The Storm Before the Calm (9 page)

“One’s for you,” he said, handing it over. “I didn’t know what kind of coffee you liked or if you even liked coffee, so I got us both mochas. I figured coffee with chocolate in it would appeal to pretty much anyone.”

“Thank you,” I said, wrapping both hands around the cup. The rich scent wafted up and swirled around me, making my mouth water. I didn’t need any help in the stimulant department—I was already buzzing at the thought of being alone with Max for the next several hours—but it smelled so good, I wanted to inhale the whole cup.

Max handed me the other cup to hold as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, then held it for me to walk through. I gave him back his drink, and we walked up the stairs to the second floor together and into the largest studio. He plunked himself down in the center of the room, pulling his feet under him into a cross-legged position. I followed suit, sitting to face him.

My fingers tugged at the edge of the cardboard cozy wrapped around the cup as I waited for him to speak. The silence between us felt heavy, and the awkwardness settled in around me as he stared at me, his mouth quirked in a playful expression.

“What?” I asked finally.

“Nothing,” he replied, smiling. “So I guess we should get started.”

“Sure.”

“I think maybe just one, two songs at most. The festival isn’t until the end of the summer, so we have lots of time.”

“What festival is it again?” I asked.

“OutShine,” he responded.

“What kind of festival is that?” I asked.

“It’s a big arts festival that takes place throughout the city, mostly in parks. There are exhibits and performances, and a huge celebration at the end. It was started a few years ago to raise awareness and money for gay rights.”

“Oh. Are you…? I mean….”

“Gay?” Max supplied.

“Yeah.”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I… no, uh I…,” I stuttered. I was stunned by how nonchalant and completely unapologetic he’d been about his sexuality, as though admitting to me he was gay was the most ordinary thing in the whole world. A part of me wished I could do that. I could nod and say the words like it was as natural as telling him I was blond or I liked chocolate ice cream.

“It’s okay, Charlie. No big deal. You don’t have to be gay to participate. Originally, all the artists were gay, but it has grown and evolved now to include everyone, which is how it should be,” Max said, shooting me an understanding look.

I should have corrected him. I should have told him, but I’d never said the words out loud. Hell, it was hard enough for me to form that three-word sentence in my head. Even as I sat there, my brain rebelled, doing its own version of sticking its fingers in its ears and humming. So instead of being honest with him about who I was, I let him assume I was something else.

Apparently Max was oblivious to the turmoil happening in my head. He continued talking about OutShine, most of which I missed, but I gathered the general idea from the bits and snips I heard.

“So I was thinking a contemporary piece, and I had some thoughts for music,” Max said, standing up and walking over to the stereo system in the corner. He pulled his phone from his pocket and plugged the cord into the bottom to connect it. Soft chords filled the studio.

He came and sat back down next to me, and we sipped our mochas and did some lazy stretching as we listened to the songs he’d chosen. When all five had finished playing, he asked me what I thought.

“I like the first one and the second to last one, I think.”

“I knew you and I would be a good fit,” he said. “Those were the two I was leaning toward too. Maybe we’ll start with the first one, see how that goes, and then move on to the second one later? It might be good to play around with two pieces, and we can decide later which one will be best.”

“That sounds good to me.”

He clicked the little remote for the stereo, setting the first song back to the beginning, and we listened again. I watched him as he listened, his hands moving to the music seemingly of their own volition. His eyes were closed, and he was completely immersed in it.

When the song ended, he looked at me again, an expectant expression on his face.

“Ideas?” he asked.

“It’s a love song,” I said. “But a dark one. It sounds like the couple is meant for each other, but maybe the relationship is doomed and they’re holding on to it as tightly as they can.”

“Yes!” Max shouted, standing up and pulling me to my feet in front of him. “I won’t push you past anything you’re comfortable with, but if you’re cool with it, I’d like this to be kind of intimate. Really, we don’t have to do anything that makes you uneasy, but I’d love it if the audience believed us as the couple in the song. It’s pretend… like acting,” he added.

