Fair Play (41 page)

Chapter Two

River

“What the hell is this?” I ask, shaking the letter I just found taped to my locker in Coach Bradford’s face.

“I’m not taking ballet classes. No way. I’m nimble and flexible enough to win two America Bowls. I don’t need to prance around in a tutu to get in shape.”

“Well, you’re doing it. Jerry thinks all of you could use some grace, so grace you’re gonna get.”

"I'm a football player, not a ballerina. What the hell?"

Kyle Jennings, the San Diego Sparks’ largest linebacker, joins me in Coach’s office—all two hundred and seventy-five pounds of him. "Yeah, what the hell?"

I try to imagine Kyle in ballet class. The thought of his enormous biceps curved above his head in a ballet pose almost makes me laugh . . . almost.

Coach stands behind his desk, shaking his head back and forth, waving his hands in the air, and looking at his feet.

"I don't want to hear any more complaining. You’ve gotta do it, so suck it up. Damn, what a bunch of babies.”

“Maybe we’ll get some hot dance teachers,” the ever-optimistic defensive end, Mason Johnson, says from the door behind us. He’s holding his copy of the letter in his hand with a big, cheesy grin on his face.

"I don't need a hot dance teacher. I’ve got a wife and four kids at home,” Kyle says.

I wish I had a wife and four kids waiting at home for me. Actually, I want a wife and five kids, but who's counting? Being one of seven kids in a large Catholic family, I've always dreamed of having a house full of rug rats and a sexy woman to share it with.

“Shut up, man. Do you want the paparazzi leaking pictures of you leaping in the air in a tutu?” I say.

"All of you shut up. There won't be any tutus, and the class is going to have airtight security. No paparazzi will be allowed in the building," Coach says, plopping back into his chair.

He reminds me of my dad when I was little, when he would flop down in his big La-Z-Boy chair at the end of the day. He would chase all seven of us around while my mom worked at
S is for Style Salon
as a hairstylist. Dad drove a truck at night, and Mom worked Monday through Friday cutting hair to support all nine of us. Things were hectic, but I loved being part of a big family.

Knowing when I'm defeated, I ask, "When do we have to start?"

“This afternoon. Be at that address on that letter or pack your bags and find yourself another team.”

I’m taking ballet.

My sisters took dance class when we were kids, and they loved it. If they find out about this and tell my brothers, I'll be the target of every joke at our family get together this fourth of July. Coach had better keep his word about the damn paparazzi.

"This is some ridiculous shit," Kyle says, storming from the office with me on his heels.

"We're gonna have to kick some serious ass if this gets out, man. My sisters are relentless. I'll never hear the end of it."

“My wife’s gonna love this. I don’t even dance at weddings. You haven’t seen relentless till you’ve met my girls.”

Kyle has three daughters, a house full of estrogen. Good thing he’s gone a good portion of the year. I’m never going to be a part-time dad when I have a family. I’m not sure how the hell I’ll pull that off when I travel with the team three-quarters of the year. I don’t have any prospective wives in sight, so I guess it doesn’t matter.

“I was going to lift this afternoon,” Kyle says. He stuffs his hands deep in his pockets like a pouting kid.

“You can lift me.” I jump in front of Kyle and hold my hands over my head.

“Shut the fuck up, man, I ain’t lifting your ass nowhere.” Kyle pushes me aside like a feather and trudges toward the entrance of the Cavanaugh Stadium.

Kyle kicks a trashcan on his way to his car, and I chuckle. He’s more pissed than I am about this. I look at my phone and see that I only have thirty minutes to get to my first ballet class.

What does a guy wear to something like this? I’m pretty good at putting together a sharp outfit for any occasion. Mom says I have an eye for fashion. But dance class? I sure as hell don’t own a leotard, and if I did, Mom would be asking some pretty uncomfortable questions.

I swing open the door of my sleek black Bentley GT and slide into the driver's seat. Damn, I love this car. I’ve only had this baby for a month. It’s my first new car. I never wanted a sparkling new ride, but after being hassled by my teammates about my 1996 Chevy Blazer for five years, I broke down and bought this beauty.

