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“That’s wonderful, darling. So, if you were to, say, talk to Hayley in this condition …”
Nick whipped his head around and immediately regretted it. “Where is she?”
“She’s upstairs,” Mimi said patiently. “In a rehearsal room.”
It took a second to land, and then Nick was nodding. “Ahhhh.”
“So, if you wanted to talk to her without anyone else around …”
Now that he was really thinking about it, panic was setting in. “Maybe not the greatest idea.”
“Maybe not,” Mimi said. “But I wanted to give you the chance.”
They looked at each other for a few long moments.
“I think I’ll go upstairs,” he said finally. “Check out the rehearsal rooms.”
“I think you’ll like them.”
An unpleasant tingle started in Nick’s hands as he left the green room, and by the time he stepped onto the elevator, he wished he could leave his body until everything calmed down. He hated this part of drinking, the space between drunk and sober where he could recognize horrible ideas and know he might follow through with them anyway. He was never entirely sure what he’d do around Hayley, but he could barely control his breathing now, let alone the words that came out of his mouth. Nick was terrified he’d reveal something. Anything. Too much. He had to see her anyway.
The elevator doors opened. Nick walked down a hardwood corridor toward the light streaming through the rectangular pane of glass set in a door to his left. He peered into the room.
There she was.
Nick had thought he’d seen Hayley dance before, but giving the same label to what he’d seen at the bar and what she was doing now would’ve been an insult. To Nick, dancing meant wedding receptions, or the school dances where he’d held Vicki close. Even Hayley’s swing dance with Kevin had been something familiar to him. But now, Hayley was moving like something inside of her needed to get out.
He couldn’t see nearly enough through the glass window, so he opened the door and slipped through. Loud music filled the soundproofed room, but he doubted Hayley would have noticed him even if the rattle of his walker had broken total silence. Her movements spoke of a primal pulse, and every bit of the physical grace he’d ever noticed in her was on display under bright lights. She moved barefoot across the floor, leaping and spinning and launching into handsprings, commanding her arms and legs according to some design he couldn’t predict and couldn’t stop watching. At first he thought she was responding to an invisible force, like she was being buffeted by spiritual winds, but the closer he looked, the more each choice in her whirlwind of movement seemed to be executed with fluid, exacting precision. Hayley danced like she had to, threw herself around the room like she couldn’t help it, but she was in complete control. He could see the passion surging through her, and he was convinced every moment she spent walking or standing or sitting like normal people was a moment she might as well have been chained to the earth. She was a force of nature, her body in total obedience to her mind as she moved in perfect expression of her soul, and Nick had never seen anything more beautiful.
This longing, this awe, this physical yearning, so all-consuming it stopped his breath and got his eyes stinging with the approach of tears—was Cal right? Was this love?
Nick was still staring at Hayley as the song ended and she stopped moving. He saw the gleam of sweat on her skin as shebrushed the hair out of her face, and then his whole body seized up when he realized where he was. He shouldn’t be a part of something so private, so perfect—and there was no way for him to get out of this room unnoticed.
It seemed like an eternity before she glanced up, and she jumped when their eyes finally met across the empty room. The sudden movement startled him—of course it did. Everything did. He was disabled, defective—and he was so tense that leg spasms nearly made him fall over. Her hand went to her chest, and the other one shot out involuntarily, as if she could stop him from tripping over himself.
“Nick!” Hayley started laughing. “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“It’s okay,” he assured her. “I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
“Hey, it’s about time you made me jump for a change, right?” She grabbed a towel from on top of a duffel bag and wiped her face. “What’re you doing here?”
“Mimi said I should check out the rehearsal rooms.”
“Seriously?”
He watched her swig from a bottle of water. “Yeah.”
“So you had no idea I’d be up here.”
Her olive-green T-shirt was damp with sweat and cropped at her midriff, her thin gray sweatpants ending halfway down her calves. He watched her walk toward him and thought of the raw power in her legs. He saw her flat, bare stomach and realized he’d never been quite so aware of her body before, soft curves over toned muscle.
“Well,” he said.
Hayley smiled, biting her lower lip. She didn’t do that often, which was good, because it melted him every single time. There was a mysterious shyness to it, like she knew something he didn’t but was willing to invite him in and spill her secrets.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted. “I wasn’t ready. For lunch, I mean. There was a lot going on, and I didn’t know they would be … I mean, they were great, of course, even though your mom is, well … but you’ve gotta understand, that movie wasdark, and then Kevin was saying—”
“Nick?”
