In the Zone (Portland Storm 5) (39 page)

I
WOKE THIS
morning in the warm cocoon of Keith’s arms with only the vague memory of him coming in last night, and the even more ambiguous recollection of having told him I loved him. The words had been hovering on my tongue for a few days, so there was little wonder they’d slipped free without my conscious permission.

As soon as I woke, though, everything kicked into high gear: a new day, preparations for this afternoon’s performance, and the dawn of a new year—heck, maybe even a new era. Because I loved Keith, and that had to mean things would change. I didn’t know what those changes were going to be. All of this change had excellent timing, but with it all coming at once, things were a little stressful.

Even though it had been an extremely late night for all of us, Keith and Shane both got up when I did and helped to get me out the door. The show was scheduled to start at two, but I had to get there for costume, hair, and makeup, and I’d promised Devin I would help him out by making sure all the dancers were present and accounted for—not to mention help Stacey and Tanya in sorting out the last-minute issues they might have, which
always
popped up during an event like this—so he could oversee the other changes to staging, lighting, and sound. It was going to be an all-day affair and that meant I needed to get there ASAP. I wasn’t sure if Tanya had agreed to be part of this because she wanted more opportunities to flirt with Devin or if she really wanted to be involved, but either way, I was glad she was here. There couldn’t be too many familiar faces around, as far as I was concerned. The elation I’d felt after how well my part of the show had gone over yesterday had long since worn off, and now all the dread was back.

Instead of dropping me off and going off to do whatever brotherly thing they might have done today, they parked and followed me inside. It was a good thing, too. The dressing rooms were already a zoo. The second I walked into the backstage area, Tanya grabbed my arm and pulled me into my private dressing room. Keith and Shane followed us inside and closed the door.

“It’s a madhouse back here. I swear, so many of them are just divas.
My zipper broke. I can’t find my other shoe. She stole my stockings.
This shit never ends.”

“Where do you want me to start?” I asked.

“Your makeup and hair person will be here any minute, so that’s where you’re starting. In this chair.” She pushed me—unceremoniously, I might add—down into it. “That’s why I pulled you in here, because at least with you, I know you’ll do what you’re told and be where you’re supposed to be.”

Shane cleared his throat. “Point me in the direction of the broken zipper.”

“You can sew a zipper?” Keith asked.

Shane shrugged. “I learned a lot of useful skills back when Garrett was dancing.”

“I can sew zippers and buttons and things like that while they’re dealing with me,” I put in.

Tanya gave me a look that plainly said I was to stay put and do what she’d told me to do. “Come on,” she said to Shane, taking him by the arm. “And you, too,” she added, looking back at Keith. “Your brother can teach you. I’m sure this isn’t the last wardrobe disaster we’ll have today, and I need all hands on deck.”

They both went out with her. I debated whether I should go ahead and get into my costume, but we still had hours to go before that was going to be necessary. The last thing I needed to do was burst my own zipper, so I decided against it. I did strip down to my undergarments and put on a robe, though, and I’d barely finished doing that when my makeup artist came in.

For the next several hours, I was primped and primed, poked and prodded, while they tried to make me presentable. Every now and then, some dancer or another would race in with some new problem, or Tanya would come to gripe about how Stacey was handling things, or Keith and Shane would carry some random piece of costume in to ask me how best to go about fixing whatever problem it had. The zoo apparently extended into my dressing room.

Right around the time my stomach was loudly protesting everything, a caterer wheeled in a cart of food and pushed it against one of the walls. “I’ll be back to clear things away in about an hour,” he said. “Enjoy!”

Ignoring my hair stylist’s protests, I jumped down from my chair and piled food high on a plate before going back. “You’d better do the same, if you have any sense,” I said to her. “It’ll be hours before you get another chance, otherwise.”

Grudgingly, she went over and picked at a few things before continuing her torture on my hair.

Right around the time the caterer came back to remove the cart, Devin poked his head in. “Everything all right in here?”

Tanya whisked past him and flopped onto the chair next to mine. “She’s managing like a champ. I, however, am ready to throttle Gina Martin. Do you know what that—”

Devin cut her off with a sharp look, and then he pointedly looked at me and then back.

Tanya pressed her lips together into a thin, white line.

“What?” I demanded.

Neither said a word.

“I swear, one of you two had better tell me whatever it is.” The name was somewhat familiar, but I honestly wouldn’t know Gina Martin even if she was standing right in front of me.

“It isn’t important,” Devin said, which only confirmed my suspicions that whatever
it
was, it was important enough for them to think they needed to keep it from me.

Keith pushed into the room with Shane on his tail, just as my stylists finally cleared out. He closed the door and met my eyes. “She’s trying to put it off that you’re behaving like some high-and-mighty star, like you think you’re better than the rest of them and bossing everyone around.”

Devin glared at Keith. “Which is my fault, if anything. I’m the one who put you in charge of things back here. I’m the one who gave you the private dressing room. But you are the star of this show, and if Gina has a problem with that—”

“I’m
not
the star,” I cut in. “You are.”

“That’s why Stacey and I kept you in here all day, anyway,” Tanya cut in, giving Devin the evil eye. I’d never seen her look at him with anything less than googly eyes, so I knew she was hot about it. She met my gaze dead-on. “We wanted to keep you busy so they wouldn’t talk like that, but it seems to have had the opposite effect than we’d hoped for. And now Gina is calling—”

“She doesn’t need to know the specifics,” Keith cut in.

“Now, Gina’s calling you a fat bitch and saying you have no business being involved anyway,” Tanya finished, raising her voice so she would be heard. She turned her eyes on Keith, flashing fire. “This is a catty business, and Brie deserves to know the whole truth about what they’re saying behind her back.”

