Authors: K Carr
“Humph.” He snorted. “I’m walking out my office, poppet. Look, I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“Okay, bye,” I said, hefting the clock in one hand. It didn’t feel heavier, then, again, they made tiny surveillance cameras these days.
“Okay, bye?” Matt repeated tartly. “First you walk off without kissing me this morning, now you’re ending the call without a mention of how much you’ll miss me. I’m not amused.”
“You know how I feel about you, Matt,” I said with a touch of sadness.
“Hey,” Matt said with worry creeping into his voice. “What’s bothering you, poppet? I can hear something in your voice, and I want you to tell me right now what’s wrong or I will drive straight over there.”
How did he do it?
Seriously. Did he have a crystal ball? Was he clairvoyant?
“I’m tired, hon. Just really tired and I really love you.”
Matt didn’t say anything for a moment, then his voice gentled as he said, “Go to bed and get some rest. We’ll talk tomorrow. I love you, too.”
“I know,” I said softly. “Go home and get some rest yourself. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” I hung up the call and let out a loud, frustrated groan. This was going to be hard. The right thing to do, but so frigging hard.
The movie was about to start. I tossed my cell on the couch and ran upstairs to wash my face. When I came back down, I was too depressed to enjoy the usual thrill I got from scary movies. I missed my Matt, my knight.
<><><>
“No, no, no,” Dante said in a fit of temper as the pianist stopped churning his fingers over the keys. “What is that? What the hell is that? ’Cos it sure ain’t a
fouettes pirouette
.”
I sent a sympathetic look at the girl, her name was Ellen, and she looked like she was about to burst into tears in the middle of the stage. Me and my dancers were used to Dante’s temper if you didn’t perform exactly the way he expected. The temporary dancers weren’t. Dante lived the ballet, and his passion for it obliterated any sense of niceness. You danced the way he wanted on the stage, or you didn’t dance at all.
But I couldn’t let him scare the poor girl. “D, it’s an extremely hard move and—”
“Bri, come show them how it’s done,” Dante cut me off tersely and I rolled my eyes, wiping the sweat off my face. He sent me a hard brown stare and beckoned me over. “You too, Madi. Centre stage. Now.”
Bri and I exchanged a jaded look as we walked to centre stage. Ellen slunk back to the side and hid behind the other dancers.
Fouettes pirouette
, also known as thirty-two
fouettes turns on pointe
. It was a difficult move to execute, and Dante wanted quite a few of the female dancers to do it for the upcoming production. I told him we didn’t need them to. Bri and I were technically proficient and we were the two female leads in the show. Bri was cast as the sweet, innocent princess, and me as the complex, conflicted ice queen. I was the baddie, yay.
We took our positions centre stage and, after a curt nod from Dante, we began to execute our
fouettes pirouette
. The only sounds on stage were coming from Bri and myself as our low laboured breaths seemed to echo in the large auditorium.
“That’s how you do a damn
fouettes pirouette
,” Dante said when we finished. He glared over at the other dancers, looking like a belligerent dark lord in his black leotard, and though he was a man wearing ballet shoes, no one would call him a prancing sissy. Not unless you wanted a fist in your jaw.
Eddie caught my glance and we smirked at each other. We were all exhausted. The past few days had been intense, and the way my toes were burning, indicated the need for bandages when I got home later.
Dante continued to chastise the other dancers and Liam waved to get my attention, then tapped his bare wrist. It was the signal.
I took a deep breath before saying firmly, “Let’s call it a night. We’ll pick up tomorrow. Ten am start people, don’t be late.”
Dante’s face had a building thunderstorm on it. He wasn’t ready to end tonight’s practice. The look he sent my way was one that spelt trouble. I arched my eyebrow at him in challenge. My seventy percent to his thirty percent, he’d better not make me remind him of it.
“Fine,” he groused, throwing his hands into the air. “We start afresh from tomorrow.”
There was a tangible feeling of relief from everyone as we called out goodnight to each other and started filing off the stage. Dante stalked towards me and I legged it.
“You can run,” Dante yelled.
