She pushes her body into mine, and I know we'd better get in my room before this becomes indecent. We're lucky no one's seen us yet.
"Come on."
"Oh, I plan on it, and you'd better too."
"Hi."
I wake up to the most gorgeous sound there is. Leslie’s voice. She's rolled on her side, looking down at me.
"Hi yourself." I push up onto my elbow, looking over her to see the clock. "What time is it?"
She smiles. "I don't know, and for the first time in my life, I don't care." She flops onto her back.
Oh shit.I spring up. "Leslie, it's 8:47! Rehearsal starts in thirteen minutes. I was supposed to be there at eight!" I glance at my phone, which shows several texts from both Grayson and Henderson. Oops.
"Crap on a cracker!" She's on her feet too. "What are we going to do?"
I'm across the room, pulling a pair of boxer briefs out of my drawer. There's a pair of shorts on the chair, so I grab them too. "Get ready as soon as possible and get down there?" What else would we do?
She stands up, clutching the sheet around her body. Like she needs to, after last night. "But when we both walk in late"—her voice drops—"people will know."
This stops me in my tracks. "Do you not want people to know? What's the problem if they do?"
Her mouth does that adorable opening and closing thing. "We're supposed to be friends."
I step to her, taking her hands. "Lots of people hook up here. No one will think twice. We're consenting adults. It's okay."
She looks at her feet. "It's just … Max will be here today."
I drop her hands. Right. Max.
"No, it's not like that. I just don't want people to think ... Can you just ..."
I nod, a brick in my gut. Trust. It's going to be harder than I thought with her.
I don't have a fear that she's going to end up back with Max. It's more that I don't think I can trust her to put me first. Above the show. Above ballet. I don't trust that she's not going to ghost me when this is done. We slept together once, and she's already pulling back. It doesn't matter that the chemistry is undeniable. I can't trust her to be there for me. "Fine. I'll see you in rehearsal."
I take about sixty seconds to swipe on deodorant and brush my teeth before running down through the kitchen, snagging a granola bar and a sports drink. Hell, I've done more running in the past nine hours than I have in the past nine years.
I just hope she's worth it.
"Nice of you to join us, mate," Henderson says dryly as I finally make it into the auditorium. "I thought we were meeting here at eight."
"Sorry, overslept." I shove a piece of granola bar in my mouth so I don't say anything stupid.
Grayson looks at the time on his phone. "I don't think we'll have much time to run through things before we get started. Here's the plan for the day. The dancing is the star of this show, so we've got to give Kori ample time."
Some shows are all music and dancing is filler. When you think ofLes Mis, you don't remember the dance numbers. Conversely, most people don't think of the great songs fromSinging in the Rain; they think of the dancing. It doesn't mean the other component isn't there, but we have to balance rehearsal time accordingly.
"Kori's going to work with the leads and Leslie, for now, to get that ballet number started. Why don't you work on some of the ensemble pieces?"
I nod, trying not to react when Grayson says her name. Leslie and I obviously need more than thirty seconds to talk this out, but that nagging feeling won't quit.
I didn't get back together with Leslie only to have her blow me off again. I want to trust that she won't.
I hope I can.
Chapter 27: Leslie
