I came to a stop in B plus, one leg tucked behind the other, my arm extended.
“What?” Cary asked, after a moment, taking a step over to me. “Why did you stop? That was great.”
“It’s—” I was catching my breath and coming back to myself, back to the moment. I knew I should probably be embarrassed, to be dancing in my socks in a yoga studio, but I wasn’t, somehow. “That was when the pas de deux started—when my partner came in.” I lowered my arm.
“What did he do?” Cary asked. He walked slowly across the studio to me, his eyes on mine.
“Not that much,” I said, not looking away. My heart was pounding, and I knew it wasn’t just from the jumps. “A turn and then a lift.”
“Want me to try?” He closed the distance between us and held out his hand to me, one eyebrow raised slightly.
I placed my hand in his, our fingers fitting together, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on my palm, sending a shower of sparks exploding through me. “So it’s just a turn,” I said as Cary raised his arm and I spun under it, then extended my leg into an arabesque, feeling his hand gripping mine, steady, supporting me. “And then—a lift that turns…”
He put his hands on either side of my waist and lifted me up, and began to walk slowly in a circle, like he had done this a thousand times before, a natural Nutcracker prince. And I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror, Cary in his white T-shirt and jeans, looking like something out of an eighties dream, lifting me high in this studio in Manhattan—dancing in the dark.
When we’d come back to where we started, he lowered me down slowly, inch by inch, his hands sliding up my waist until they stopped at my rib cage. “Like that?”
I was still on my toes, taller than him, and I lowered myself down until I was standing on the ground, and we were now the same height. We were very close together—sharing a dance space, just a breath apart. “That was good.”
“I’m glad.”
“Yeah.” I knew we were saying things, but I wasn’t really aware of what they were and I knew they didn’t matter. What mattered was that his arms were tightening around me, and that excited, nervous butterflies had started zooming around in my stomach. His hazel eyes were locked on mine, and his hands were still spanning my rib cage, and I was sure he could feel my heart pounding hard underneath.
He leaned closer, and I leaned forward too. My eyes fluttered closed.…
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
I froze, then opened my eyes and looked around, worried the building had caught fire—it seemed loud enough.
“It’s the alarm,” Cary said, pulling his phone out of his pocket and silencing it. “For the play.”
“Right.” I blinked at him. We were still standing so close—I could have reached out my hand and traced his jawline, tangled my fingers in his hair, without even extending my arm. But the moment was slipping away—it was like trying to hold on to water. “Right,” I said again, taking a step back. Things were coming into focus again, the fuzzy edges sharpening. “The play. Of course.”
“Yeah,” Cary said, although he didn’t move. Feeling like I had to break the spell, I walked over to the door and concentrated on pulling my boots back on. Cary unloaded the rest of the towels, placed them in an empty cubby, then walked over to join me.
“I should get going,” I said, pulling on my coat, trying to get myself to focus. I’d been so concerned about getting to Mr. Campbell’s play on time all night; I shouldn’t be disappointed that the alarm we’d set to get me there on time had gone off.
“Or you could stay.” I looked over at Cary. He’d pulled his brown leather jacket on, and he rocked back on his heels and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“What?”
“I have to keep doing deliveries, but I’ll be done in an hour tops, and my next job doesn’t start until eleven thirty. We could… hang out? Go see a movie. Or cross the bridge to Brooklyn and get the best cheesecake in the whole world. Or the Whitney is open late. Or we could find some music… or just walk around.…” He gave me a hopeful, nervous smile.
I could practically see it, this New York night he was describing. Walking around with Cary, riding on his scooter, ducking into coffee shops or diners when it got too cold, talking and exploring the city…
I shook my head, trying to stop myself before I went too far down this path, however nice it seemed. I was here to see this play. I’d fought with Stevie about this play. I’d come too far to just give up at the last minute. I had to do this—too much was on the line. “I have to see this show.”
He eyes were searching mine. “Are you sure?”
I swallowed hard and made myself nod. “Yes.”
Hurt passed over his face for just a moment, and then it was gone. He gave me a smile that didn’t meet his eyes. “Right,” he said. “Of course! So we should get you there on time.”
We didn’t talk much as we walked back to the scooter, parked on Seventy-Third Street.
Cary got on first, and I took my place behind him, but I put my arms around him for a second, holding him, breathing him in, knowing that our time together was almost over. Cary covered my hand in his, and we both just stayed like that for a moment until he let go of my hand—it now felt much too cold—and started the bike.
The drive seemed to take no time at all, and before I wanted it to, the bike was slowing down. Cary pulled it over to the side of the street, and I looked up and saw that Fifty-First Street was blocked to traffic. He turned and looked back at me. “Tenth is one block over,” he said, pointing. “But we can go around if you want. We can go back up to Fifty-Third, then cut down—”
“No. Thank you, though,” I said, getting off the bike carefully, avoiding the tailpipe like it was second nature now. I took off my helmet, and Cary cut the engine and stepped off the bike as well. “I can just walk—it’ll probably be faster.”
Cary took the helmet back from me and rested it on the seat. We looked at each other for just a moment, and it was like all the things we weren’t saying were filling up the space between us and making it crackle, like static electricity, the charge you could feel when you got close to it.
“So,” I started. I didn’t want to say goodbye to him—I didn’t want this to end—but I was now also very aware that I needed to get to Tenth Avenue. I hadn’t come this far to arrive at Mr. Campbell’s play late.
“Here,” Cary said. He dug through his messenger bag, and then held out a twenty and a ten to me. “I can’t leave you running around the city with a bill no one will break.”
“That’s really nice of you,” I said, taking a step back. “But you already bought me dinner, and all those snacks.…”
“The snacks might have been with an ulterior motive,” he said. “Maybe I’m just trying to slowly get peanut products off the shelves, where they won’t keep coming after me.” I smiled. “But seriously,” he said, holding out the money to me. “You can pay me back another time. The… next time I see you.” He said this in an offhand way that let me know just how brave he’d been to say it.