“Okay.” He held the door open, and we went inside and walked down the hallway together. When we reached the dressing room, I put my hand on the doorknob, and Cort stopped.
“Don’t be mad at me. I know what I’m doing with him. We been talking for months now. He ain’t a stranger. Not really. You don’t know how lonely it gets. You got Aaron, and Austin has Rhoades. I got nobody.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, he walked away swiftly and vanished into the club. I hadn’t realized how alone Cort felt.
I slammed the door to the dressing room behind me, then dropped into my chair. I huddled my legs to my chest, letting the fear and frustration of going back outside to dance wash over me. I wasn’t fine. In reality, I wanted to crawl away and hide. The shock of that man squeezing my wrist and grabbing at me exposed my vulnerability. I hated it. I’d begun to believe I was strong. Capable. Invincible. This knocked me back down.
At a knock on the door, I tensed.
“Babe? Can I come in?”
Aaron. The old Aaron wouldn’t have asked. He would’ve opened the door, demanding answers. I knew how hard he was trying, and I had to try too.
“Please.”
Also unlike the old Aaron, he didn’t barge right in and start yelling. Instead, he opened the door and peered around the doorjamb.
“Are you okay?” He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. “Can I help?”
I held out my hand, and he came and took it. We sat together, the silence between us all I needed to speak to me.
His thumb brushed over my hand in comforting circles, and my racing heart settled. “It happens occasionally. And James is great about taking care of us. But every once in a while, it gets to me.”
“You know you don’t have to do this. You’re so much better than this. Better than anything.”
Was I? I’d let myself forget the past year and drowned in a world of pleasure to forget my pain.
“That’s nice. A guy likes to hear it sometimes, ya know?” I allowed myself a smile, and Aaron returned it.
“Then I’ll remember to tell you every day.”
I slid my hand up the nape of his strong neck, through his wavy hair, and kissed him, our lips parting to allow our tongues to meet. It was unhurried and sweet with the knowledge that we were building something wonderful and new between us now.
He cuddled me close. “You don’t need to dance no more if it keeps happening. I know you like it, but if you’re gonna be pawed like this, maybe it ain’t worth it?”
I wanted to snap at him that he didn’t understand. But I held back. For all of Aaron’s bad habits, I had plenty of my own I needed to work on. And his almost a year away meant no, he didn’t know me. I’d changed in ways he couldn’t imagine. Ways my own family didn’t believe but they were slowly coming to appreciate.
“I need it. At least right now I still do. Aside from the money, when I dance I’m in a different place and I’m a different person. And I need that.”
“Why?” His brows scrunched together.
“Because I didn’t like the old me.”
His rich, dark eyes searched my face. “I’m sorry I never treated you like you deserved.”
“Don’t be sorry. I was so caught up in being a part of us, I didn’t know who I was away from you.”
“And now?”
“Now?” I rubbed my cheek against his. “I’m starting to. I’m juggling so many pieces of me, but they’re just now starting to fit together.”
“Am I one of those pieces?”
It was a dance of rediscovery between us. But what we needed to learn about each other was new to ourselves as well. “If you’d asked me last year, I woulda said no. It was too fresh and new and the hurt too raw for me to even think about it. Thinking about you coming back into my life and opening myself up to that kind of hurt and pain again wasn’t an option. At all.”
“Oh.”
I watched his face fall and hurried to reassure him. “But that was before I saw you again and how much you’ve changed.”
