind, who is?”

She clenched the cane in her hands so tightly, I wondered if she was considering using it as a bat.

“Ms. Harper, step forward,” I called, taking a seat in one of the red chairs of the front row. All their attention fell on me. Felicity’s hazel eyes widened, but she put down her water bottle and did as she was asked. There was a first time for everything, it seemed.

“Melrose, you are the understudy, correct?” I asked the redhead standing by Felicity. “Both of you go through the whole first movement for us.”

“Theo, we haven’t—”

“Now.” I cut Walt off, signaling for the music to start.

I noticed the glare and the same look of superiority Violet had given her. Felicity looked more annoyed with me than she did them.

Walt sat beside me, and Violet beside him.

“If she messes up even a little bit, the rest of the dancers will tear her apart,” he whispered.

“Don’t you believe in her?” I asked softly.

On the count of three, the music began, and Felicity and Melrose mirrored each other. If you took into account that Melrose had been training for years, the fact Felicity could do this much within such a short period of time was amazing. It was also why they were so pissed at her. It was hard to forgive someone who could do something naturally when they had slaved their whole life to accomplish. It was even worse when that person outshined you…just as Felicity did when she leaped to the air just a bit higher, and returned to the ground with gracefully while Melrose was just a moment off beat. If I hadn’t seen this routine a thousand times, it would have gone unnoticed. And if I could notice, so could Melrose. She was so annoyed with herself she slowly broke down… until she just stopped dancing altogether. She wasn’t bad, but she wasn’t the best, so she stopped.