Then she looked up and froze when she saw him. Like she’d been caught harboring some dirty little secret instead of just being a good daughter.
The air shifted. She didn’t flinch, and she didn’t apologize. She just reset her shoulders and gave him a look so flat and sharp it might as well have been a warning sign. But Nate couldn’t unsee the pain he’d just seen painted all over her body like a goddamned billboard.
“Didn’t know your mom was sick,” he said carefully, keeping his voice low. Not prying. Just there.
“No one knows.” Her tone was even, crisp.Tidy.“And I’d like it to stay that way.”
She turned away like that was the end of it. Like the conversation was a box she could slam shut and shove off a cliff. But Nate just stood there, mouth pressed into a line, something quiet and relentless threading itself through his compassion. Not the cancer. Not the scan.Her.
The way she carried everything like a landmine between her shoulder blades. The way her jaw locked when she was too close to crying. How her fingers shook for a second and then went still, like she'd crushed whatever emotion was about to consume her.
He suddenly hated himself for every dumbass joke he’d made. Every reckless flirt. Every stupid, arrogant 'it’s just a show’ thought he’d let fester in his skull. Because she wasn’t playing.She wassurviving.And he was the arsehole who’d come here thinking all of this was a way to entertain himself and keep in Delaney’s good books until he could go back to his normal life.
Holly turned, stretching with more pent-up aggression than necessary. Her hair was scraped back into a low, messy bun today, effortlessly beautiful in that wild way he’d come to immediately associate with her. Every inch of her screamedI’m fine!so loudly that it was clear she absolutely wasn’t. Nate took a breath, making his way across the floor to their table before he offered her a coffee from the tray in his hand.
“I got your usual.”
For whatever reason, she didn’t look up at him. There was no sassy eye roll, no chirp from the girl who could easily reduce most of his teammates to tears with her razor sharp comebacks. She reached for the coffee cup, and her fingers brushed his for half a second too long, like she wanted to take his hand instead of the coffee but just didn’t know how to ask for it.
His throat burned, because fuck, after hearing the tail-end of her mom’s voicemail, he didn’t know what to say either. So they got ready in silence, and then just got down to work.
Rehearsal was sharp and full of technique challenges that she was determined they’d both master after Stan’s comments on their Quickstep. Technical. Hot in the way that came from sweat and nearness and the fact that her hand kept sliding just a little lower on his back than it had yesterday. He didn’t call her on it, he just grinned like a man willing to die at the altar of whatever game they were playing.
“Helloooooo, lovebirds!”
They heard Kendall before they saw her, and it was probably a good thing because when she rounded the corner from the hallway into the room, she was carrying two garment bags with a grin the size of the Griffith Observatory. Martin followed her in, smiling like a wolf, while the camera crew trailed behind like his loyal pack.
“Costume time!” he declared. “We’ve got a real cheeky vibe this week, so we thought we’d lean into it. Nate, you’re gonnalovethis.”
Martin tugged the garment bag open with a flourish, and out spilled the most aggressively romantic shirt Holly had ever seen. Baby-blue crushed velvet ruffles cascaded down the front like a period drama had lost a fight with a soap opera. Nate stared at it, silent, visibly calculating how fast he could fake his own death.
Kendall beamed. “Matches those gorgeous ice-blue eyes of his,” she said brightly, stroking the fabric of the tragic shirt like it was a beloved pet.
Holly made a small, strangled sound in the back of her throat that was half laugh, half panic attack. She peeled down the zipper of the garment bag holding the instrument of her doom, only to find a genuinely gorgeous slip dress… in the same wintery crushed velvet.
Nate stared at it. The pair of them wereabsolutely doomedto clash under the lights. Together, they wouldn’t look coordinated; they’d look like rival shades of Seasonal Affective Disorder fighting for dominance on national television.
“Seriously?” Nate asked, holding the shirt up with two fingers, like he’d be repressing this moment for years to come.
Martin just gave them a pinched smile. “It's classy.Romantic.”
“It’s giving Titanic meets Romeo + Juliet, and also Wuthering Heights,” Kendall chipped in. She squinted as she glanced from Nate to the shirt and back again, as though mentally undressing and then re-dressing him like her life-sized Hockey Ken fantasy.
Martin glanced at the cameras, which were picking up all these delicious reactions like they were catnip. And then, as soon as they cut footage, he clapped his hands like a circus ringmaster.
“Okay peoples, have to love ya and leave ya. Footage to review, promos to cut. See you tomorrow for yourheartbreakingly perfectcontemporary routine!” His words carried the faint stench of a threat as Kendall trotted after him.
Holly didn’t say anything. Not until the door was definitely shut behind them. Not until she could trust the silence.
Then: “Motherfuckers!”
Holly detonated, pacing in front of the mirrors like she wanted to reach out and shatter one.
“They know exactly what they’re doing! They’re setting us up to fail. They want us to look like a joke, stir the damn pot.” Her voice went sharp, fast, panic dressed up as fury. “They want the judges to rage about shitty costume choices and score us low. Did you see that fucking ‘Take the Floor: Confidential’ interview Lars did?”
Nate grunted under his breath, glad that Martin and Kendall had taken the shirt with them. “Yeah, I saw it. Prick.” He wandered over to the table they shared daily and took a long drink from his water bottle while he thought about the situation.And by the time he was more hydrated, that slow, shit-eating grin of his had taken up residence on his lips.
“I mean,” he started, trying to sound casual as he plucked his baseball cap from the table next to his phone. “I don’thaveto wear it.” He nestled the cap over his curls backwards, catching Holly’s eye when she looked at him sharply.
