He nods. “Right. They’d never danced together before, but they won the whole thing. And I guess Connor decided they had chemistry, because he asked her if she’d move to California to train as his partner and teach at his studio. He has his own dance school out there, working with movie stars as a private trainer, teaching classes. I guess he wanted to move on from his old partner Sarah. So Eliana went out there to do that.”
“And that’s when you broke up?”
“No, we tried doing the long-distance thing. But she was always talking about Connor or texting him when I came for the weekend. It was clear that she was falling for him. I confronted her and she said that nothing had happened, but she wasn’t in love with me anymore.”
The very calmness of his demeanor makes me sense that it was brutal. There are few things worse than realizing that the person you love is slowly pulling away.
“Are they a couple now?” I ask.
“They’re still partners. They dated for a while, but I’m not sure what they are now.” He shrugs, his rueful smile creeping back.
I do the math in my head. “You must have been with her a long time.”
“Eight years. We talked about marriage, but she kept saying she wanted time, and then…” He shakes his head. “I’m not angry with her. She was twenty-one when we started dating, and I was her first serious boyfriend, and I think it was hard for her to commit to me without knowing what else was out there. And theone thing I couldn’t be for her waswhat else is out there. We’re still friends. We chat sometimes. She’s a good person.”
I consider this. It’s usually a good sign when men are friends with their exes, but it makes me nervous. Why is he so emphatic about her being a good person?
“It must have been frustrating for you, though,” I say. “You gave up so much to help her with her dream, and then she moved on when things started to take off for her.”
“I try not to think about it that way. I really like my job. I’m glad I didn’t end up on the partner track at some huge law firm. I landed in the right place for me. But it hurt. Not just losing her but feeling like she traded up.”
“Sounds like the music scene. I always worried that would happen with Nick. Like if he ever did succeed as a musician, he would dump me for someone younger and hotter.” I pause. “Not that that’s what happened to you.”
Ollie smiles. “Connor is only two years younger than I am, but he probably is hotter.”
The whole conversation seems full of landmines, and I’m not sure whether I’m planting them or setting them off. “And after that you met your wife?” Another landmine.
“I already knew her. She had dated my brother for a while. Then he dumped her when he dropped out of college and went on the road. I reconnected with her again in the swing dance scene. She seemed fun, low drama. The irony is that I thought…I thought if she’d already dated my brother, then she had that out of her system. Eliana had needed to explore the world, but I figured Phoebe had already done that. She had dated a bit, had some wild experiences, and was ready to settle down.”
“And then?”
“And then it didn’t work out.” He shrugs, his eyes sliding from mine. “At first, I thought it was great that Phoebe couldalso swing dance. But now it means she could appear anywhere I go dancing.”
“The whole dance scene seems a little incestuous.”
He shrugs. “Not completely. It’s a great place to meet new people. The problem is that if you have a history with someone, you’ll keep seeing them. If I were ever in a Jack & Jill competition with Eliana, and our names were picked out of a hat, I would have to dance with her, and I’m not sure I want to go through that. Not that it’s her fault. She feels really guilty about what happened between us. But I only do competitions if I’m sure she’s not going to be there.”
I nod. “But you love it. Dancing.”
“It’s a nice break from tax law.” Then he grins at me. “So where did you grow up? Don’t think I didn’t notice you dodged that question.”
How do you talk about your poverty-stricken, broken childhood on a first date? You make it sound boring.
“My story is way less exciting. We grew up in Troy. Near Albany. Working class city.” I shrug.
“And you liked to dance, you said?”
“I wanted to be Ginger Rogers as a kid. My mom watched a lot of old movies. And in college I liked to drink and dance. It took me a while to learn to separate the two. My childhood was not always fun. I was helping raise my sister. So when I went away to college, I wanted the carefree childhood I’d never had. Turns out that trying to make up for lost time can be dangerous if you inherited addictive tendencies.”
“I bet your sister appreciated that you helped raise her, though.”
“I think so. But she moved to Newfoundland recently because she fell in love with someone up there, so I’m dealing with that, right now. Abby once said it was like we were married. We raised Hannah together, you know? But she needed to moveon, and I’m happy for her, but…” My voice sounds emotional, and I pull myself back together. “Anyway, all that stuff is why I became an accountant. I wanted to give Hannah the opposite of my childhood.”
“Because your mother wasn’t an accountant?” His eyes are sharp. He has missed nothing about the little omissions in my story.
“My father left early and then we moved a lot because my mom kept switching jobs and boyfriends. She was a drinker, too. So I wanted to do better for Hannah. Steady income. Two parents. And then of course I picked a husband who was completely unreliable.”
“It’s hard to know who to trust,” Ollie says quietly.
