Lead and Follow (19 page)

Although she had no idea who the woman was, Lizzie waved toodles with her fingertips and headed inside with her decision made. She would at least see Paul. If Dima happened to be there…well, maybe it was time they talked. So far,
not talking
had been a disaster.

Tuesday night was relatively quiet, despite the people Mr. George made stand on line outside. “Relatively quiet” meant she could see Paul. The swarm around the bar was a little less densely packed. He wore his cowboy hat and a white wife-beater T-shirt, making plain ol’ cotton look obscene. Big smile for everyone—even the men, she noticed. That made her smile too. No matter what this experience meant for her and Dima, she hoped it had opened doors for Paul. Maybe he would simply have more…options.

She wiggled through the crowd and behind the bar. Standing behind Paul on tippy-toes, she grabbed his cowboy hat and shoved it on her own head. Without missing a beat with his cocktail shaker, he glanced over his shoulder with a grin that said he knew who he’d find.

“Hey, gorgeous. You here to help me with the dishes? I’m behind.”

“Me? Dishes?” She giggled and started loading a batch of glasses into a huge plastic tray. Already she anticipated watching him lift the heavy thing and haul it back to the kitchen.

“Been a while,” he said conversationally.

“Yup. Sorry.”

“Any news?”

“News?”

He shot her a
don’t be dumb
look and took a twenty from a well-endowed brunette. She waved off the change.

Lizzie laughed behind her hand. “You must make some hellacious tips.”

Licking his lower lip, he ignored the next round of orders and cornered Lizzie against the counter. “That I do.”

“Arrogant ass.”

“Don’t say that word. I’ll get grabby.”

“I wouldn’t call the cops on you. Pinkie swear.”

“Hey, Lyle, you got this for a second?”

The other barman waved with a towel and returned to handing a redhead three glasses of white wine. She hardly looked steady enough to manage.

“Cool. C’mon, we got a minute or two.” He pulled her into the corridor between the bar and the kitchen. Lizzie flipped her hair, hoping to distract him from whatever he was hinting about. Probably Dima-related.

God, she was tired of being scared all the time. No such luck.

Paul’s smile didn’t stick around. That now-familiar concern shone from his eyes, which were shadowy in the club’s dim lighting. “So, spill it. What’s up with you two?”

“You haven’t been here?”

“Nope. I have a new gig in Westchester, renovating a big, drafty old colonial. A good two month’s work. I was out there this weekend for the interview. Tonight’s my last regular night.”

“Wow.” Lizzie rested her hands on his biceps. She squeezed. Damn, such a rocket and already burning out. Had she really thought it would be any different? After all, shagging him in a dressing room wasn’t the best start to a potential relationship. Nor was sharing him with her dance partner. “I’m…damn, Paul, I’m happy for you. A bit disappointed you won’t be around, but I’m glad you’ll be doing what you love.”

His mouth tightened. “Save it, Lizzie.”

“Huh?”

Leaning closer, he was near enough to share breaths—his calm but heavy, hers truncated. She wasn’t used to seeing Paul upset. “If you’d wanted to see me so bad, you’d have found me. Dima or not. We both knew that wasn’t going to happen, not after what he said at the diner.”

“He didn’t mean it. I know he didn’t. He’s still angry for what I said that morning.”

“No way. He doesn’t seem like the guy to open up like that if he didn’t mean to.”

“You call that opening up? Seriously?”

“You don’t? Jesus, open your eyes. Because, sure, guys make statements like that all the time. As for the do-what-you-love shtick, you don’t get to talk about that stuff when you’re wallowing too.”

“Where do you get off?”

With a sad shake of his head, he touched her shoulder, petting the bare skin revealed by her purple spaghetti strap top. “I’m not angry, Liz. Promise. I just know where I play in all of this, but I don’t think you do.” A customer yelled for his attention, but he waved him off. “It’s time to be honest. You can know a person for years and still not know them. Not even see them.”

“I don’t get it.”

