She stood up abruptly, her hair now long and wild around her shoulders. She needed to move on. She had to compete tomorrow. She had students who needed her in the morning, pro/am competitors who would be waiting. Anita had to do her job.
He loved her.
She could feel the makeup running down her face in little rivulets.Routine.She could manage that at least. Pulling in her abs and straightening her back, she moved to the bathroom and turned on the faucet.
Her face in the mirror looked like a Salvador Dali painting, colors melting in different areas. “Cute, Anita, real cute.”
Patrick loved her, little Anita Goodman. Anita, who never could go to the party because she had dance practice. Anita, who disappointed her parents by following her own foolish dreams. Anita, who had terrible taste in men.
Anita, who was tired of being alone.
In every single one of her past relationships, even when she was intimate with her partner, she had never really felt that sense of simpatico, that belonging. Except with Patrick.
She shook her head to stem the tide of tears and applied cold cream before wiping it off in large swaths with a washcloth. After each swipe, she could see her own pink skin underneath, and it made her oddly, unbearably sad. Underneath the maskof foundation, bronzer, and cosmetics, her face was blotchy and raw.
Fighting back tears again, her face now stripped of its adornments, she was suddenly desperate to be in her cozy sweatpants, wrapped under the covers where she could wallow. Moving out of the bathroom, she reached around to the back of the costume to tug at the small hidden zipper on the bustier. It wouldn’t budge. Anita pulled on it, again and again, the tears now falling freely. “Seriously?!!?”
Shit. Shit.She was a bitch and an idiot, and Patrick loved her.
She collapsed in front of the partition to Patrick’s room, her arms around her fishnet-stockinged legs and her forehead resting on her knees.
This night honestly could not get worse. Stuttgart be damned. Mikhail breaking up with her via text three weeks before Keystone be damned.
Patrick loved her.
A timid knock came at the partition, and Anita looked up. “Anita?” She heard his voice, muffled through the door. “Are you okay?”
For a moment, she considered lying, considered telling him she was fine. She could keep up this whole charade and likely drive him away forever. What else could she say? Could she tell him she was confused and tired and frustrated and her goddamn zipper was stuck on this ridiculously cut, borrowed dress? Could she tell him how even now she longed for him, really yearned with something deep and primal that she had not known existed inside of her?
Patrick loved her.
“Anita?” He knocked softly again.
She raised her hands to the doorknob, and before she was fully aware of it, she was standing before the partition, her handon the lock. Tears still cascading down her face, she flipped the lock and pulled the door open a few inches.
Patrick looked unbelievably handsome, all scruffy and disheveled, an undeniably masculine scent about him. And his face, his wonderful face, was set in a look of concern. “What’s wrong?” He brushed his hand across her cheek, wiping away a tear.
She inhaled sharply at his touch, and he dropped his hand as if burned.
She was doing everything all wrong.
“I’m so sorry, Patrick. This is ridiculous.” She breathed deeply for a few moments, summoning whatever courage she had left. “But my—my—” Her voice hitched as she choked on a sob, a cry of humiliation. “—my zipper is stuck.”
The excuse hung between them for a moment, its feeble wings flapping ineffectually.
“Okay,” he replied at length, his voice stilted, his eyes darkening. “Turn around. I can get it.”
She inhaled and turned so her back faced him. She lifted her hair off her shoulders so he could access the zipper.
She shuddered as he warmed her back with his breath. His fingers traced the backs of her arms, then clutched the zipper. A tug and realignment, and the zipper slid slowly, sensually down her back, exposing her flesh. She clutched the front of the costume to herself, thought to turn to thank him, but stilled as he slid his hands across the tender skin of her spine.
“Patrick?” She didn’t dare look at him. Not now. A long moment passed.
“Please.” His voice was ragged, his breath hot and lush. He flattened his palm against her lower back, leaned down, and kissed the base of her spine. The sensation of lips against skin rocketed through her, igniting along her nerves. “Is this okay?”
Anita arched reflexively into his touch, biting her lip, closing her eyes.Stop this. Stop this, you can’t do this, Anita.But she wanted it. She had denied herself for so long, denied this for so long. She couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Yes. God, yes.”
