Leaps & Lies

Chapter Seventeen

J ulian’s “private coaching”—as Vivian hears it angrily whispered by Kelsey one morning at a company-wide rehearsal—has given him free rein and access to keep her at his beck and call. Vivian has no idea how he’s managed to schedule private rehearsals that Kelsey doesn’t need to attend, as she’s the only swing learning Vivian’s choreography, but Vivian doesn’t want to invite chaos by asking. Maybe Julian finally overheard one of the rude comments Kelsey makes under her breath every chance she gets. Vivian bites her tongue when he schedules additional one-on-one rehearsals during what used to be her lunch break six days a week.

By the end of their first week of one-on-ones, she’s confident that she can perform any assisted or partnered turns without running from Alex or punching him in a blind panic.

In addition to packing her schedule even fuller than she thought possible—or legal—Julian has developed a . . . hands-on approach. Which is the polite way of saying he seems incapable of keeping his hands to himself. It’s never obvious enough to be called inappropriate , but it’s new and that’s enough to make Vivian wonder.

Is it a result of her secrets spilling out, or merely a consequence of private rehearsals where they’re paired together and he has to touch her? Is it a symptom of his admitted interest or an effort to desensitize her to working with a partner? It’s only that he keeps doing it when he doesn’t absolutely need to, and that feels significant.

As always, he interrupts her thoughts with a hand that brushes over her back as he walks toward the corner to turn on the music.

“I think we’ve had enough of turns for now, huh?”

Vivian nods even though his back is turned but their gazes catch in the mirror briefly. Their partnered turns are strong. Solid. She’s ready to move on.

“Let’s try the lift where you fell.”

And suddenly she’s ready to stick with turns for the foreseeable future. Maybe she can specialize in turns and only turns. Her expression must give away her panic because he’s quick to interrupt.

“Nice try with the pout, but it’s time. You need to do it and move past it. If you want to dance principal on opening night, you need to figure this out. I’ve been babying you with the turns, but it’s time.”

Wait—he’s been babying her?!

She lets out an indelicate snort before steeling her shoulders. “Fine, let’s do it.”

When Julian turns to smirk at her, she can see that she’s walked right into his trap, a willing victim.

“So, start with the jeté, land, crossover. We prep, I’ll lift. Spin down, you land in arabesque, then cha?nés away. Got it?” he says in a way that makes it clear the question is rhetorical. He’s good at that.

This combination has been haunting Vivian for weeks since her fall. She couldn’t forget the steps even if she wanted to. “Yep.”

Vivian preps to begin the combination but freezes before her jeté.

“Promise you won’t drop me?”

“I won’t drop you.”

Unlike with her turns, it’s not enough of a comfort. She’s never had a partner fail her during turns. And even if she had, there’s little risk when one foot is still on the floor.

She now knows how it feels to fall from above the head of a grown, gangly man. Knows the heart-wrenching pop of a dislocated shoulder and how the agony of spending weeks on the sidelines is almost worse than the physical pain.

“But do you promise?” The demand is juvenile but it bubbles up all the same.

Julian meets her gaze, eyes clear and resolute.

“I would lie on the hardwood to serve as your landing mat before I ever dropped you.”

It rings through the studio as an admission—a vow.

When his stare cuts away and he removes his hat to toss it across the room toward his usual stool, the air crackles with intimacy.

The first three attempts are nonstarters. Vivian twirls away before she even gets within his grasp, refusing to even begin the actual lift.

“I don’t know which of us you’re trying to tease, but if it’s me, it’s working,” Julian bites out. Vivian rolls her eyes and huffs.

“Again.”

“Again.”

“Try again.”

“I’m going to try again.”

“One more.”

Then something happens on her ninth try. Vivian leaps and lands. She glides and preps. Julian lifts. Vivian poses. She breathes, he doesn’t waver. She rolls, and he dips her. She lands and spins away from him.

And not a single thing goes wrong.

