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“For you? I’ll make the time.”
“What if I go back to New York? Or when you leave for the AT? Will you still be my boyfriend then?” I buried my face against his chest so I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye. “Ethan will want to know.”
“Ethan, huh?” Luke chuckled softly. “I already told you, Red. I’m yours as long as you want me.”
Like I would ever stop wanting him. It wasn’t possible.
“Bethany.” His voice sounded odd. I craned my neck to look at him. “Did you sayif?”
“What?”
“Ifyou go back to New York. That’s what you said.”
“Maybe,” I said cautiously.
For a moment, he didn’t speak. Then suddenly he hauled me on top of him so we were face to face. “You’re thinking about staying in Hart’s Ridge?”
I chewed my lip. “It’s more like I’m thinking about quitting ballet. I mean, dancing at a professional level. I’m never going toquitballet. But I think I want…something else. Something more. And if I do that, if I quit dancing professionally, then yes, I’d come home to Hart’s Ridge. It’s not like I could afford to stay in New York without a job. So I’d move back with my parents—” I wrinkled my nose at that—“while I figure it all out.”
He listened intently, his eyes focused on mine. “Have you thought about it at all? What your next move would be?”
I blew out a breath. “I’ve thought about it alot. And I think…I think I want to teach. But not at a cutthroat school where everyone is on a professional track. I want to teach little kids who are there for the joy of dancing. Emma has hinted that she would love to convince me to stay at the community center. Maybe I would do that, or maybe I would open my own studio. Maybe every now and then, I’d find a kid like me. A diamond in the rough.”
His blue eyes were bright, his expression soft, as he gazed at me. “That sounds perfect for you.”
“More than teaching, I want to have a life. A full life, where my job is only one part of it instead of my reason for being. And I don’t know what any of that will look like yet, but I actuallylikenot knowing. I’m so excited to find out. To discover myself.”
“And you would want to do that here? Trade the big city for small town life? Won’t you be bored in Hart’s Ridge?”
I laughed. “I won’t be bored. I left Hart’s Ridge because that’s what I had to do to be a professional dancer. It was never about hating small town life. I love it here. And…” I ran my nose along his. “You’rehere.”
He stiffened. “This is a big decision. Don’t make it based on me. I don’t want you to resent me.”
“Why would I resent you?”
“My dad used to tell me he would die for his kids, for me and Ethan, but he wouldn’t give up his life for us. It took me a long time to understand what he meant. That he loved us, but he couldn’t live his life for us. He had to live for himself. Everyone does. You can’t ask people to tie themselves down for you. They’ll only resent you for it.”
Rich, coming from the man who left his older son to do his work for him. I lifted an eyebrow. “You do realize how absolutely self-serving it was for your dad to feed you that bullshit.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that while your dad was telling you not to live your life for other people, he was demanding that you livehislife, so he could go off and play in the mountains. You raised Ethan because he didn’t give you a choice.”
“I’m not defending him. I’m saying he was right. Because that is exactly what my parents did to me, and I resent the hell out them for it. I hate the thought of you feeling that way about me.”
“It’s completely different. If I stay, it will because that’s what I want to do and it’s what makes sense for me right now. And if part of why it makes sense is because you’re here, who cares? It’s not like you’re asking me to stay.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew that was what I wanted. I wanted him to ask me to stay.Begme to stay. Because he didn’t want to go a single day without me.
But that was never going to happen.
I pushed off him and reached for my clothes. “I hoped you would be happier about this.”
He scrubbed a hand over his face, watching me. “I am happy. Fuck, Red, if you stay in Hart’s Ridge, I’d be thrilled. Just think it through fully. Don’t do it for me.”
“It would be for me, too,” I muttered, but now we were just talking in circles.
My phone buzzed. I glanced at it, expecting to see Mom or Dad on the screen, but instead it was the parents of Valentina, who was dancing the role of Sugar Plum in theNutcracker. I frowned. Getting a call from a parent was never a good thing.