Kyle calls it my bait car. He says I bought it to get laid. That’s the very reason I never bought something new. I detest gold digging women, and my old Chevy helped me weed out the worst of the worst.

I had a woman turn around and go back into her house when I pulled into the driveway in my old Chevy. I sent her a quick text thanking her for not wasting my time and went out to eat with a friend.

Now, I’ve become so well known that it wouldn’t matter if I showed up in a beater dressed in rags. Gold diggers can smell the money. My plan is to drive my luxury car and enjoy it while staying away from women for a while.

Yeah, right.

Chapter Three

Angel

Miss Valentina is definitely trying to kill me today. I’m sure of it. I will do just about anything to further my career, but teaching ballet to the San Francisco Sparks football team? Even I have limits. A room full of beefy, clumsy professional football players is way beyond my limit.

Why is she making me do this? I have an audition to practice for, hours of workouts, preparation, and choreography, and she wants me to teach men to dance. Ballet? It’s absurd—ludicrous, really.

I am proficient at avoiding men, and as a result, I haven’t had a date in years. It’s how I want it. It’s how it has to be. But here I am, walking down the long hall of Miss Valentina’s School of Dance to room 112. I’m am about to whip up something to teach a group of men who have probably never seen a dance studio in their lives, much less taken a lesson in one.

Think, Angel. What do non-dancing men like to listen to? Rock, country, pop music? I have no clue. The only men I spend time with are professional dancers, my father, doctors, and my physical therapist, Marcus.

I open the door marked 112 and breathe in the distinct combination of sweat, tiger balm, and passion that I’ve learned to love over the years. No place on earth smells as good to me as a dance studio.

I have danced in this room a million times, but today is the first time I’ve had feelings of apprehension about being here.

It’s a quiet, spacious room with polished wood floors and mirrored walls. I love it here. If I could spend the rest of my life in one room, it would be this one. I’d have music and a wide-open space to dance. Those are the only two things I need to survive.

In the corner, I search the music collection for something appropriate, but what the hell is appropriate?

I can hear clunky footsteps coming down the hall and men arguing right before the door opens. It has to be my students. No dancer would make that much noise walking unless they were wearing tap shoes.

“Dude, I’m telling you this is the right room. Trust me. You’d get lost in your backyard without GPS.”

A massive wall of muscle pushes his way through the door into the studio, followed by seven equally large men and one tall yet leaner man with heart-stopping crystal blue eyes.

All of my attention is on those eyes. They scream,
pay attention to me
when he flashes them in my direction from across the room. I fiddle with the CD in my hand, tapping it against the inside of my fingers while they file in, dropping gym bags and ribbing each other about being directionally challenged.

“Hey, is this where we’re supposed to be?” One of them calls across the room. Five sets of eyes are on me now, minus the pair that was just begging me to look at them. The lean man with the beautiful eyes focuses on something incredibly exciting on the back of another player’s shirt. I eye him carefully. He doesn’t look like his teammates. They’re dressed all kinds of sportswear, from bike shorts to sleeveless Sparks jerseys.

He is impeccably dressed in dark jeans, a white V-necked t-shirt and a sports coat with shiny black leather loafers. He looks more like a male model than an NFA player.

“That depends. Are you football players who are supposed to be learning ballet?” I ask, placing my hands on my hips in a superwoman pose.

It’s a natural reflex for me to be sassy with men that I’m meeting for the first time. I’ve found it to be a good way to start building that brick wall I like to keep between them and myself.

“Oh, Jakey, we’ve got a live one here. Look out,” a handsome blond man says, punching the man asking the question in his bulging bicep.

“Yeah, unfortunately,” he answers.

“Then yes, unfortunately, I guess you are in the right place.”

I turn my back on them to face the sound system and insert the CD I’ve chosen. I have to teach them to dance. Nobody ever said I had to be nice.

