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“Kevin’s a great guy.”
“Try again.” He looked at her. “You didn’t mean that. Try again.”
“He doesn’t annoy me.”
“Still not what you want to say.”
He sighed. “Fine. Rightagain. We’re both very good at what we do, and we want everybody to know it, and we’d probably both work here if I could dance. But I can’t, so I wouldn’t count on me and your boyfriend becoming best buddies.”
She smiled. “Lead with that next time.”
He studied her. “It’s like you actually want me to be mean to you.”
“I don’t,” she said. “And that wasn’t. I just don’t want you to censor yourself.”
“That may end our friendship pretty quickly.”
“I’ll risk it.”
“You say that now, but …”
“Come on, Nick. Neither of us wants you to put on a show for me.”
They were quiet for a long time.
“Anyway, you do work here,” she said. “No ‘probably’ about it.”
He waved a hand. “You know what I meant.”
“No, I don’t.”
“Come on.” She heard good-natured sadness, like he was thanking her for playing dumb. “It’s true. I can’t do what you can do, and I want to.”
“You can sing,” she offered.
“I could never handle a show, though,” he said. “Even if I wasn’t dancing.”
“Because of your legs.”
“Because of everything.” He ran a hand over his face. “Costume changes would take me way too long, and I’d have to steer the walker through those sets … Hayley, I can’t even walk quickly across the stage without sweating and losing my breath.”
“Those are all things they could work around,” she tried gently.
“I don’t want to be something they have to work around.”
Hayley felt the breeze pick up. She’d wanted Nick to take off his armor for her, but now she felt responsible for the pain of the exposed wounds underneath.
“I went to the mall earlier,” Nick said. “I don’t do something like that before an evening like this, but my sister came through town and surprised me today. And when Kendall comes to town, we like to go to the mall.”
“Didn’t think you were the shopping type,” she said.
“More just looking through the stores and people-watching. Plus they’ve got those soft pretzels with the cinnamon sugar.”
“I’m more of a Cinnabon girl myself.”
“They don’t have a chocolate one, do they?”
She shook her head sadly. “I’d boycott in protest, but then I’d have to stop eating them.”