It might not be the most beautifully executed lift in the history of ballet, but she. Fucking. Did. It.

There’s a single instance where Vivian and Julian stare across the room at each other, grinning like complete idiots, before she launches herself at him, tears already prickling at her eyes. He catches her with those large hands under her butt when she leaps at him, clinging needier than a baby monkey.

She’s smiling while fat, incriminating tears roll down her cheeks. And he’s laughing into her neck, warm breath tickling her sweaty skin. She’s laughing slightly too because, really, what else is there to do?

After a breath or an hour, Julian pulls back from his new home along her collarbone, and she isn’t fast enough to hide the tears. Where is she supposed to wipe them, his shirt?

“Come on, Sugar Plum. It wasn’t that scary, was it?”

He’s still holding her cradled to his chest, and she interlocks her fingers behind his neck and ducks her head into his tee shirt. Julian smells like sweat and spicy cologne. She wants to roll in his shirt until she smells the same.

“No hiding, Sugar. What’s wrong?”

Vivian shakes her head, but words don’t come easily. “Feelings. And stuff.”

She feels his snort more than she hears it, a puff of air tickling her skin, and then they’re both moving. His grip on her is solid, and he did just lift her whole body above his head so he’s probably fine, but she still says, “Sorry. You can put me down. I didn’t mean to jump and then cry and . . . ”

Her words trail off when Julian settles them both on the floor with her still curled in his lap.

“Apologize for lying about your apartment—or hell, the other lie . Don’t apologize for being afraid. Not to me.”

Tears drip off her chin and onto his shirt when she obediently says, “I’m sorry for lying about my apartment.”

But tears quickly turn to huffed laughter when he replies, “Good. Now don’t ever act so agreeable again. It’s unnatural.”

And they sit that way, Vivian’s sniffles quieting against his chest with his face tucked into her neck until her muscles and limbs have cooled and stiffened. They’re bordering on aching when he finally sighs and pulls back to look at her.

“I’m going to start your rehearsals with Timmer back up.”

“Alex? Why?”

Julian’s eyebrows jump up. “Why? He’s still principal. I’ve had him rehearsing with Moore, but now that you’re getting comfortable, I’d rather swap you in.”

Well, that explains the blissful but temporary reprieve from Kelsey . . .

“I know your fear is fresh, but the sooner you work with him, the more time you’ll have to iron out hiccups before opening night.”

Vivian and Alex haven’t spoken since the accident, not really . They’ve danced side by side in company-wide rehearsals since she was cleared by Julian. But since that early rehearsal right after she came back where she flinched away from him the whole time, she’s barely seen him. Scarlett told her that he’s deeply apologetic, but it’s been hard to contend with the envy and discomfort of knowing that even if he made an error, she was the one to suffer. Time and distance have provided space for her to accept what she’s always known—the fall was an accident.

She’s still not keen to jump into his waiting—clammy—hands after spending a week in Julian’s more experienced grip. That’s why her heart leaps and soars unnaturally when Julian says, “I’ve been drilling him constantly with Moore and he’s solid. He won’t drop you again, I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. I know it was an accident.”

“Viv, in twenty years of dancing, no fall has scared me more. You could’ve hit your head. You could’ve torn something. You could’ve both been injured . . . He will not drop you again.”

She tries to laugh off the solemnity of his oath. “Twenty years? Are you sure you’re going to be able to walk after lifting me like that?”

She’s still in his lap. She’s sitting in the lap of her . . . instructor? Mentor? Colleague? Whatever the appropriate title is, surely professionalism doesn’t extend to include post-rehearsal cuddles.

“Maybe not, but I’m willing to make that sacrifice. Dying beneath you? What a way to go . . . ”

Vivian ducks her head, as if that could be enough to hide the blush rising to her cheeks.

“You should start a cooldown though, before you get more than you bargained for.” Julian’s tone is calm and even, but from where she’s sprawled in his lap, a queen atop a muscular throne, she can feel his racing pulse.

