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But the best thing about this apartment was the old stone open fireplace that now had a blazing fire crackling away, heating the entire space.

“We need music,” Jaz declared, plonking down on the mattress beside me. “I feel like dancing.” She flung herself back and gazed up at the ceiling. “That’s our ceiling right there. It’s above our bed that’s in our apartment.”

I loved seeing Jaz so happy for what the future would bring. Her excitement was infectious as I too flung myself back on the mattress beside her. “There’s music downstairs. Maybe we could borrow the old record player for the evening.”

“Awesome idea. Let’s call Carter and ask.”

Of course it was fine; Carter was the most laidback dude I’d ever met. Nothing was a bother, and he was happy to oblige if it made Jaz smile. We searched the thousands of albums downstairs for something suitable and found an old Rat Pack album in the collection, which seemed to fit the mood we were in, and took it upstairs along with the player and some speakers.

“Wow, these guys were good in their day. I can remember my nana listening to them and watching the old movies; she never missed one. Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr … I feel like I should be dressed in a flowing gown and heels as we slow-dance instead of sweats and socks.” Jaz giggled.

I wiggled my brows at her. “You don’t have to be dressed in anything at all.” I scooped her into my arms and pulled her close so our bodies melded together. Jaz hooked her arms around my shoulders and rested her head on my chest as we swayed by candlelight to the dulcet tones of Dean Martin singing “On the Street Where You Live.”

“This is the street where we live,” Jaz said dreamily.

Jaz’s words rang in my ears and reality suddenly hit home. As I cuddled Jaz tighter, I blinked back a tear. After eight years of longing and waiting for something I thought would never happen, this was exactly where we were meant to be. I never wanted this moment to end.

T
HE LAYOUT
of the music store was easy enough to pick up. All the albums were by genre and as it was so quiet with hardly anyone coming in, I took the time to learn what albums each genre contained. Of course it was all on the computer—the computer that was surprisingly state-of-the-art for a store that primarily sold music that was around before computers were invented. But I wanted to make a good impression and if I ever did have a customer to serve, I wanted to be able to take them directly to the correct section to find the album of their choice from memory, not by looking it up first.

I had heard a lot of the music that was for sale, but if there was an artist I wasn’t familiar with, I took the record from the sleeve and played it so I would have some idea of what it sounded like. I soon discovered I enjoyed most styles of music except for jazz. I’d heard jazz before, but thinking back it was more stylized and mixed with blues. Proper jazz was something different; it was erratic in parts, and as a dancer, you needed to find a beat and a feeling and I just couldn’t grasp that with jazz.

I laughed to myself. I still considered myself a dancer, even though I had given up that dream a long time ago. Nowadays, the only music I seemed to dance to was R&B or hip-hop where there was a lot of bump-and-grind and nothing too technical. That was until Jaz had come back into my life and reminded me of the beauty of classical ballet and the expression and interpretation of contemporary ballet. Some of the routines for
When the Ship Comes In
were tap, with a huge all-cast number at the end of Act I, and although I never majored in that style, I was enjoying practicing with her.

When the Ship Comes In
had the potential to be an amazing show, and as much as I hated to admit it, Pierre actually was a talented choreographer. It was a shame that Mikhail, who had been chosen in the male lead, wasn’t right for the part. When he danced solo he barely scraped through, but when he had to partner Jaz he fell short by a mile. Jaz was such a strong dancer. Not only was she technically perfect but her musical interpretation was breathtaking to the point where her technique, although outstanding, was overshadowed by the heart and soul she poured into her performance.

There was one piece in particular that centered around her fiancé coming home and discovering that Jaz’s character, Lily Brown, had fallen in love with his brother. Lily dances with her fiancé but the pull to her new lover is too strong, and she has to break one heart to preserve her own. That was the routine that sucker-punched me in the chest every time I watched it, and I’d watched it at least fifty times already. The emotion bleeding out of every pore as Jaz danced had the cast dabbing their eyes as they watched her.

Jaz was miraculous, and perfect, and if only I was good enough to dance with her then my life would be perfect, too. But I wasn’t good enough. Not even close.

Carter came back from lunch and stretched out in his chair behind the register, his feet up on counter. “You can head off if you like, man. Not much goin’ on here today.”

“Hey, thanks.” I hesitated for a moment. “Do you mind if I slap some paint on the walls upstairs, freshen it up a little?”

He threw his hands to the side. “Do whatever you like, just as long as it’s still standing with four walls and a ceiling’ at the end of the day.”

I grabbed my coat and beanie and made my way to the paint store. The walls had been painted a dirty gray, and it made the room feel cold. Jaz and I had discussed colors as we’d lain in bed, snuggled together as the embers of the dying fire had cast shadows around the room. We decided to leave it gray but a warm gray that would make the apartment feel more homely and inviting, and less like a vast open wasteland.

After buying everything I needed to paint, I lugged it all back home and up the stairs. I needed music—I always needed music to do anything so dug my iPod from my bag and found my earbuds. I’d recorded the musicians playing during Jaz’s rehearsals so we could do our own practicing at home and as I scrolled to those saved tunes, I was hit with a nagging pang of regret.

Maybe I’d given up too easily. I’d never been a quitter, but I had been sure at the time that dancing wasn’t for me after all. Now, as the music played and I pictured Jaz dancing with her inadequate partner, a knot formed in the pit of my stomach and I wanted to scream.

That should have been me. I auditioned for musical after dead-end C-grade musical, one after another. I toed the line; I hid my tattoos and cut my hair. I agreed with the morons that I was too muscular and needed to lose weight, and I even bought tights, for God’s sake, to fit in with all the other dreamers.

“Argh.” Lashing out, I snatched up the paint tray and flung it across the room, closely followed by the roller, before sliding my back down the wall and coming to rest with a thud on my ass.

Who was I angry at?

Was I angry at myself for not continuing to try, for letting the process defeat me and turn me into someone who used to be a dancer? Or was I angry at the guy who was now partnering Jaz? I could have danced rings around that asshole, and yet Pierre and James had seen something in him that no one, not a single person, had seen in me.

Or was I angry at Jaz?

Running my hands through my hair, I let them stay locked together behind my head.

Was I jealous? Jaz had been here for three weeks when she’d landed the role, and it had seemed so easy for her. She had arrived and found a place to stay. She had gone to her first audition and danced for a couple of days and been given the lead. Not even chorus, but the lead.

“No,” I muttered under my breath. “I’m happy for her.”

But a little piece of me knew that I wanted her to feel what I had felt. To endure the rejection just once so she would understand what I had gone through. She would never know how heartbreaking it was to see your dream being crushed before your eyes because you weren’t good enough, and until she did, she would never understand why I quit dancing.