Ripped (8 page)

Geez, down boy. This isn’t the time or place.

We hadn’t talked about my job and I still wasn’t sure what or how much to tell Jaz. I wanted to tell her everything, be completely upfront and honest, but I knew she’d be disappointed and may not understand my choices.

“So where do you work?”

Okay, here we go.
“I have two jobs, actually. I wash dishes sometimes in the restaurant when they’re short-staffed and need a hand, and I work in a bar in the seedy part of town.”

“Oh, so you’re a barman, too? That’s cool.” She nudged me in the shoulder. “You must get loads of tips from pretty girls.”

I laughed nervously. “Yep, loads of tips.”
Tell her
. “Loads of tips behind the bar.”

“Do I need to come down there to keep an eye on you?” She winked playfully.

“No, no need for that, Jaz. Hardly any girls come in.”

She wriggled in my lap to turn her body to face me, and I prayed she couldn’t feel the semi hard-on I’d been sporting since she sat down.

“Seeing as you’re staying …” She gave me her cheesy
I’m-about-to-con-you
smile, which wasn’t necessary, I would do anything for Jaz willingly. “Could you
pleeease
help me nail that damn
fouette
when I come down from the lift? I can’t find my center, and I’m wobbling like a drunken sailor.”

Quickly looking around, I tried to find a place that was big enough to dance, but out of the way of groups of people sitting around chatting. There was nowhere inside the main theater. I indicated to Jaz to follow me out to the foyer where there were only a few groups of dancers huddled together, and room to spare.

Standing in the position I knew Jaz needed me in, I instructed, “Dance the eight bars leading up to it.”

Jaz danced the steps, and I readied myself for her to leap toward me before balancing on demi-point, her leg in arabesque. She twirled gracefully, but stopped at the part where her partner was supposed to catch her mid-leap, and lift.

“You need to catch when I do the
grand jeté
into the—”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied cockily.

Her arms crossed over her chest. “How do you know?”

“I’ve been watching for three hours. I know the routine backwards.”

With her hands on hips, she cocked one brow. “Oh really, Mr. So You Think You Can Dance?”

I bopped her nose with the tip of my finger. “Yes, really.”

“Well, I can’t do it if you’re not dancing too.”

I crossed my arms and frowned at her. I knew she was trying to get me to dance. Really dance—like we used to.

“You can’t just stand there, Bax.”

“Yes, I can. All I have to do is catch and support you.”

She sighed an exaggerated, exacerbated sigh. “Well, I guess if you no longer have
it
. If you’ve”—she did a funny little knee-wobbling dance—“lost your groove, I’ll have to ask Pierre to help me.”

My eyes narrowed, and she took a step back. “Just let me stretch.” With legs straight and without any effort, I bent forward so my palms rested flat on the floor and my hamstrings stretched. No longer have it, my ass. I’d danced every day of my life from the age of four. I still had ‘it’ and then some.

I toed the heels of my Chucks off and tossed my shoes to one side.

“Just need to get this crick out of my neck.” I stretched my neck from side to side, then prepped and went into a pirouette sequence that old Pierre would have had trouble completing.

“Okay show-off,” Jaz mumbled with a smirk. “Let’s take it … from the top.”

“You want the whole piece?”

“Yep,” she replied chirpily. “I want you to dance the whole piece.”

The dancers who had been huddled together talking were now watching our exchange with interest.

I stripped off my sweater and tossed it by my shoes, leaving just a black singlet on with my torn jeans.

“Oh my. When did you get all those tattoos?” Jaz asked, running her hand over my shoulder and down the red and black sleeve on my right arm.

“Over the years.” I pointed to one on the inside of my left forearm, three lines of script writing too small to read unless you were really close.

“What does it say?” she asked, squinting.

“Lovingly in my mind, tenderly in my hands, forever in my heart.” I lifted my gaze to her face. “It was for you.” I looked into her gray eyes. “It is for you.”

Her face flushed, and her hands caressed my arm once more as she blinked away a tear. “And when did you get all these muscles?”

“Got those over the years too,” I said with a grin.

She bit her lip as her eyes took in every detail of my arm. “I like them,” she said definitively.

I flexed a little harder. “The tattoos or the muscles?”

She smiled. “Both.” Her finger traced lightly over the text on my forearm. “Especially this one.”

With a hand tucked behind her head, I bent down to kiss the tip of her button nose. “Let’s dance, Jazzy.”

We took our positions and I counted out eight beats in the rhythm of the music that I could hear playing in my mind.

At the beginning, I had to admit I was a little nervous. Sure, I’d been dancing every day, just routines I’d made up or remembered from my past, but nothing as choreographed and technical as this in public. For the past four years, anything contemporary had been in the privacy of my room or in the restaurant after closing when I’d pulled a few tables to one side.

This was different. This was in front of people, and it was with Jaz.

Jaz watched me from the corner of her eye and I poked my tongue out at her, making her giggle and lose her footing.

“Concentrate,” I instructed under my breath as she turned the wrong way and had to quickly double-back to the correct position.

Meanwhile, I danced my little heart out, putting on a show for the group who crowded around us. But my focus was always on Jaz. As we did three consecutive barrel jumps across the floor in perfect unison, it felt like old times. She turned and leapt blindly into my arms and I caught her, holding her closer than needed to my body.

She gasped as my hand skimmed her thigh, but pushed closer to me, her eyes flaring. There was my Jaz, the tiger beneath the sweet and innocent good girl.

As she set up for the troublesome
fouette,
I whispered, “Keep your hips square, Jaz.”

She spun with perfect grace, and I watched with open awe at how beautiful she was.

“Eek! I did it,” she squealed excitedly as she jumped up and down like a little kid.

I chuckled as she flung herself at me. There were many sides to Jaz, from the innocent, to the graceful, to the girl who was as sexy as hell when you got her alone. This was one of my favorites. This was the slightly clumsy, definitely dorky Jaz.

“I knew you could get it. You just need to focus on the supporting leg and keep your hips level.”

Her eyes lifted as a smirk graced those perfect strawberry lips. “You know for a barman, you dance pretty well.”

Shaking my head, I stepped away. “Jaz, let’s not do this again.”

“But it would be so great if we could dance together.” She took my hand so I couldn’t move any farther away. “Just like old times,” she said in a sing-song tone.

“I’m perfectly happy doing the job I have now.” My hand slid from hers and I scooped up my sweater, then busied myself slipping my shoes back on. Truth was, I’d fooled myself into thinking I was happy until Jaz had barreled back into my life. True happiness was dancing. It was watching Jaz as she pirouetted and leapt lightly—it was her elation when she did something perfectly and being there for her when she didn’t. It was having her complete trust as I caught her and lifted her over my head, then ever-so-gently brought her back down to the ground while holding her tight.

True happiness was Jaz.

I
WAS
physically exhausted, but my mind raced at a million miles an hour. After another full day of dancing and learning another routine where Pierre partnered me, we had been given our roles in the show. Pierre’s attention had bothered me. He was too handsy, and I could have sworn he’d growled in my ear on more than one occasion, but I’d ignored it and kept my cool. Maybe it was a test? He was testing me to see if I could maintain focus even with a sleazy octopus as a partner. And I must have passed because I got the part.

I got the lead in my first off-Broadway production after being in New York for only three weeks. Sure it was a brand new production that no one had ever heard of but that could all change. No one had heard of
Cats
or
Wicked
before their first seasons, and they had both had phenomenal success and been the longest-running musicals in history.