“It could have waited until after the show,” he came back.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, it couldn’t have.”

“It’s just jealousy, Brie,” Devin said. “They’re envious because you’re the one closing the show. You’re the one dancing with me. That’s all.”

The crazy thing was, I knew he was right. I didn’t simply hope he was right or wish he
could
be right. That was absolutely the truth of it. Gina Martin, whoever she was, wished she could be in my shoes, and she was acting out in the only way she knew how—by attacking my physical appearance in the hope that it would change the way people saw me.

The brilliant part of it was that it didn’t do a darn thing to alter how I saw myself. I met Keith’s eyes—his were dark with concern—and I gave him a wink and smiled. “I guess I’ll just have to go out there and show her why Devin asked me to do it instead of her.”

He lifted his brows in question.

“I’m fine,” I assured him. “Really.”

“You’re sure? Because I wouldn’t mind going out there and teaching her a thing or two about how she ought to treat other people.”

“You can’t drop your gloves with a woman,” Shane said, laughing. “And you aren’t even wearing any.”

Now that they were reassured that I would be all right, they gradually made their way out of my dressing room. Devin headed across the hall to his own so he could get ready. Tanya went back out to solve yet another last-minute costuming disaster, dragging Shane with her. Then Keith and I were finally alone.

“You’re not upset?” he asked, trailing a finger along my cheek, his eyes boring into mine as though searching for a deeper truth.

I shook my head. “I don’t care how Gina Martin sees me. I don’t even know who she is, so why does it matter? The only thing I care about is how you see me and I how I see myself.”

“And how do you see yourself?”

“Not as a fat bitch, I can tell you that.” I laughed, but his expression remained serious. “No, I see myself as a lucky bitch. Because I’m the one you love, and I’m the one who gets to love you.”

His lips curled up in a seductive grin. “I can agree with the lucky part, but don’t you dare call the woman I love a bitch.”

“Deal. As long as you’re willing to do something for me later tonight,” I added on second thought.

He cocked up a brow. “And that would be…?”

“I think Allison and Jacob might need to make a return appearance.”

“A little role playing? I like how you think.”

“Does Jacob own handcuffs? Allison has a few fantasies that he might be able to help her out with.”

Keith groaned. Then he kissed me, the kind of kiss that would have lifted me off my feet if I’d been standing. And I realized he
had
lifted me right up out of my makeup chair and into his arms. He held me to his chest, never breaking the kiss, and I sighed.

I wasn’t worried about breaking his back; I was only worried about how soon he would put me down again. I didn’t want this feeling to ever end.

M
Y DRESSING ROOM
was filled to bursting with people, everyone holding flowers and offering me their congratulations and generally stroking my ego. I only had eyes for one of them, though—Keith.

He held the biggest bouquet of them all, two dozen red roses, and he had a sinful look in his eyes that I would have jumped on if we weren’t surrounded by a crowd approximately the size of an army battalion.

“You were amazing,” he whispered in my ear, dropping a kiss on my cheek. Well, not just a kiss. His tongue flicked out and licked my earlobe, sending a series of shivers skittering up my spine. “Tell me, does Allison have any fantasies involving blindfolds?”

A few more people pushed through to gush over me, and I shot Keith a warning glare. He winked and backed away, making sure I knew we had unfinished business.

Nearly half an hour had passed before the crowd in my dressing room cleared out enough that I could actually change into my street clothes. I was exhausted, but it was the good sort of exhaustion, the kind that meant I’d worked hard at something that mattered to me. When I opened the door and went out into the hall, it was to find Keith in the middle of a stare-down with Val, of all people. What the hell was he doing here? Tanya, Shane, and Devin were all standing nearby, passing tense glances between them.

I stepped fully into the hall, placing myself squarely between Keith and Val. Waves of heated anger were radiating off Keith, blasting into me with a force like a car crash. “What’s going on?” I asked slowly, reaching down with one hand to take Keith’s, using my touch to reassure him, to calm him.

Val lifted a perfectly sculptured eyebrow, a derisive expression I remembered well, and he shrugged. “I just come to tell you congratulation,” he said. Once, I’d found his Russian accent insanely sexy; now it just reminded me of times I would rather forget.

“What I heard you saying a minute ago was nothing even close to
congratulations,
” Keith grumbled.

“
I am amaze the bitch dance so good
,” Devin put in, waving one arm through the air and copying Val’s accent and mannerisms like he’d been studying to play the part. “
How she can still move all that fat?
”

Keith’s hand tensed in mine, and out of the corner of my eye I could see him flexing the other into a fist. I squeezed the one I held to keep him from doing anything.

“I’m sure it does amaze you,” I said as calmly as I could. “Anything that doesn’t easily fit into your tiny head tends to be more than you can grasp.”

“Oh
snap
!” Tanya said, whipping her hand in a Z pattern and snapping her fingers.

I had to fight not to laugh out loud. This wasn’t a time for laughter, though. It was time to put Val permanently in the spot he belonged in my life—the past.

Or better yet, out of my life completely.

“Brianna,” Val said in the same sickeningly placating tone he had always use with me right before telling me the reason I couldn’t have the things I wanted was because I was fat, or because I wasn’t trying hard enough, or one of a thousand other reasons. It was never because he was an ass, though. At least according to him.

“Don’t start with me, Val.”

“Baby, you know you need—”

Keith let out a menacing growl behind me, and I pinched his arm to let him know I had this under control. “I know I don’t need anything more to do with you,” I said. “I know my life is so much better without you in it. And don’t call me baby. I’m not your baby.”