“What?” he said, bringing his hand to his cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”
“No,” she chuckled. “That was just a bit unexpected.”
“Well, it’s true,” Marcus said, relieved.
“And you think you’re better than that, do you?” she said, her eyebrows raised skeptically again. He liked the shape they made as they lifted. So arched and expressive.
“Well, as we’ve established, I’m not allowed to sleep with or marry a colleague,” he said placidly. They walked past a huge Moreton Bay fig tree, its sprawling branches reaching out over the esplanade, casting patchy shadows on the sand below. “But if I were, I certainly wouldn’t sleep with one when I was about to marry another. And if you ask me, that’s a pretty low bar.”
Heather blinked a few times, then glanced back out at the water. “Yeah, it is,” she said softly, as if more to herself than him.
“He wasn’t always a...whatever you just called him,” she said after a moment. “He could be attentive and loving when he wanted to be. Or when it suited him, I guess. And he really was, at the start. It wasn’t until later that I started to feel like he was—”
“A tosser?” he interrupted. “Come on, you can say it.”
She managed a small smile. “Yeah, okay, he was a...tosser,” she said, saying the word slowly, as though she was speaking it for the first time in her life. Which, he realised, she probably was.
“A complete tosser?” he pressed.
“A complete, total, absolute, uttertosser,” she confirmed, loudly enough that an elderly man on a nearby bench startled and stared at them. She gasped and clapped her hand over her mouth, and Marcus snorted.
They continued in silence for another minute, then she spoke again. “It’s a good rule, Pas de Don’t. No mess, no drama, just a...‘harmonious and professional work environment.’ Maybe every company should have that rule.” She gave him a wry, half-hearted smile.
It was a good rule, Marcus thought to himself as they approached the boathouse café. Then again, he had never met someone who made him want to break it.
Heather sat on a bench on the boardwalk and watched the water as they ate in contented silence. The wind whipped her hair around her face and stung her eyes a little, but it felt glorious, invigorating.
Marcus had suggested they eat lunch here and had acquiesced when she insisted on paying for him this time. She had vetoed his suggestion of fish and chips, rolling her eyes slightly at the mere thought of all that deep fried food, no matter how much of a “classic Aussie beach meal” it was.
“You know I can’t eat that,” she said simply.
“I shouldn’t either,” he conceded, with an impish shrug, “but as your tour guide, I had to offer.”
So they settled on sourdough sandwiches instead, with coffees to go. Heather had learned how to order a coffee the way she liked it, and now knew that if she asked for a skim flat white “with one,” the barista would stir the sugar in for her.
While she ate, taking her time with the avocado and alfalfa sprouts, Marcus practiced walking without the cane. He rolled his weight carefully over his left heel, watching his feet in the grass as he paced slowly back and forth. Heather tried to keep her eyes on the water, but she couldn’t stop herself from sneaking looks at him.
She’d spent so much of her life around men with rippling muscles that they had become almost unremarkable to her: virtually every male dancer she knew was lean and cut in a way that male models could only dream of. But not every male dancer had a cheeky smile and full, soft-looking lips. Not every male dancer had deep-green eyes that sparkled when he made a joke or widened in delight when he laughed at one of hers. The golden flecks she’d noticed yesterday seemed brighter today, especially when he laughed. His eyes were warm and inviting, and for some reason she liked how it felt when they landed on her.
He would literally lose his job if he got caught with you, she thought sternly,and you would too.ANB had been the only company willing to hire her without Jack by her side. She’d already humiliated herself in front of one major ballet company, and the last thing she needed was to get kicked out of this one.You’re here to dance, she reminded herself.You’re here to prove you still exist without Jack.
Heather finished her sandwich and stood, pulling out her phone to snap a photo of the view. She took a few shots of the beach to her right, where a few dozen anchored sailboats bobbed lazily just offshore. Carly would like that view, she thought.
She looked over her shoulder at Marcus, who was still pacing, his back to her. Carly would likethatview more.
“Hey, Marcus?” she called, and as he turned to face her, smiling, she took a photo.
“Not bad, right?” he gestured out at the water.Not bad,she thought,and the beach is nice, too.
“It’s gorgeous. But I guess I thought Australian beaches were all about surfing.”
“Lots of them are,” he said, walking slowly back to the bench and collecting the cane. “But sometimes you just want to take a nice calm dip, you know?”
“Do you know how to surf?”
“I used to. I grew up near a surf beach, and my dad taught me and my brother when we were little. But once I got serious about dancing, it just seemed too risky.”
“Figures,” Heather said. “My teacher told my mom she couldn’t buy me Rollerblades, and my friend Carly’s parents weren’t allowed to take her skiing.” Her mom had probably been secretly relieved at the prohibition, Heather realized years later. Rollerblades were expensive. Skiing, of course, had been out of the question. “Do your parents still live near the beach?”
