“Performance?” Tank echoes. “Are you a musician?”
“Nope,” Cody winks. “I’m a motherfucking ballerina. Well, the male term is danseur, but no one would know that.”
Tank blinks. “Oh.”
He takes a moment to let that soak in.
“Impressive.”
“I know I am,” Cody grins. “Anyway, I gotta go. I’ll meet you there.”
“Good luck!” someone calls out.
Cody whips around and glares.
“Never wish a performer good luck,” I laugh, remembering my own very recent lesson. “Break a leg, Cody. You’re gonna kill it.”
“Obviously,” he says, already backing toward his car. “And don’t clap like amateurs…I want noise.”
He jumps in, peels out of the gate, and disappears down the road.
“Filthy mouth for a ballet dancer,” Skip chuckles. “Alright, ladies…”
“Hey,” Eli clears his throat.
“And sexy-ass men who can’t stop fainting at the sight of me,” Skip finishes smoothly, earning a glare and a smile. “Pile into the damn van. Let’s get cultured.”
“Cody reserved an entire VIP section,” Riley tells the group of men trailing behind us. “He may have decided not to be a brother, but he’s still our friend.”
“Which means he’s still a Shadow,” Sunny adds.
“So fix your faces and dress to impress,” Skip says, adjusting his bow tie. “Show starts in an hour.”
“I’m not watching ballet,” Bones mutters.
I turn to Sunny, keeping my face perfectly neutral. “You sure do look pretty, Sunny.”
“Yep,” Riley smiles. “With your hair down like that, you look like an actual ray of sunshine.”
Sunny beams, doing a little spin, knowing exactly what we’re doing.
“I’m sure plenty of men will take notice of a beautiful woman who arrived at the ballet without a man on her arm,” Skip adds casually.
Glaring daggers at Skip, Bones turns and mutters all the way back toward his house.
“Sunny, don’t fucking leave without me,” he shouts over his shoulder, causing us all to laugh.
“It’s weird, you know,” Lila says.
“What’s weird?” I ask, watching Skip grumble to himself as he lifts the seats in the back of the van.
“We have another beautiful woman attending tonight,” she says lightly, “arriving without a man on her arm.”
It’s my turn to shoot daggers.
I catch my friends’ grins…and my stupid brother’s…just as Tank’s presence settles at my back. Close. Warm. Unavoidable.
“It would be my honor,” Tank says quietly, his voice low by my ear, “if you’d allow me to escort you to the ballet.”