Soft classical music fills the room, and when I turn around, six more men have arrived. They pack in behind their teammates near the door. A few men perk up when they hear the music start, but with no heavy beat in my warm-up music, their enthusiasm is short-lived.

“Okay, if everyone is here, let’s begin.”

The team has been broken up into groups of twelve, and it’s a good thing because their massive bodies have overpowered the room.

“No introductions or anything, teach?” a man who closely resembles Channing Tatum asks from the front row. Like a well-oiled team, they have naturally fallen into two rows of six and stand waiting instruction.

“I don’t need to know your names to teach you how to move.”

“Oh, you don’t have to teach me how to move, honey. I got all the moves right here.” Second row, second from the left—a brick house—steps out of line, gyrating his hips like a stripper.

It’s all I can do not to laugh. He’s about as graceful as an elephant and just as big. I step between two men in the front row and position my small frame toe to toe with the joker. Surprised, he steps back when I crank my neck to look up into his face.

“Are you about finished, Mr. Moves?” I say with the unyielding strictness of my mentor and instructor, Miss Valentina. Stifled laughter comes from my right, where Mr. Moves’s buddy is trying not to laugh, but I keep my eyes trained on the class clown.

“Yeah, show me your moves, Mommy,” he says, and his friend loses it.

I shake my head and return to my place in front of the class and notice the handsome model lookalike studying me carefully. He isn’t laughing. He’s quiet, unlike the rest of these boneheads. Being a performer, I’m used to having eyes on me, but this man’s stare is disturbing hundreds of butterflies in my stomach that have been sitting idly there since he arrived in my classroom. He’s not checking me out like guys would. His gaze is more thoughtful, intense, like he’s planning something.

“Let’s begin with some simple stretches. Everyone, reach your arms up over your head and arch your body to the left.” I watch as some of the muscle-bound men have difficulty with the simple stretch. “Now back to center, reach high, and lean right. Good, that’s good. Do you all stretch before practice or a game?” It couldn’t hurt to draw them into the activity by letting them talk about themselves.

“Oh yeah, we stretch, all right. Stretch out on the couch,” one of them says.

Okay, so maybe that was a stupid idea.

“We stretch. I have a professional from MBS who comes to my house or hotel room when we travel to stretch me out before practices or a game.” The blue-eyed, butterfly disturbing man in the back right corner speaks up, and several other guys roll their eyes and heckle him.

“Overachiever.”

“Pretty boy has to get a call girl to come ‘stretch him out’ before he can get out of bed, poor baby,” Channing lookalike says.

“Don’t pay attention to him. He thinks he’s better than us,” says another.

“I happen to use MBS too. They’ve saved my career on more than one occasion,” I say and stop stretching to point out into the sea of muscles. “And don’t you dare make any prostitution innuendos, or I’ll flunk you out of this class.”

“You use MBS too?” he asks, bending at the waist to wrap his arms behind his knees without instruction and taking his eyes away in the process. I notice the other guys following his lead. They may pick on him, but they respect him.

“Yes, I’m seeing them for a mild ankle injury.” I continue to stretch, following his lead as the other men are doing while we talk. The guy next to him starts to make what I am sure would have been another smart ass comment, but Mr. Blue Eyes slaps his leg and tells him to shut up.

“Who’s your therapist?”

“Marcus Falco.”

We all stand when our new stretch leader stands.

“Really?” he says, lifting his knee to hug it to his chest and arching his eyebrows in surprise.

“Yes, really.”

“Gizelle is the therapist who usually sees ankle injuries,” he says, challenging me on the subject for some reason.

“Marcus handles all of my needs,” I say with a little too much insinuation. The guys all whoop and goad my blue-eyed student, slapping him on the back and saying things like
your little dancer has a Latin lover.

I ignore their immature remarks and go to change the music to something a little livelier. I keep it tame, though. I’m pretty sure a wild dance party would ensue if they had a heavy beat, and I need to stay in control for thirty more minutes. When I’ve got the music changed, I scoop my long hair off my shoulders and secure it in a knot on top of my head with a rubber band on my wrist.

