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My smile drops. “Sorry.”
He grabs the staff off me and kicks out what’s left of the flames. “What are you sorry for?”
“Bumping into you,” I say, dragging my attention away from his slick bare chest and coming face-to-face with his clown makeup painted face and wolf contacts.
He brings his fingers to my chin and tilts my head up to his.
I hold my breath.
His hand drops as a slow smirk crawls onto his face. “Hmmm.”
Hmmm?
“What does that mean?” I ask as he steps away from me.
“It means get out of my way, Little Hellhound.”
I start making my way toward the backstage, but not before he turns to look over his shoulder. “Oh and Sass?”
“Yeah?” I pause my step. “Your rope dart act? I’m going to need you to swing it low to the ground.”
Before I can ask what it is that he’s talking about, he disappears through the curtain.
“Sass!” Perse yells, poking her head around the curtain. “Change!”
Shit.
I quickly dash into the cubicle and slip into some short jean shorts and a little crop top, wrapping a chain around my belly for extra sorcery. As I’m putting on my finishing touches, Kenan comes up behind me, his arm wrapping around my belly. He leans down into my neck. “You ready to knock the stadium down?”
My lips curl against my teeth as I giggle. “So confident.” Running a brush through my hair and cleaning up my makeup, swiping away the dark charcoal around my eye, I exhale. “I’m ready. Just… don’t drop me.”
The curtains are open, but the room is dark. Darker than usual. My feet are bare, and it’s the first time I thought how odd it feels to have the sand from the center ring pressed between my toes. All I can hear is the deep thundering in my chest and the shuffling of the audience. “Unsteady” by X Ambassadors and Erich Lee starts playing softly just as Kenan hooks his hand in mine, swinging me out and pulling me back in. The start of any dance is always a bit rusty, but it doesn’t take long before I find my groove. He picks me up by my waist and throws me around his neck and back until I’m standing on my feet. The audience loses their minds, but I’m too wrapped up in the zone to pay any attention. The song is heartbreaking, the dance intimate. Way too intimate. It’s a song and dance about losing the love of your life, but not through death, but through adversity that, at times, people can’t endure. Love is not guaranteed, and the hardest thing the human heart will withstand is dealing with the loss of someone who is still alive. With every movement, every toss, every embrace, it has me trying to reach inside my brain for anything. An anchor that will help me with the emotions of the song, but I come up with nothing. Kenan swings me up and I flip, landing with my legs hooked around his neck before he flips me backward and I land back onto my feet.
The song ends and the curtains close, but not before you hear the roar of praise.
I’m huffing still, my breath struggling to catch up. It was by far one of the hardest routines I’ve ever done.
Kenan pulls me into his damp chest, heaving. “Damn! Did you see that?” The adrenaline you feel after successfully performing is hard to explain. It’s as though your entire body is set on fire from the inside, but you have no desire to put the flames out.
“I did!” I laugh, swiping the sweat from my face. Kenan disappears back behind the curtain, just as Maya winks at me as she makes her way onto the stage with Val and Mischa. Val and Mischa have been on the aerials and hoops since they were kids, Perse said, and you can tell. Their petite bodies and slim frames that bend and twist and spin. Maya isn’t someone that you would picture doing such feminine routines, but apparently Delila bribed her.
I whip the curtain aside and make my way back to my cubicle when a bike roars to life outside. I pause in my footsteps, wondering why the bikes are back on right now. The triple wheel of death has already been on, and the stunts are at the end of the show, so I tiptoe to the back, sliding the plastic out of the way to see Killian perched on his bike.
He catches me staring, slowly pulling his cigarette out of his mouth.
“What are you doing?” I ask, knowing that my rope scene is on after the aerial.
He glares at me. “You’re up next, right?”
My eyes narrow in suspicion. “Yes.”
He kicks the stand down on his bike and swings off, walking toward me. I make a conscious effort to try not to look too hard, but it’s hard not to notice when Killian is in the room. Any room. He could be in a crowd of models and still stand out.
