“Morning, morning,” I replied. “Ready to kick ass at the dress rehearsal?” I asked Luca.
“Obviously,” he said, with no sign of nerves.
“How are you feeling?” I threw my sweatshirt over the back of the vanity chair. It was always quite warm in the studio, so my tights, dance shorts, and oversized T-shirt were enough to keep me warm.
Luca looked away and stared at the table. “Fine. I’ve never struggled with nerves.”
“It’s quite annoying that he’s not even being big-headed right now.” Jack stood up and gestured to the seat he’d been lying across.
“No, no—you relax.” I winked at Jack and turned back at Luca, who was still not looking at me. “You don’t get nervous at all?”
“Nope. Why wouldI?”
“Because you’re performing in front of people?”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Well, what if you fall over and embarrass yourself?”
“Something like that’s only embarrassing if you care what others think of you. I do not, so I don’t get nervous.”
We were such opposites it was scary.
“Don’t worry, I’ve never met anyone like him either,” Jack offered, probably reading the shock and awe on my face.
“OK, so we’re not nervous, which is great. Have you got your dress rehearsal costume?”
He nodded to the dress bag hanging on the rail but asked, “Why don’t we wear our show costumes for the rehearsal?”
“There’s too much risk that we might rip them before the show, so we have the blank costumes. Mine’s a dress, and yours will resemble what you wear that week.”
“Makes sense,” he agreed.
“Shall we get dressed and warmed up, then? I need to go and grab my dress from Wardrobe, but I can meet you at the rink after. When suits you?”
“We can be there whenever.”
“When would work with y—” I paused. “How about fifteen minutes? That gives me a chance to get changed and out.”
Luca’s lips twitched. “That works perfectly.”
Something fucking weird was happeningto me, and I blamed it on Matilda’s wardrobe choices. She’d always worn skin-tight clothes, which were a given for the nature of her job. It was no different from the dancers that I’d worked with in the past. They needed to move freely while seeing their body’s lines.
But since the day in Matilda’s apartment when she’d worn thosehorribleathletic shorts and a sports bra that barely covered any of her smooth, tanned skin, I couldn’t stop noticingthings.
Things like the way her tiny shorts stretched perfectly over the curve of her hips and her ass, or how when she removed those oversized sweaters, the dipped neckline of her leotard revealed just enough cleavage to be distracting. How green her eyes looked when she glanced at me through her dark, long lashes.
I became even more acutely aware of how much we had to touch throughout practice. It had been hard to ignore at the start, but it was becoming practically impossible.
Her sunshine-ness still grated on me, but now it was more like a small itch that wouldn’t go away.
I avoided watching Matilda as she left to collect her dress rehearsal costume. I’d be OK if I could avoid looking at her for thenext few weeks. Jack smirked but remained silent as he scrolled through his phone. He knew better than to piss me off about the situation.
I’d told him what had happened with Matilda last weekend. After scolding me about fucking up an excellent PR opportunity, he’d laughed at my stupidity.
I hadn’t heard from theDirty Dancingproducers recently, but that wasn’t surprising. Jack had handled damage control from the press event, circulating the news that I’d gotten food poisoning last-minute. He’d even shared an Instagram story from my account, featuring a press photo of Matilda in her dress. The small caption read, “Gutted to have missed out, but Matilda killed it for us.” Apparently, Jack’s fee for fixing my mess was being allowed to annoyme.