“No. I don’t think I’m done for the day yet.” It’s a foolish thought, a foolish comment. But Vivian’s always been foolish when it comes to Julian, ever since she tumbled out of her car and began dropping lies like confetti. There’s something about his constant challenges that brings out the stubborn streak in her. He makes her want to push back, to earn his praise and her spotlight. It’s heart-stoppingly electric.

“No?” Julian arches an eyebrow and adjusts her in his lap, dragging her hips backward to sit closer to his knees and further from his hips. Cool air tickles her torso where it’s been dragged away from his. Her leotard clings to her warm skin and the transition from the warmth of his skin to the ambient air leaves her shivering.

The urge to roll and thrust right back to the spot he pulled her away from is blinding. Vivian hates the distance he’s placed between them. It’s staggering, astonishing, unbearable. The wave of want feels insurmountable. Resistance is impossible. Her body is no longer her own, merely an amalgamation of electricity and desire. Beyond the high of a spotlight on stage, it’s incomparable.

“No,” she gasps out. “I don’t want to cool down.” Anything but that.

“Viv . . . ” She can’t decide which she prefers rolling off his tongue: Viv or Sugar Plum.

Insane ideas soar through her mind, rockets breaking the sound barrier. She thinks about pushing him down flat on the floor of Studio C. She thinks about pulling on his messy brown curls, licking into his mouth. She wants him to grip her hips hard enough to leave fingerprints. Wants evidence that this is real, that it’s not merely her mind turning daydreams into waking hallucinations. She wants proof—evidence—that the desire burning through her isn’t one-sided. That this desperate, foolish want isn’t unrequited.

Vivian knows what he said after the ER, after her shoulder, but a declaration of lust isn’t the same as intent. If anything, Julian seemed firmly entrenched in the camp of denial and repression. And that was three weeks ago now. Who’s to say his feelings haven’t changed? Who’s to say that his private conversations with Kelsey haven’t swayed him in another direction? Who’s to say that he isn’t sick of Vivian’s lies and weaknesses?

But she has to know. The instinct that compelled her to audition for Ellapond—despite the lies it would require and the sacrifices it would demand—rides her heart and body when she reaches a careful, shaky hand to Julian’s face.

The expression that stares back at her is devastating, impossibly distraught.

Vivian ghosts her fingertips over the rough stubble of his jawline, over the delicate shell of his ear, and finally up into the disheveled curls that have occupied far more of her mind than she’s willing to admit. It’s instinct. Simply instinct and adrenaline when she fists her hand in his hair and pulls .

“Fuck, Viv. Are you sure? I need you to be sure.” Julian’s voice is urgent and quick. Almost out of place among their relative stillness. But she understands. She knows with a bone-deep clarity what he’s asking. He continues anyway, “Once I have you, you’re mine. That’s it for me. So I need you to be certain.”

Has she ever been more certain?

There’s a squeak, a gasp, and a thump in the hallway, and Vivian scrambles backward, crabwalking off Julian’s lap as if electrocuted. The reflexive burn of embarrassment stings her cheeks.

When Kelsey sashays through the double doors of Studio C, Julian is standing, relatively composed with his hat back in its rightful place on his head. Vivian is all the way across the room, hurriedly untying her shoes and ripping off her toe pads. Her heart is pounding against her ribs, and it takes too much concentration not to hyperventilate. Kelsey didn’t see anything. And nothing happened anyway.

“I’ll email you next week’s schedule,” Julian says, ignoring Kelsey.

“Ooh, you’re changing the schedule?” Kelsey asks. “That’s good because I’ve been meaning to talk to you . . . ”

Vivian nods at Julian without making eye contact and rushes out of the studio as fast as she can, heart thumping erratically. She doesn’t bother to stick around long enough to react to Kelsey’s hushed whisper of, “Ass-kisser,” as she passes.