Page 57 of Enchanted to Meet You

I wasn’t a prima ballerina yet. Right now, I was just a human puddle.

“And six, seven, eight—pas de chat, grand jeté, landed,” Madame Vance called out, her voice cutting through the thick, wet air like a dull razor.

I pushed off from the floor, forcing my aching calves to spring into the jump, extending my legs as far as they’d go. For a second, floating mid-air, I felt weightless. Then gravity reasserted itself, and I landed, my pointe shoes hitting the wood with a dull, damp thud. Heat surged through my chest, making my skin flush hot and prickle with sweat.

Sweat was dripping into my eyes, stinging like hell. My black leotard was plastered to my spine, completely saturated, and my tights felt like they’d been dipped in warm soup before I put them on. My slicked-back hair was escaping its pins in soggy strands that plastered themselves to the back of my neck.

“Ainsley, your shoulders,” Madame Vance barked, appearing beside me with the uncanny speed of a wraith. She tapped my collarbone lightly with her cane. “You look like you’re carrying the weight of the world. Open the chest. Grace, child. Not agony.”

“Sorry, Madame,” I muttered, rolling my shoulders back even as my muscles screamed.

By the time the two-hour block finally came to an end, I didn’t care about grace, all I cared about was not dying of heat stroke. When Madame Vance finally dismissed us with a crisp bow, the entire class collectively collapsed into a pile of limp limbs and desperate groans.

I slunk over to the corner where my duffel bag lay, unbuckling my pointe shoes with trembling fingers. Even worse was that toSebastian couldn’t drive me home. The thought of sitting on a crowded, un-air-conditioned bus for forty-five minutes in my current state made me want to lay on the pavement outside and wait for death to claim me.

I shoved my pointe shoes into their mesh bag, threw my oversized vintage t-shirt over my dripping leotard because I didn’t want to walk outside in just a leotard, and practically dragged myself out the back exit of the studio into the late-afternoon sun.

And immediately saw Rhys Montgomery waiting for me.

Even worse, he had a fan club. Five girls from the other ballet class that ran at the time were surrounding him, swooning over his car and batting eyelashes at him like he was the greatest thing on earth, while he just stood there and let it happen. I wasn’t sure why it made a wave of fury crash over me, but it made me want to stomp over to the girls and tell them to scram.

But I guess I didn’t have to—because the moment Rhys noticed me, he stood up straight and beckoned me toward the car.

The petty part of me had me halting. I crossed my arms. “We better not be going to the gym again.”

Because that was the only reason I could think of why he would be here. Last week, he’d shown up and taken me to the gym. It seemed only natural he would do the same again this time.

“Nice to see you too, Ainsley,” Rhys smirked, pulling off his sunglasses and hooking them onto the collar of his shirt. His green eyes locked onto mine, sharp and assessing as they dragged over my sticky, disheveled state. “You look terrible.”

A couple of the girls laughed. He ignored them.

“And to answer your question: yes, we are going to the gym. Justin and Kelcey are expecting us.”

I groaned loudly, tilting my head back toward the sky but then walked toward him. “Rhys, I’m serious. The AC went out mid-class. I’ve been sweating through a two-hour rehearsal in what was essentially a tropical greenhouse. I don’t know if you know anything about ballet, but it is actually hard work. I feel disgusting. I need a shower, a bed, and to never see another human being ever again.”

“That seems like a bit of an overreaction.”

“I hate you,” I said flatly.

“No, you don’t. Get in.”

“I’m not getting in your car to go sweat on a treadmill while Kelcey breathes down my neck,” I insisted, planting my feet. “I’m taking the bus home.”

“The bus?” Rhys raised an eyebrow, looking at me like I’d just suggested riding a unicycle onto the interstate. “You’re going to sit on a bus full of strangers, sweating like a pig, for forty-five minutes? Absolutely not. Get in the car.”

“I am not going to the gym like this!”

“Then shower at my house,” he said simply, as if he’d just offered me a stick of gum.

I blinked, taking a half-step back. “What?”

“We’re supposed to be at the gym in forty-five minutes. You take the bus home, shower, and change, we’re going to be so late Justin is going to think we bailed, or worse, that we fought. I can get us to my place in fifteen minutes—you come over, take a quick shower in my bathroom, steal some of my clothes to work out in, and then we go. Problem solved.”

I opened my mouth to tell him no, that was not the problem solved, when one of his fangirls decided to butt in.

“I’d love a ride in your car,” she purred. And then she put a hand on his chest.

Would it be entirely inappropriate for me to slap her hand away?