“Thanks.”
I let him work in silence, letting the acoustic covers fill the studio, before I allowed him to work on his usual stretches and wiped down the equipment.
“I love this one,” Dex muttered as he carefully folded himself into a figure four stretch.
I beamed. “Right, it's so good! I found it yesterday when I was improving. It's called Bloom by The Paper Kites. Never heard of them, but I just loved it.”
“I haven't noticed you adding it to the playlist,” he muttered, his brows drawn together.
“Oh, I didn't add it to ours... It's on mine.” I felt my cheeks heat as Dex glanced at me in the mirror.
“No more gatekeeping, Thorn,” he muttered with a small grin. “If you find a cool acoustic cover you need to add it to our list, like I did it with the Ed Sheeran cover for Kiss Me.”
“That was an amazing find,” I squealed excitedly. “I did an amazing improv to it, thank you.”
“You're welcome,” he held my gaze with his soft smile, and I felt thousands of butterflies flap in my stomach.
The truth was, when I noticed he had added the song "Kiss Me," hope started to bloom in me that maybe he had noticed my crush, maybe he was reciprocating it. But then I remembered he was teaching me how to flirt so I could score other guys.
Plus, I was his teammate's little sister. There was no way he would betray his team even more than he already believes he did.
“I could use a Chai Latte and pain au chocolat,” Dex muttered, dragging me out of my thoughts as he laid on his mat stretching out his tight hamstrings.
I tucked a loose piece of hair behind my ear and chuckled. He looked like he was struggling, especially the way he twisted his head to look at me. “I can't take you seriously when you're like that...”
Derek faked a gasp as he switched legs. “Yeah, well, my teacher stopped giving me instructions, so I needed to come up with things on my own.”
Placing my hands on my aching hips, I stared down at him with narrowed eyes. “You complained last time that you didn't hear the song from my instructions.”
“That was last time,” he smirked, and I rolled my eyes before bursting into a laugh. “There you go, I knew you had some sense of humor under all that ballerina seriousness.”
I almost winced at his words, at the reminder of what I should have been instead of where I currently was, but I knew he was just teasing.
Guilt swam around in his blue eyes as soon as the words left him and Him opened his mouth to apologize, but I cut him off.
“You know, you complain more than my 10-year-old students,” I muttered with a smirk. “So, you owe me a Chai and a Pain au chocolat.”
Relief had his shoulders sagging, and a cocky smirk pulled on his lips. “Deal.”
Why did that one word make my heart clench?
Instead, I turned away and focused on packing up the studio and closing up behind us. Sam wasn’t due to come back for a while and I was responsible.
“You're limping,” Derek said as he helped me put everything away.
“No, I'm not.” I kept my voice light, even though my hip was screaming.
“Rosie.” He stopped rolling up his mat and straightened. “I've watched you walk for months. You're limping.”
“It's just tight. I'll ice it when I get back to the dorm.”
“How long have you been dancing today?”
I avoided his burning gaze. “I don't know. A couple of hours?”
“Rosalie.” His voice was gentle but firm. “How long?”
“Six hours,” I admitted quietly. “Maybe seven. I lost track.”
