He shook his head and took the keys from Raul when he pulled up. After they climbed in and his mother buckled up, she said, “I still want to meet her.”
He sighed. “Soon.”
He hoped.
25
Little Lilac Dance Studio was located in Beverly Grove, not far from Dimitri’s house. Natasha briefed Dimitri on the class while he drove.
“I met Lilah, the owner, after I moved here. We were roommates for about three weeks, before Gina got here, but we kept in touch. After I started working onEverybody,she asked me to teach a children’s class during the off-season. It’s good promo for the school.”
“So, she’s using you?”
She shook her head. “I mean, she’s paying me. Not a lot, but . . . This isn’t a class for training the next ballet prodigies. It’s about having fun through movement. And I . . . I can’t explain it.”
His gaze cut over to hers for a split-second. “Try?”
Closing her eyes, she tapped into the feeling of being at Little Lilac. No, it didn’t pay much, certainly not as much as some of her other gigs, but she’d been doing it for years, and she enjoyed it.
“The kids are adorable and enthusiastic. I teach them the basics, but we also play games, sing songs, and do arts and crafts activities. With every other class I teach, the people are there with an agenda. These kids . . . they just want to have fun. And . . . they love me.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, without looking at her, “Of course they do.”
She ducked her head. Until his declaration in the living room a few days ago, she couldn’t remember the last time someone had said they loved her, except for these children. Abuela used to say it, but Mami? Never.
She’d be better off staying quiet for the rest of the ride, but he’d pulled the lid off her feelings, and there was still more she wanted to share. “With everything else I’ve done for work since moving to Los Angeles, Little Lilac is the one that feeds my soul.”
“That’s good. This business will chew you up and spit you out if you’re not careful. How young are the girls?”
“This is the three-four-five class. And they aren’t all girls. There are two boys in the class, too. We call them ‘friends,’ as opposed to gendered terms.”
He nodded and didn’t question it.
Nerves fluttered in her belly as they parked in the tiny lot next to the studio. Lilah had won money through a talent competition and used it to open the studio. It was her passion, in a way dancing professionally had never been.
Natasha envied her that a little, the same way Gina’s dreams and drive sometimes made her feel inadequate for not being as ambitious.
“Don’t you want more, Tash?” Gina used to ask. Natasha always gave a flippant shrug in reply, and said something along the lines of, “More than paying my bills and living large? What else is there?”
Inside, though, she envied their dreams, their direction, their sense of hope.
Hope. Thanks to Esmeralda, she’d locked that urge away a long time ago. What was the use in hoping for more? In wanting more?
But as Dimitri came around and helped her out of the passenger seat, handing her the crutches one at a time, her heart fluttered with something suspiciously like longing.
Natasha slammed it back down. No use longing for something she’d never have. Sure, he wanted to help hernow.How long would that last? It wasn’t worth entertaining the idea.
And anyway, they had a ballet class to teach.
“Do you have any experience with this?” she asked, crutching her way over the gravel to the side entrance. At least Dimitri had stopped insisting on carrying her everywhere.
“You think I can’t teach a kids’ ballet class?”
“That’s not what I said.” She handed him the key to unlock the door. He held it open so she could hobble in. “I didn’t ask if youcould,I asked if you have experience with this sort of class.”
“You wanna make a bet?”
She rolled her eyes and pointed to the locker where he could stash her purse. “What kind of bet?”
