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She gave me an angry, scrunched-up look. “Well, I don’t feel like I’m going to die anymore, if that makes you feel better.”
I slid the Danish across the table to her as a peace offering, and brought my coffee to my lips, drinking deep. “It’ll get easier. I promise.”
She scoffed. “I’m having a bit of trouble believing you, given how today has gone, but I’m willing to give it another shot,” she said on a dramatic sigh.
“How magnanimous of you,” I said flatly.
She bit into her Danish, her cheeks puffing out as she mumbled through a full mouth. “I don’t understand how you claim that relaxes you. The only reason a person should run is if they’re being chased by a hoard of rabid zombies or if Nordstrom is offering a half-off sale on all name-brand designers. In that case, not only do you run, but you take out every person in your path.”
I lifted my coffee cup in the air to clink against hers. “Amen to that.”
She arched a brow, eying me knowingly. “So, you want to tell me what’s up with you lately?”
“What are you talking about?” My brows pinched together in confusion. “Nothing’s going on with me.”
She looked at me like she knew I was full of shit. “Really? So what’s with all the running?”
“I told you. There’s an 8k coming up and I want to get in shape for it.”
She watched me over the rim of her coffee cup as she took a long, slow sip. “Alma, it’s an 8k, that’s barely five miles. For me, that sounds like a freaking nightmare, but for you, that’s nothing. You’re a freak of nature that runs three miles a day just for the hell of it. But you’ve become obsessed. Tell me, was this the first time you’ve run today?”
I clamped my mouth shut. I wanted to blurt out a lie, tell her she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. The perceptive little sneak. And odds were, if she suspected something was going on, so did the other girls. That was my second, and since it hadn’t been enough to wear me out, odds were, I’d go for another one before the day was over.
“I’m fine, Lay. I’ve had a lot of pent-up energy lately.”
That wasn’t the case, of course. The truth was, I’d needed to do whatever I could to exhaust myself. The only way I could manage a full night’s sleep without dreaming of the past was if I exerted myself to the point I crashed the instant my head hit the pillow.
“It’s not that, and you know it. You’ve been weird at rehearsals too. It’s like you’re there, but not really there.”
Well shit. I thought I’d hidden my discomfort a lot better than I had, apparently. But I wasn’t about to go down that road. Not now. Not ever, if I could help it.
I did my best to school my features, to paste on that mask I had been living behind for the past decade. I’d turned myself into a whole new person after Roan, and I wasn’t about to lose her now. She was so much stronger than I used to be.
I was having a couple off weeks, that was all. I’d get myself back to rights soon enough. In the meantime, I would fake it until that happened.
7
ALMA
Isat in front of my vanity mirror in the dressing room at the back of Whiskey Dolls, preparing to go out for my first performance tonight. I loved everything about performing. The heat of the lights, the applause, the spike of adrenaline that hits your veins the moment that first note echoed out of the speakers to the moment the lights went out at the very end of the number.
I loved the way I pushed my body to its limit, then a little further just to prove I could. And the feeling of accomplishment that came every time I nailed a routine perfectly. For me, there was no greater feeling in the world than being up on that stage.
I’d been dancing for as long as I could remember, and I’d known from a very young age I wanted to somehow make it a career. My parents worried, of course, wishing their little girl would do something safe, something that would guarantee success as an adult. But that wasn’t in the cards for me. It was dancing or nothing.
I trained, I auditioned, I took every class that covered every style I found interesting until I excelled at it. There was always the thought in the back of my mind I could start my own dance school, but I kept that tucked away for the future. I wanted the spotlights. I wanted the applause. I wanted to go out with my sisters three nights a week and give epic performances that people couldn’t stop talking about. At least for a while longer.
My body couldn’t do this forever, and I could always teach once the time came for me to pass my Whiskey Dolls crown on to the next generation.
Leaning closer to the mirror, I dragged the fine tip of my liquid eyeliner across my lid, swiping upward at the very end to create a perfect stark black wing with a razor-sharp point. For a woman who used to never wear makeup, I’d gotten really good at glamming myself up over the years. I could apply winged eyeliner in my sleep, pop on a set of false lashes, and drag my favorite red lipstick, aptly named Blood Kiss, across my lips without a mirror and still get it right.
It was all part of my mask.
Gone were the freckles, hidden behind a layer of makeup I never left the house without, not even if I was going for a run or to rehearsals. The Alma of the past used to be fresh-faced, wide-eyed, and full of dreams. The Alma I was now wore her signature red lipstick like the armor it was intended to be, preferred cat eyes to doe eyes, and stopped dreaming a hell of a long time ago. She knew better now. She knew what hoping and wishing got you.
A whole lot of nothing.
I’d wised up a hell of a lot over the years. If anyone from my past saw me now, they wouldn’t recognize me. And I preferred it that way. I’d turned myself from a young, heartbroken girl into a vamp. A woman who could eat men alive.
