“Miss Farrow.” Thomas Walsh’s voice had an echo. It reverberated clean through her, like a plucked string. “You in here?”
She cast a horrified glance at the mirror, where the creature’s spine had snapped predator straight. Scenting prey, its lips peeled back from its canines. She shoved her phone and the file into her dance bag and skidded out into the hall, tugging the studio door shut in her wake.
“Oh,” said Thomas, drawing up short at the sight of her. “There you are.”
What are you doing here?
“I told you earlier,” he said, undeterred by her outrage. “I’m your ride.”
F-r-a-n-k-i-e is my ride, she corrected him.She’ll be back to pick me up any minute.
“Actually, she won’t.” He had the decency, at least, to look sheepish. “I ran into her outside on my way in. I sent her home.”
You did what?A white-hot anger blistered beneath her skin.Don’t talk to my friends.
He’d shed his jacket in the heat, and without it he seemed to loom even larger, as though he’d been containing himself in a box much too small. His shirtsleeves were cuffed and the thin lettering of a tattoo curled out from beneath. She could only make out the one word, inked into his forearm:moriar.
She recognized the Latin, which on its own meantI would die.
“I’m just trying to do my job, Miss Farrow,” he said softly.
She wanted to ask him about his tattoo, but it behooved her to stay angry. She veered around him instead, her shoulder clipping his arm as she passed. Undiscouraged, he fell into step alongside her.
“I feel like you and I got off on the wrong foot,” he said, keeping pace. “Can we start again?”
She ignored him, sinking onto a nearby bench and toeing out of her slippers. Mercifully, he didn’t press. He fell to studying the trophies, his hands in his pockets, glancing periodically at her out of the corner of his eye. She was midway through lacing up her sneakers before he spoke again.
“Your name is on a lot of these. You must be pretty good, huh?”
She didn’t want to talk about dance. Not with him. She didn’t want to tell him how she used to dream of dancing as the principal in the New York City Ballet. Odette. Coppélia. Giselle. It was ridiculous of her to have ever entertained the idea. Ridiculous to spend years harboring secret hopes of playing women cursed, only to become one herself. Only, in her tale of woe, there was no breathtaking pas de deux. No roses at her feet. No thunderous applause.
Only silence, unbearable and unending.
She sprang to her feet, ignoring the ache in her thigh as she headed for the door. Thomas followed suit, maddeningly unruffled, taking one long stride for every two of hers.
“Do you like pizza?” he asked, seamlessly transferring the strap of her bag from her shoulder to his. “I drove by a pretty promising place on the way over here. It looked like one of those hole-in-the-wall kind of spots, and those always have the best—”
She turned in a pivot, and he was forced to careen to a stop to keep from colliding into her.
What are you doing?
“I’m considering ordering a pizza?”
Wrong.She twisted her hand across her chin.You’re being nice. You’re looking at my trophies. You’re asking questions. You’re carrying my bag.
He readjusted the strap. “Do you not want me to carry your bag?”
I don’t want you to be nice. It feels like a t-a-c-t-i-c.
“Itisa tactic.” Thomas swung his palms over his chest, his corresponding sign correct, where she’d resorted to finger spelling. It irked her that he knew more than she did.Heirked her. The way he walked. The way he smiled. The way his dimple deepened to a crater as he said, “My mom always tells me you catch more flies with honey.”
And I’m a fly?
He fell back a step and sized her up. “No, I don’t think so, actually. I think if you were a bug, you’d be a praying mantis.”
She blinked.
“Hear me out,” he said, holding up a finger. “It’s a badass bug. The female praying mantis kills and eats the male after mating.”