“I can do that,” I said, trying hard not to let my voice catch as I spoke. My fingers itched to reach out and touch him. Dancing with him like this was going to be torture. Beautiful torture. My heart was racing, and I was sure my palms were sweating. I was undeniably nervous, but having a legitimate reason to touch Max made me happier than anything I’d experienced in a long time.

He started the song over again. “How about this?” he asked after a few bars of the intro.

He had me stand in the center of the room, looking forward as he walked slowly behind me, his hand coming up over my shoulder and sliding across my chest to my neck. His fingers stretched around my throat, and without direction, I let my head fall forward as he slid his other hand along the back of my neck and into my hair.

I could smell the faint scent of him as his body pressed up behind me. I half shivered at the feeling of his skin touching mine, and I tried to keep the whimper that was welling up in my throat from escaping. I hadn’t anticipated the jolt of electricity that arced between us. He probably didn’t feel it like I did, but I felt like I’d stuck a fork in a socket.

His hands fell away, and I was left feeling cold as he jogged back over to the stereo to pause the song.

“That felt great. I think it’ll work. What did you think?”

“Yeah… great” was all I could manage without risking my voice cracking. I wanted his hands back, and the warm tingling sensation that came with them.

“Go again, or move on?”

“Let’s keep going,” I said. Part of me was afraid of what would come next, and the other part was hungry to know.

Over the next few hours, we marked out the first twelve counts of eight—almost a third of it—and it was going well. Max was a genius at choreography, and I was feeling keyed up as the clock crept closer to two. The tension I had felt initially had become palpable as we moved together through the music, and I found the closer I got, the harder it was to keep up the façade that it was all pretend.

I realized if I detached myself from the situation, compartmentalized the feelings I was having and locked them away, it was easier to be around Max. I felt like less of a fumbling idiot, so rather than concentrating on the warmth of his body pressed next to mine or the sound of his breath in my ear as he panted, I focused on my turnout and extensions.

“We should probably take a break,” Max said, his voice strained.

He looked tense, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. I thought things were going well. We had made considerable progress with the piece, and I thought the steps fit together perfectly.

“Is everything okay?” I asked. I hated how weak the words sounded as they left my mouth.

Max nodded. “Let’s get some lunch and we can talk, okay?”

“Okay.” My voice escaped in a whisper.

He looked over at me, nudged his shoulder into mine, and smiled. “Come on. What do you want to eat?”

“I’m easy,” I replied.

“If only…,” Max teased, and my face flooded with heat.

I knew he was only teasing, but it made my heart beat faster at the thought he might like me that way.

“Do you like Greek?”

“Definitely,” I said, grateful for a change of topic.

Chapter Ten

L
IKE
ALL
the other restaurants Max had introduced me to, this one was packed to the gills. We opted once more for takeout, carrying our food back to the studio where we ate cross-legged on the floor. Max played our song over again so we could listen while we ate. That was the thing about dancing. If you were going to pick a song, you’d better pick a song you liked, because you were going to be listening to it a million times before you were done with it.

Max glanced over at me, his gaze tracing my face as I felt the blush creeping back in again. I was so awkward around him, feeling more off-kilter than ever. At least with the assholes at school I knew where I stood, and for the most part I tried to ignore them. With Max, it was the other side of the coin. I wanted his attention and felt discomforted by it, all at once.

“What?” I asked, shoving the last forkful of salad into my mouth.

“Just trying to figure you out, is all.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. I’m simple.”

“I think you’re wrong. There’s something going on in that head of yours, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“No. There’s nothing else to me. I’m plain. I don’t know why you’d think otherwise.”

“The way you shut down before. It’s like you’re afraid of letting go. You hide behind the exactness of your technique, but there’s depth there, Charlie. I can see it. It’s boiling under the surface. It bubbled up for a split second this morning, and then you shut it away.”

“I don’t think so,” I replied. “What you see is what you get with me.” I hoped he would drop the subject. I didn’t like this investigative side of Max.

