“Ooh, you’re a rebel,” she teased. “I like that.”
“So?” I said. “What did you decide? Are you gonna help a guy out?”
She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “This is just about me dancing and you playing, right?”
“Yeah, that’s the deal.”
“And you promise to show up? Make this a priority?”
“Of course.” Everything in me tensed as I waited for her answer. I had a feeling she knew it too, because the silence dragged on too long, and her expression was way too smug.
She waskind of adorable when she was smug.
Finally, with a sigh, she said, “Oh all right, we have a deal.”
My heart gave a weird jolt, like a kick to my ribs. I was doing this. I was defying my dad, I was playing guitar…and I was doing it with Collette.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she said, her tone suspicious as she turned her head to give me an assessing sidelong look.
“Like what?”
“Like I just told you you’ve been accepted into Hogwarts.”
I arched my brows. “Really? That was a stretch, even for you.”
She threw her hands up. “You shouldn’t have called me out on my Harry Potter references. I warn you now, I was holding back before.”
“Oh no,” I groaned, going along with her teasing. “You’re going to be unbearable now, aren’t you?”
“Sorry,” she said with a shrug that said she wasn’t sorry at all.
“So, when can we start?”
“Tonight work for you?”
It was hard to play it cool, but I managed. Sort of. “Tonight works great,” I said just a little too quickly.
“After you run home to grab your guitar, you can meet me back here.”
“I have my guitar in my trunk,” I said, totally forgetting my plan to play it cool.
Her brows shot up. “How very optimistic of you.”
I mimicked her sorry-not-sorry shrug. “I just know I’m impossible to refuse.”
She let out a loud laugh that had me grinning and the door behind us bursting open. “Ethan Morrison, what do you think you’re doing out here?”
I turned to see Bianca scowling, her icy blue gaze shifting from me to Collette and then back again. “We’re waiting on you.”
“I’ll be right in.”
That was obviously not the answer she’d been hoping for and she turned her glare to Collette. “Why are you distracting him? Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
“Nope.” Collette’s voice sounded too cheery and her smile was way too bright.
Bianca’s sigh was weary as she turned to me. “Can we please just get this class over with?” She glanced over at Collette. “Some of ushave an audition for Juilliard to prepare for after this.”
Collette’s smile never faded, but everything about her dimmed with that comment. The light in her eyes went out, and she seemed to lose an inch of height as her shoulders slumped.