When I turn around, I’m met with four lustful faces, one embarrassed, and one possessive, passionate expression that makes me feel like a stripper instead of a ballerina. I take a deep breath and dive into teaching six men the five basic foot positions in ballet. When they have that down as well as I think they ever will, we cover the five arm positions and once again deal with more sexual innuendos about positions.

These guys are so immature, it feels like I’m teaching one of my seventh-grade, all boy’s classes, except these guys are far from boys in the physique department. If I were looking for a hot man for a one-night stand, I would have hit the jackpot today with this group. Every one of them is tall, cut, and handsome, but not long-term boyfriend material.

Why in the hell am I even thinking about one-night stands or long-term boyfriends? I guess it could be because I haven’t had sex in two years or been on a date for three. You have to sacrifice to be the best. Miss Valentina is always saying, “keep your body pure and focus on dance and dance alone.”

At the end of the forty-five-minute class, I feel more accomplished than I had anticipated feeling. After the men settled down and realized I wasn’t going to take any of their shit, I think they may have learned a thing or two.

“That’s it for today. I’ll see you all here tomorrow, same time, same room. And wear comfortable clothes and plan on taking your shoes and socks off tomorrow. We are going to work on how to do a
petit jeté,
and I’ll teach you how to
sauté
and
plié
.”

My voice rises with every word as they scramble to get their bags and fight their way out the door, all of them except my butterfly charmer. He approaches me, extending his hand when everyone is gone.

“I’m River. Thank you for putting up with us.”

I shake his hand, and for the first time in my life, I understand what the authors of my romance novels are talking about when they describe an electric current passing between two people. It feels exactly like the quick jolt I received unplugging the vacuum for my mom when I was five years old. The cord was frayed, and it shocked me enough to scare me, just like River.

“You’re welcome, and it’s okay. I’m pretty good at handling lame cracks from immature guys.” We glance down at our joined hands, and I slip my slim, latte-colored hand from his large, tanned one.

“Ouch, immature, huh? I guess you’re right. I think they were just nervous about being here today. They weren’t sure what to expect.”

“You talk like you’re not one of them.”

“I don’t think I said anything offensive, did I?”

“No, you didn’t. Thank you.”

“I never got your name.”

“Angel,” I say and step away to shut the music off and put distance between us. The light scent of his cologne mixed with fabric softener was making my head spin, but throw in the minty smell of his warm breath and white smile, and I’m downright unbalanced. Dancers don’t get unbalanced—not if they want to stay dancers.

“It fits you.”

I turn around, and he’s come closer. I have the urge to reach up and stroke his close cut beard, which is weird because I hate facial hair. My heartbeat picks up, and I feel sweat forming under my armpits.

“What?”

He smiles down at me. “I said your name fits you. You’re beautiful and graceful like an Angel.”

“Oh,” I say, but in my head, I’m saying
Hell no! Run—don’t walk—to the nearest exit and do not, under any circumstances, look back.
”

One side of his mouth lifts in a smirk, and I have to look away. This thing, whatever the hell it is, has to stop. Another five minutes in the same space with him, and I’ll be throwing myself into his arms, pathetically begging for attention in all the wrong ways. It’s been that long.

Being tempted by handsome men is the reason I keep my distance. It’s why I only teach children’s dance classes and stay out of bars, avoid social activities, and practice sometimes twenty hours a day. I have to stay focused on my ultimate goal, becoming a dancer for the San Francisco Dance Company. I do not have time for insanely handsome, athletic men with eyes as blue as the Caribbean on a sunny day.

I do not.

“I’ve got to go. My practice starts in five minutes,” I say, grabbing my sweatshirt that appropriately says,
I can’t. I have dance.
stitched on the front of it.

When I pop my head through the top and smooth my hair out of my face, I see him reading the quote and chuckling.

“So you do,” he says, pointing at my shirt.