“That’s such bullshit. You’re hiding behind your technique. Technical precision is great. It’s the foundation of being a good dancer, but you need more than that. You need to dance with your heart or you’re nothing more than a well-trained robot up on that stage.”

Max stood, pulling me to my feet with him. We got rid of the garbage from our lunches, and he directed me back into the middle of the floor again.

“Let’s take it from the top, but this time, I want you to
feel
it. Don’t just do the steps, live them. I know it sounds all kinds of corny, but it’s necessary. Remember, you and I are in love. Show me how much. Show me you want me.”

I tried to swallow, but my mouth was drier than a bucket of sand. He was asking me to do something that went against every ounce of self-preservation I had. It would be so easy to surrender to him, to give in to the fantasy that this was real and we were in love, and above all, safe, hidden away from the outside world, just him and me alone in this place. But what would happen then? If I let go, how would I gather all the pieces back up and stick them together into a cohesive me again?

He stepped toward me and placed his hand on my chest. “Can you do that for me, Charlie?”

The way he said my name made goose bumps rise on my skin, as though the room had suddenly dipped in temperature. I nodded, unable to trust my voice.

“Try it again?”

“Yeah,” I agreed, terrified of what was going to happen if I did what he’d asked of me. If I truly let myself go, what deep, dark part of me would slip out unbidden? I had created those walls for a reason, carefully crafted them out of a profound necessity.

The music was cued again, and Max stepped up behind me. I knew what was coming next. I could already feel the shadows of his hands on my body. It was like the echo of his touch was burned into me. I closed my eyes, willing my heart to slow to a pace that would allow me to keep standing. How embarrassing would that be if I passed out, right there in the middle of the studio, falling backward into Max’s arms like some sort of debutante with a case of the vapors?

The intro moved into the body of the song, and I took a deep breath, anticipating what was coming next. Just as he’d done before, Max slid his hands up over my shoulder and across my chest. This time when he stretched his fingers around my throat, I let my head fall backward against his shoulder. My eyes were still closed, and all I could do was feel his touch and the way it made me completely boneless beneath his fingertips.

My knees gently buckled, and I melted into him, his arms coming around my chest to support me as I caved against him….

“Just like that,” I heard him say as he turned me in his arms, our bodies flush against one another. His head dipped forward, bringing our foreheads together, and I opened my eyes to stare into his. The moment stretched out between us, neither of us moving, caught up in the electric pull that seemed to spontaneously bloom. The roots burrowed deeper into me, and I couldn’t look away. I wanted him—it was the first time I’d truly admitted that to myself—but this was more than simple want. This was need, and it was all I could do to keep myself from shaking.

We were so close, breathing together as the music swirled around us, muffled in the background by the sound of the blood pounding in my ears. What would it be like if he kissed me? If I kissed him?

My body reacted before my mind could catch up, the blood that had been pounding so adamantly in my ears redirecting south as I imagined the feeling of Max’s mouth against mine. I could feel my erection building, the pressure and ache mounting as I suddenly realized our bodies were pressed together.

Shit.

I bailed as quickly as I could, pulling away and all but running to the other side of the room. I couldn’t do this. No way. I wasn’t… no.

I carded my fingers through my hair and exhaled loudly, forcing my body into submission. The tips of my ears burned with the humiliation that flooded through me.

“Charlie. Charlie! Look at me,” Max said, turning me around and sliding his hands along the sides of my face, forcing my eyes to meet his. “Nothing happened. It’s okay.”

“No,” I replied, and before I could properly gather my thoughts, I heard myself add, “but I wanted it to.”

“Charlie.” Max’s voice was just above a whisper.

“I’m sorry… I….”

“I’m trying really hard here, but I only have so much willpower,” Max said.

I took a breath. He didn’t mean… and then he was slowly pushing me backward, the mirror stopping me short as he brought our bodies into contact again. I could feel him against me, hard and full, pressing against my hip, and instead of being scared or disgusted, it made me want him more.