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His face glowed when he talked about his daughter. It made something in my chest tighten.
“Did you…meet her mom at Tech?” I asked carefully.
He looked up in surprise.
“Piper told me what happened.”
“Ah…that makes sense.” He finished off his cone with one final bite. “Abby and I met at SMU actually. She was from Dallas, and her brother was on the soccer team. When she graduated, she moved to Lubbock to work for Wright. We met up again at work and hit it off. We got married and had a kid, and then she was gone.”
Without thinking, I reached across the table and grasped his hand. “That must have been devastating.”
He gave me a wan smile, squeezed my hand back, and then withdrew it. “It was. It was pretty rough at the time. My parents helped a lot. They still do actually. Abby’s parents live in Dallas, and they help out when they can. But they’re not here, so it’s different.” He shook off the sadness that had washed over him and returned to his regular self. “That was five years ago, and I’ll never regret having Aly. She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re lucky to have her.”
“I haven’t had much luck in my life, but if I did, then she would be it.” He laughed and ran a hand back through his red hair. His green eyes were bright when he made eye contact with me again. “Enough about me. Tell me about you. I might or might not have seen that you were dating someone in New York. Some famous ballet dancer?”
I flushed at the words. “You’ve been keeping tabs on me?”
“Peyton, your life is sometimes chronicled in celeb mags, and you had a piece in Time magazine.”
“Oh God,” I said, covering my face. “You read that article?”
“Don’t be embarrassed. It was great. I would have never known that you had a career-threatening injury without it. It’s a miracle that you’re even dancing right now.”
He wasn’t wrong about that. I cringed at the thought of the start of last season when I’d been performing the lead for Giselle and something in my knee popped. To this day, I had no idea how I’d finished that show. But I hadn’t been allowed on pointe again for six months. Six. Months.
I’d thought my career was over. But after intense rehab, I was finally back full-time again. Who cared that my knee still screamed after every performance? A ballerina knew only one truth: your days as a dancer were limited. I intended to use every one that I had.
“I forget sometimes that everyone knows about in my life. I didn’t even want to do that Time article. My friend Macy works there and kind of hassled me into it. I really would prefer to be more private.”
“You get the good with the bad. You followed your dreams. You are the principal ballerina that you always wanted to be.”
“You’re right,” I said quickly. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I love my job. I am so lucky to still be dancing full-time at thirty-three.”
“You don’t sound ungrateful, and we both know it isn’t luck. It’s a lot of hard work,” he insisted.
“True. I am in the studio constantly right now. Especially with the rehab on my knee. I started working with a personal trainer after I got out of physical therapy to try to build up the muscles so that I could compete against eighteen-year-olds again. It’s been an uphill battle.” I looked down and bit my lip before continuing, “As you can imagine, more time in the studio isn’t exactly conducive to dating. I was already there eight, nine, sometimes ten hours a day. With the extra PT and training, well, I’m sure you can imagine. Serge and I just sort of ended during that.”
He scoffed. “You were busy trying to get your career back. That doesn’t sound like the time to give up on a relationship. It sounds like the time you needed someone to be there more than ever.”
A knot formed in my throat at the words. Those perfectly placed words that I hadn’t realized I needed to hear until he said them. I had needed someone during all of that. And instead of staying, Serge had vanished.
“It was for the better,” I finally said when I could get my voice under control. “Serge and I started dating when we both made principal in the same year. It went well for a while. We moved in together. Then it became …convenient.” I shrugged. “It was ending anyway. We were both just too busy to say it. Then, when I got injured, it was the excuse he needed.”
It was Isaac’s turn to reach forward and take my hand. “That wasn’t fair to you. He should have been there.”
I waved him away. “It’s fine. Really. Ancient history. I’ve been better without him.”
