65
HIPS DON’T LIE, BUT MY HEART DOES
Holly
“This isn’t about us, it’s about the judges. Obviously.”
Holly held back a sigh as she carted her dance bag through the corridors of the studio lot that led to the rehearsal room. She hadn’t spoken to Nate since they’d landed three days ago and executed the world’s most emotionally constipated airport goodbye. No text. No call. Not even a passive-aggressivemade it home safe.And honestly? Fair. She hadn’t exactly followed up with a heartfelt manifesto either.
The bitter shame-and-fury cocktail fizzing inside her had her in a deep spiral of negativity, which wasn’t like her at all. She was usually a silver-lining girl. A manifest-it, laugh-through-it, cry-later-in-the-shower optimist. But where was the silver lining in being the girl who ran the second things looked like they might last, just so you didn’t get hurt if theydidn’t?
She really believed Nate loved her.
But believing in things was expensive, and she was tired of paying for it with pieces of herself. She slipped back into LA like she’dnever left at all. Crutches gone. Game face on. Emotional walls upgraded to premium reinforced steel. Her ankle might have been healed enough to start dancing again.Her heart sure as fuck wasn’t.
Holly didn’t hesitate outside the studio door, because hesitation was how you ended up emotionally concussed. She’d already done enough of that in Copenhagen to qualify for frequent flyer miles. She pushed the door open like she was storming a battlefield, except the battlefield was hardwood floors and mirrored walls and one extremely unfair Danish man.
Nate was already there, leaning against the barre in a muscle shirt that had absolutely no business existing in a post-breakup scenario. It was giving Footloose reboot, or a small-town mechanic who secretly reads poetry. His curls were damp, sweat darkening the fabric at his chest, like he’d been there long enough to work something out of his system. The faint stubble along his jaw made it clear the last three days hadn’t exactly been spa-level restorative for him either.
He looked up when the door clicked shut, and for one brutal, microscopic second, his face lit up. Not politely or carefully.Lit the fuck right up.Then it dimmed again, like he remembered he wasn’t supposed to want her anymore.
Jesus.That didn’t feel like someone gently squeezing her lungsat all.
“Hey,” he said, voice measured, like he’d rehearsed something in the car and then abandoned the script the second she walked in.
Holly summoned a smile that would pass a casual inspection but fail under forensic analysis.
“Hey.”
Professional. Neutral. Emotionally bankrupt, but thriving.
She moved before her body could betray her. Sat in her usual chair. Unzipped her bag. Pulled out her shoes. Didn’t look at him. Absolutely did not look at him. Which was difficult because her stomach had already performed its patented little flip the second she’d seen him. As if it was trying desperately to remind her what being human had felt like before she’d panicked.
Nate didn’t fill the silence, so she didn’t either. She did her shoes up slowly, like this moment was totally about correct foot support and not about the fact that if she stopped moving for even a second she might do something catastrophically vulnerable.
Like say his name.
… the way she had that night in the guest room of his parent’s house. Soft and breathless, as though it was the only word she trusted not to disappear.
Holly pushed herself to her feet with more force than she was used to using these days, since hopping around on one foot had become a thing. She walked to the speaker and plugged in her phone, skimming through her playlist for the song she’d chosen for this week long before they’d reached Heartbreak City, population: 2.
Choreography was safer than conversation. She could absolutely survive three minutes of music.
Right?
She saw Nate shift from the corner of her eye. Just one step closer, as though he was testing the ice.
“So.” He said it carefully, like he didn’t trust gravity anymore because it’d let him down too many times. “What’re we dancing this week?”
She didn’t look at him.Absolutely not.Looking at him right now would be practically volunteering to be emotionally audited. His eyes were built for reading plays, and his body was built for full contact. But the open, hopeful expression he was wearing?
That was the real concussion risk here.
Holly kept her gaze locked on her phone instead, or on the clean lines of the floor. Safer to talk to hardwood than to a man who’d said I love you in a Danish townhouse and meant it.
“Cha Cha,” she said, finally finding the song. She held out her phone like it was a white flag. “This is the track.”
He glanced down at the screen, and his breath hitched. It was subtle, but she heard it.
