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“Isaac?” she gasped.
Her eyes swept up and down my form, just as I had done to her. Something ignited inside me. She’d left so long ago, and still, that connection between us sparked. I took a half-step forward for a moment, remembering all the times I’d held her perfect body and kissed her perfect lips.
Before I ripped myself away from who we’d been at seventeen and back to the present, an ache settled in its place. An old, familiar feeling of missing her. One that had never truly gone away.
“Hey, Peyton.”3PeytonIsaac Donoghue was standing in the Lubbock Ballet Company lobby.
I blinked and blinked again. This wasn’t going away. He was really there. Right there. As if I had conjured him out of thin air. I’d anticipated seeing him but not on my first day back. Not here, like this, where I was so unguarded.
God, I had been so hopelessly in love with him. And looking into those green eyes, I could see it happening all over again. Just how easy it would be to get lost in my first love.
He was somehow even more gorgeous than I remembered. He towered over me, as he always had. And while he’d been tall and lanky in high school with his intense soccer schedule, plus running cross-country, he had completely filled out. His shoulders were broad and defined in his suit, his waist tapered in, and his chest had expanded considerably. But it was the bright green of his eyes, the red scruff along his defined jawline, and the warmth of that smile that had always drawn me in. Just as they did now.
“Hi,” I said, flustered.
He laughed softly, and something in my chest eased at the sound. “It’s good to see you. What are you doing in town?”
“I’m…well, Kathy invited me out to perform as the Sugar Plum Fairy for the season.”
Kathy deviously grinned at us both. “We’re so lucky to have her. If you’ll excuse me…”
“That’s incredible,” Isaac said. “You’re not performing in New York?”
“I rearranged my schedule to dance the last week of the year in New York so that I could be here for the entire LBC Nutcracker season.”
“Wow. So, you’ll be here for a month?”
I nodded. A whole month…and Isaac was here.
He stepped forward, shedding the distance between us. Fire shot through me.
“That’s amazing. I’m sure your family is glad to have you home.”
“They are,” I said at once, fidgeting with the loose curl at my temple that I still couldn’t get into place. I dropped my gaze and then lifted it to his again. I wet my lips. “I thought we might run into each other.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Kind of a small circle.”
“True.”
“I just…didn’t guess it’d be on my first day,” I said with a small shrug.
“Yeah, what are the chances? So, you just got in?”
“Yeah, Piper picked me up from the airport. I’m kind of beat, and I’m still supposed to have dinner with Peter and my parents.”
“Oh, well, don’t let me keep you.”
“You’re not,” I insisted, a faint blush touching my cheeks. “I just mean…this is nice. It’s good to catch up with old friends.”
Something shifted in his face.
Friends. Why had I said friends? What was I even thinking?
“Sure. Definitely. It’s been a long time.”
I wanted to say more. Being around him felt…right. It always had. Fate had twisted us together again. Could I even deny that I’d wanted it to?
“It has.”
“Do you need a ride or something?” he asked, always the gentleman.
“Oh, no. I took Piper’s Jeep. I’m sure she’s counting down the minutes until I bring it back. You know how she is.”
He laughed. “I do. I was just surprised to see you.”
Me too.
Just looking at him, I could tell that it had been so very long since I’d seen him. We weren’t teenagers anymore. Things had changed. And ballet still stood between us…as it always had.
He seemed to be willing to let me walk right by and out of his life again. And for a second, I decided that I didn’t want that.
“Maybe we should meet up,” I blurted out.
My blush only deepened. There was no reason not to get a drink with Isaac. We hadn’t seen each other in sixteen years. It wasn’t like I wanted to start a relationship or anything. I was going back to New York in a month anyway.
“Sure,” he said with a half-smile. “My number hasn’t changed.”
I swallowed. “No. Mine hasn’t either.”
“Then, call me or send a text. We can figure something out.”
“I’ll do that.”
His smile never wavered.
Then the door to the baby ballet room opened, and a surge of little dancers in pink tights and leos and skirts came bounding into the lobby. A smile crossed my face at the excitement on all the little dancers’ faces. I loved this moment. Not all, probably not even very many, of these little ones would make it past the next couple of years. But for the few who loved dance so much that it was in their very bones, they’d keep dancing. And it was in their faces that I saw myself and boundless opportunity. Any one of them could be the next star.