He exhaled heavily. “I told my wife of six years that, on occasion, I fantasize about men. I thought all her anti-gay shit was just Texas talking. That our marriage would hold. Hell, that she loved me more than that. It was only fantasy, anyway. Wasn’t like I was gonna go pick up a rentboy.”

“But she…?” Her heart sank for him as the lines on either side of his mouth tightened. Without his smile, he seemed a little older, a little less like Paul.

“We gave it time in counseling, gave each other space. That was all we could manage. You know what? At the end, it hurt like fuck.” He straightened and grabbed the nearest bottle of Jack, pouring them each a shot. “Yet…I’m here. I’m in love with this town, and I’ve already had a helluva time. If you put too much of yourself in a box, you’ll regret it. I would’ve had I stayed.”

She downed the whiskey, needing another three or four to quell the restless pain in her gut. “What does this have to do with me and Dima?”

“Could you go back to just being friends?”

Hell no.

Mine.

The words were so quick and clear that she grabbed the counter. Fear rushed in behind it, equally powerful. It was easier with Paul there to say the things she and Dima couldn’t say to each other. To carry on without him was a terrifying prospect.

To carry on without Dima at all…

He gave up a Broadway show. He gave up his girlfriend. For Lizzie. What insanity thought that was a fair trade, especially when he hadn’t ever told her? He never talked, but telling her at least a little bit would’ve been enough to keep her holding on forever. Instead she’d spent months reading tea leaves and trying to figure out why he’d chosen to perform at Devant.

He’d done it to stay with her, without changing a damn thing about how they’d lived.

“You have a lot to think about, and I have to work before Declan takes my head off.” Paul stood up straight and crossed his arms. “Now you get to ask where he is.”

Lizzie grimaced. “Where is he?”

“Some dark-haired Russian chick has him holed up in a corner booth by the stage.”

Ice. Pure ice. She fumbled for a second shot, abandoning the bottle when Paul took control. Even an extra dose of JD didn’t melt the fear. What if Dima had given up? He laid himself out there so rarely, no matter how clumsily. He’d done so with gusto at the diner. Now he was cozied up to Svetlana—his bitchy, skeletal back-up plan—in a corner booth.

“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.

To be this man’s choice…

She cleared her throat. “Paul got a new job.” If she looked at the stage, she could pretend all of this was normal. It sure as hell wasn’t. Her heart was beating so hard that she couldn’t even hear the blaring music, let alone the words she mouthed. “He won’t be around regularly. Thought you’d want to say
schastlivo
. Be happy and all.”

Still, she needed to see that reaction. His reaction. Lust flared in Dima’s eyes, going slightly wider with shock. The hand gripping hers tightened nearly to crushing force. If she reached between his legs, would she find him already hard?

He let her go. “Sveta and I have a great deal to discuss.”

She’d always hated when he used Svetlana’s diminutive. It was too intimate.

That intimacy was back.

Lizzie was going to be sick. Or pass out. Or stay this disturbingly numb for the rest of her life.

Whatever would’ve happened was cut short by Paul’s arrival. Lizzie shot out of the booth. She made hasty introductions before tugging his arm. Flee. Run away. Be done with pretending there was anything more to be had with her and Dima. It had been a dumb idea when she started this whole mess, and it was even dumber now, when he seemed poised to make use of his skinny Russian escape route.

“Not gonna happen,” she whispered to Paul. “I can’t make this right.”

“You can. Tomorrow. Remember?”

She hadn’t replied before Paul brushed past her and slid into the booth. Right beside Dima. Svetlana had clung all the more tightly with Lizzie’s intrusion, but Paul’s intimate posture actually made her sit back. Darkly penciled eyebrows lifted high. She looked to Lizzie for explanation.
Too bad, lady.
Whereas Paul seemed to look to her for assurance.

“Promise, Lizzie?” he asked above the din.

She nodded, a little dazed—although what she really promised remained out of grasp. How was she going to make this right? At least she could talk to Dima. Try to. Her best friend. Her partner of fifteen years. Yes, she would talk to him seriously and be as open as he needed. No secrets anymore.