Gerrard laughed as I dashed past him and Lisa.
“And I can hide,” I yelled back, darting through the other dancers down the aisles between the rows of seats. Some of them tittered in amusement. Some of them frowned. Dante and I tried to run our dance company informally, like a cohesive family unit. Happy dancers made for happy dancing.
I managed to get to the office without being collared by my best friend. Forget using the showers tonight, I needed to grab my stuff and go. The flashing light from my cell perched atop paperwork made me pause. When I unlocked the screen, there were six missed calls. Without even checking the call log, I knew who they were from. I dialled the last number I’d called.
“Where are you?” Matt forwent a greeting. Uh oh.
“About to leave the studio, Matt.”
“I’ve been waiting for you, Madison. I told you what time I’d be here.”
I exhaled loudly. “And I told you tonight wasn’t a good night to go on a date, Matthew.”
“It’s Thursday,” he shot back. “I decided we would go out tonight. You had ample opportunity to choose a night and you failed to do so. I’ve made arrangements and, if you’re not here in the next half an hour, we’ll be late for what I have planned. I’ve made numerous pots of tea for Nathan and Bella, was forced to order food seeing as we’ve missed our dinner reservations and I’ve actually loaded your dishwasher. How can you use so many dishes? It’s just you living here, poppet. And the Chinese take-away has increased their prices for their mediocre food. I don’t want you using them anymore.”
“Wait, what?” I grabbed my bag, wondering if I had time to change my ballet shoes and put on sneakers. “What are you talking about? Nathan and Bella are there? In my house?”
“Yes,” he said blandly, as if I should be aware of his plans. “I left you a message stating they’d be joining us tonight. Did you listen to any of my messages?”
“I told you I was too busy.” I tried not to lose my temper. Was he mad? How could anyone be so infuriating? My texts earlier in the day were quite clear: I couldn’t go out tonight.
But did he pay attention to that? Oh, no. Mr Matthew Bradley had made a decision and everyone had to go along with it. Nathan and Bella were in my house. I couldn’t remember if the hamper full of clothing was still next to the washing machine in the kitchen. Oh, shit. My cartoon panties were on the top of the pile. I had washed those clothes, hadn’t I? Yes, yes, I remembered turning off the dryer this morning before pulling the clothes out.
Damned, bossy tyrant.
“Matt,” I hissed down the line. “Are you crazy? You can’t do things like this.”
“I can do as I please, poppet,” he replied stiffly. “Now I expect you home in thirty minutes.”
The bastard hung up on me. I stared in shock at my phone, not believing he’d given me tone.
Unbelievable.
“Argh,” I yelled in frustration. The office door opened and I yelped in nervous surprise as my best friend walked in. “Chill out, Dante. Let’s take a moment to look at things from a cool, calm perspective. Everyone is tired. We need a good night’s rest and tomorrow we’ll be better. No need for things to escalate. You know I can thump you, right?”
I was gripping my bag over my shoulder and eyeing the door behind him. If I did frontal flip, I could probably knock him down and escape before he chewed me out.
Dante peered at my face, then burst out laughing. “You’re such a chicken-shit, Madi. And you’re right. Sorry about losing my temper back there. You know how I get, but tonight is the only night we leave before nine.”
Chewing-out averted, I sauntered over to punch him lightly on the arm. “I’m going, D. See you tomorrow.”
He leaned his face forward, cheek being offered. I gave him a quick peck and smiled.
“Has Christine moved in yet?” I teased.
Dante grumbled in the back of his throat, and I hurried out the office with a murmured, “Lock up everything before you leave.” tossed over my shoulder.
One annoyed man down, one more to go. I couldn’t believe the nerve of Matt, yet my mouth was stretched in a guilty smile at the thought of seeing him. I’d been good all week, sticking firm to my resolution of slowly distancing myself from him. It had been easier than expected with Matt being busy himself. Last night when I’d been fighting the urge to commit a stalker-ish act of driving all the way to his place and peering into a window to glimpse him, an unexpected call from Aunt Cleo had stopped me. I missed her, a lot. The way she would yell at me for doing something she thought was stupid or reckless, the way she would berate Jenny for hanging out with her crazy friends, the way she would pander to Jamal…he was her firstborn and only son. Of course, she pandered to his lazy ass. The way she would demand a kiss from Uncle David whenever he left the house, even if it was to take the trash out. I missed my family. I knew Aunt Cleo would amp up her calls over the next few weeks. She always did around this time since I left the States.
