He’d pulled his seat up and lifted his sunglasses so they perched on top of his head. His tray was down, and he had a soda, a glass of ice, and a couple of cookies on top of it, as well as a battered Clive Cussler paperback.
Grace took that all in peripherally, but in fact what he was really looking at was Hunter’s eyes.
Gray, they were absurdly pretty in his tanned face, and Grace took a deep breath and tried not to be an ass.
“If you want to be my friend,” Hunter said clearly, “maybe talk to me and stop waving your ass around.” And with that, he opened his book and began to read.
Grace’s face heated, and he looked determinedly away from Josh’s sympathetic gaze.
“I hate everybody,” he muttered.
“Sure you do.” Josh yawned, slid his tablet into its sleeve, and put it in the pouch of the seat in front of him. “Now hate me while you hold still and be my pillow.” With that, he grabbed the sweatshirt behind him, folded it neatly, and propped it on Grace’s shoulder before leaning his head against it. “Don’t wiggle.”
Coming from anyone else, that would have been hysterical, but not from Josh Salinger. Grace slouched a little, getting comfortable, put in his earbuds and leaned his cheek against the top of Josh’s head. In his ears Lady Gaga sang about rain, and Stirling clicked comfortingly on the keyboard next to him, the sound just under the hum of the plane.
Grace closed his eyes for a catnap, but not before casting one more depressed glance at Hunter, expecting him to be deep in his book.
He was—but right as Grace looked, he saw a flicker of movement in Hunter’s eyes. Grace smiled softly to himself.
Hunter had been looking too.
HUNTER, STIRLING, Grace, and Josh may have been flying business class, but Julia, Molly, and Tabby’s grandfather were all in first class. Dylan caught up with Artur Mikkelnokov at the luggage area, quick to help the older man with his suitcase. Grace had a roller board and a backpack, but Artur had his suit in a garment bag for their dinner the next night. When Tabitha had told her grandfather that Grace wanted to accompany him to make sure he wasn’t overdoing it, Artur had insisted on taking him someplace elegant, as was his custom.
“How was your flight, Dylan?” the older man asked, smiling kindly.
“Fine, Dance Master,” Grace replied automatically, and then he hid a yawn in his shoulder. “I caught a nap.”
Artur chuckled. “That’s good to hear. I sat by the most charming two women. See, there they are!”
He laughed and waved at Julia and Molly, who were both playing up the costuming with black wigs—a pageboy for Molly and a complex updo for Julia. Both of them wore dark, striking eye makeup and slim-fitting skirts with mod-cut blazers. They looked like a mother-daughter power duo, right down to their Coach bags.
Julia approached them, ignoring Grace like the professional she was. “It was so wonderful to chat with you, Artur,” she gushed. “I hope to see you again, since we’re staying in the same hotel.”
It didn’t surprise Grace that this had come out in conversation, but he was impressed. He’d danced for Artur for sixteen years, and he’d been to the man’s house three times—all of them for Tabitha’s birthday parties if she was doing something big that year. And although kind, Artur was not inclined to be chatty.
“That would be lovely, my dear.” He smiled charmingly. “In fact, since I’m taking my young protégé here out to dinner at Hawksworth and then the ballet tomorrow, should I call and extend the reservation?”
Julia’s eyes grew appropriately round. “Oh, yes. That would be wonderful! We were too late to get in, since we left at the last minute and all. You must allow us to treat!”
Artur blushed. “Modern women—so very like my granddaughter. Of course.”
Together they gathered their luggage and made their way to their taxis, but not before Molly managed to smoothly pass Grace the earbud she’d kept in her suitcase so it wouldn’t get searched at TSA. Grace winked at her and slid it in, then proceeded to help Artur get the bags into his cab.
“What lovely people,” Artur murmured, and Grace, who had waited upon the old man’s good word for so much of his life, heard the weariness in his tone.
“Would you like to go to the hotel and rest, Dance Master?” he asked respectfully.
“What time is it, my boy?”
“Two.”
Artur grunted. “It always feels like it should be so much later when we go west,” he admitted. “In that case, yes. There is somewhere we must be around seven thirty, and after that we can eat, and you can have some time on your own. Find us somewhere to eat where you will be comfortable but that won’t make me regret bringing you.”
Grace grinned at him, and Artur gave him a gentle, if distracted, smile in return.
“Sushi?” Grace asked, to be sure.
“Sounds wonderful,” Artur said. He yawned, and Grace noticed for perhaps the first time, how frail the older man had become. Artur and his late wife had five children, and Tabby’s mother was the youngest. This put Artur in his seventies, which was a thing Grace had never considered until now. Artur had always been such a powerhouse—so vital, so authoritative. One of Grace’s best memories, other than those with Josh, was hearing the old man’s booming voice pounding through the dance studio.
Grace! You are the only child in this production, and I know you can do this. Now stop woolgathering and dance!
So often, Grace had blown off teachers, or even his own parents, when they’d told him he could be more than he was. He patently ignored anyone’s advice, with two exceptions—Josh’s parents, all three of them, and Artur Mikkelnokov.
He hadn’t known how to respect an adult until Artur, and it humbled him now to think that he might have missed out on the unadulterated fun that being a part of the Salinger household was, if he’d never learned how to rein in his wayward brain and body.
Seeing his teacher looking older, worn, and haggard shook Grace in the pit of his stomach. Artur Mikkelnokov would claim to have devoted his life to the dance, but the truth was that he’d devoted his life to the dancers. His wife had died when Tabitha was very young, and his children had all moved off to be brilliant and productive. Artur had not been particularly maternal. Nobody would accuse him of mothering his dancers. But he had been there. Through breakups and eating disorders—so frequent among dancers, and the reason he’d made it his policy to look at the lovely motion and not the body type—and more, Artur had never judged one of his performers and had only wished them well.
One of the things that had pulled Grace out of his hospital bed after that stupid, stupid overdose had been the thought of Artur’s disappointment if he wasn’t in the studio that week to rehearse for the fall performance.
When Grace had been tired and, for once in his life, clumsy, he’d been forced to explain what had happened.
He’d never forget Artur’s sorrowful look, or the way the old man’s hand had shaken as he’d pushed Grace’s straight, blacklight-tinted hair out of his eyes.
“So close to never seeing you dance again, milyi. Perhaps we can think more and wander less so we don’t wander into such terrible trouble, yes?”