And there was Matt. She’d raked me over the coals about our relationship, telling me Jenny had shown her the pictures on the Internet from the charity ball. Goddamn modern day technology. What the hell was Jenny doing? She should have my back. I needed to remind her of the times I covered for her.
I hurried out of my building and jumped into my temporary baby. Yes, the Porsche was being used while my true love remained with the mechanic. He still hadn’t figured out what was wrong with my Beetle. It took fifteen minutes and anxious moments of wondering if the speed cameras had caught me, but I got home as fast as possible.
The door opened before I could turn my key to reveal a devastatingly handsome, well-dressed Matt—with the twin eyebrows of doom lowered.
“Hi,” I said shyly. Why was I blushing?
“Upstairs, shower and change,” he ordered, pulling my key out and herding me inside the door.
“Hi Bella, you look nice,” I said with a nervous smile. Would she judge my semi-messy living room? Stupid Matt. Bringing people over without running it by me first. I turned my nervous smile on Nathan. “Hey, Nathan, how are you?”
“Poppet,” Matt said in a low warning voice before they could respond to my greeting. “Upstairs. Now.”
I folded my arms, giving him a haughty look. When he took a step towards me, I turned on my heels and moved towards the stairs. Bella laughed. I wasn’t afraid of Matt, I just knew you shouldn’t tease a lion. King of the jungle and all that jazz.
“Twenty minutes, poppet,” he said sternly to my back. “Or I’ll come up there and dress you myself.”
I refrained from making a snarky comment and hustled. Damn. Matt looked good enough to eat. Forget cutlery, if he was a dish I would use my fingers, get sauce over my mouth, lick the freaking plate, then ask for more like Oliver in Dickens’s novel. He was gorgeous.
Twenty minutes wasn’t enough though, even with the quickest shampoo and conditioner I had ever executed. I knew Matt would be annoyed. He was anal about being prompt.
I frantically towel-dried my hair while riffling through my wardrobe. Bella was dressed in a lovely, floor-length dress, burgundy in colour and bringing out tones in her skin. The men were dressed up, not function dressed up, but wearing casual dinner jackets over their shirts. Where were we going?
I spotted one of my long dresses. It had been ages since I wore it. A year to be precise. A dark green satin dress with plunging neckline and open back. Was it too much? Man, I had forgotten about the slits up the side. But the shoes I’d bought to go with it were fierce. They deserved to be worn. I took the dress out and scowled at the neckline. Braless, I would have to go braless. I shook my head, worrying my lower lip between my teeth. Would Matt like the dress? Would he think it was trampy? I dropped the towel in my hand and slipped on the dress, to remind myself how it looked on my frame. I could always choose another dress, I just wanted to see how the green one looked.
The bedroom door opened as I was twisting side to side in front the mirror.
“Bloody hell, poppet,” Matt exclaimed, shutting the door. “You look fabulous.”
I grinned at his reflection in the mirror.
“It’s not too much?” I asked, unsure whether it was suitable for wherever we were going.
Matt walked over to where I stood. “No, it’s perfect, and I think I just came in my pants.”
“Shut up, you crazy man.” I laughed, smoothing my hands over my butt to check how bad the panty lines were. Barely noticeable—the dress was staying on. “Where are we going tonight, Matt? I need to sort my hair out.”
Matt immediately sank his fingers into my damp curls, a soft expression settling on his face as he rubbed my hair between his fingertips. He was fascinated with the texture. Many a times I had woken up to find him playing with it, trying to hid the look of guilty delight in his eyes whenever I told him to stop messing about with my hair. He didn’t understand the deal with us black women and our hair. Constantly curling it around his fingers led to split ends that I didn’t want.