Siempre (2 page)

“I
T
SEEMS
kind of cruel and unusual to make them take their first company class from Travis,” Alana said. She nodded toward the corner of the room, where the two new interns were stretching together after the last combination before going through it all over again in the opposite direction. “And I think he planned it to be a modern class so he could make Michael cry.”

“We could let them know it only gets easier from here?” Sean wiped the sweat off his forehead as Alana fixed a clip in her hair. She’d started the class with her thick black hair in a perfect bun, but now the sweat was making it curl around her hairline.

“Except they have to learn his chorography Saturday too, so they really only get the one break on Thursday with Steph.” Alana glanced over to where Travis was correcting a soloist’s form. “He’s worse today. You live with him. Give him some kind of tranquilizer before rehearsal tomorrow. I’ll get it for you, and you can slip it in his breakfast.”

“Why are you his favorite?”

“Why are you his best friend? Get the man a girlfriend or something,” Alana whispered and forced a smile when Travis glared in her direction. “He needs to get laid.”

“So have sex with him.”

“Gross. It’d be like having sex with my brother,” Alana said as they stepped up to begin the combination for the last time.

Even though he was exhausted, Sean threw himself into every move, somehow letting his body carry him through until the final jump on the other side of the room. Turning, he let himself lean against the barre against the wall next to Alana as the interns forced themselves through it.

Alana reached out to catch Michael’s arm before he could slide down the wall.

“Don’t. If you’re not standing, he’ll probably make you do it again. And she’ll have to do it again with you.” Alana smirked when Michael stood up quickly. “Michael and Guadalupe, right?”

“Lupe,” the girl corrected Alana in a whisper with a nervous glance at Travis.

“Right. I’ll let him know for you. He likes to yell the correct name when he thinks you’re slacking.” Alana smirked as they moved to the floor to cool down. There was a reason Sean had to be the nice one in their group.

Sean dropped to the floor to stretch when Travis declared class over. Lupe and Michael only followed suit when Alana waved to indicate it was safe.

“Is every class like this?” Michael asked.

“He’s the worst—which is why you guys are lucky and get to work with him twice a week like us. His classes are at the end of the day, because no one can take another after, and those happen to be two of the three that fit in the time that your school schedules allow. Lucky you.” Alana’s grin only grew at Michael’s groan.

“But we
are
lucky. I mean, you guys are the best, right? That’s why you have the piece he choreographed. And we actually get to learn it from him. He’s like”—Lupe ducked her head with a slight blush—“kind of amazing.”

“Lupe saw him dance five years ago when she was visiting her cousin. Then she told her parents she wanted to go to Purchase because it was near New York and her cousin goes there. She really just went because the great Travis Campbell went there. She’s been practicing every piece he ever did since freshmen year so she could get this internship.” Michael ducked from Lupe’s slap and laughed.

“Oh god, shut up. I have no idea how you got it too. You’re going to be lucky if he can teach you to not dance like a robot.” Lupe turned back to them with red blotches showing through her tan skin. “Please, please don’t tell him any of that.”

Sean was debating admitting that he would probably tell Travis anyway when the door to the studio opened. A tall man leaned in and looked around. He was too stocky to be a dancer, but then, if he had been in the company, Sean would have met him already. His white tank top contrasted with his tan skin and stretched across his muscular chest and left little to Sean’s imagination. His eyes caught Sean’s for a second, and he smirked at the obvious attention and offered enough of a nod to let Sean know he didn’t mind before letting his eyes drift over Sean’s frame in return.

“Wow. At least you might be sweaty enough that the extreme drooling is less obvious.” Alana’s voice broke him out of his thoughts and made Lupe and Michael turn around. Lupe jumped up and headed for the man whose face was schooled into indifference when Sean looked back.

“And that would be her cousin Jaime,” Michael explained. “Very pretty to look at. Very straight and practically married to his girlfriend. I’ve been in mourning for two years, but feel free to join me.”

Lupe left Jaime at the door and came back to pull Michael to his feet.

“Sorry. My stupid cousin insists on driving us because he thinks I can’t come to the city on my own, and he’s impatient. You’d think he’d be able to stay occupied in all of New York until I call him,” Lupe explained as she and Michael gathered their things and pulled on cover-ups.

“Like you want to sit on a train after
that
class,” Michael mumbled, casting a wary look at Travis as they left the studio.

Sean waited until they’d all left the room before turning back to Alana.

“That man is not straight. There is no way that man is straight.”

“Oh no. This is not happening.” Alana stretched to the edge of the room and pulled her phone from her bag to text.

“Stop. Nothing is happening.” Sean tried to take the phone, but it wasn’t worth getting up, and she stretched her long arms out of his reach.

In less than a minute, Travis came back in the room and joined them on the floor.

“You send the most dramatic texts,” he said to Alana. “One day you’re going to have a real emergency, and I’m going to laugh at you by accident.”

“I realize it’s hard for you to switch immediately from your tyrant mode to your best friend mode, but Sean just decided to fall for Lupe’s straight cousin.”

“He is not straight. There is no way.”

Instead of speaking, Alana opted to just wave her hands and point at him instead.

“Okay.” Travis glanced between them. “And why does Alana think he is?”

“Because Michael just told us he’s practically married to his long-term girlfriend,” Alana said before he could say anything.

“And I’m with Alana.” Travis sighed, and scratched his short brown hair that was still wet from the shower he’d taken while they stayed behind to talk. “If you are right about him being gay, it looks like he’s in the closet. You do
not
want to do that.”

“Maybe Michael is wrong.” Sean bit his lip and avoided their eyes when he said it, but he hadn’t made up that look. Jaime hadn’t looked confused or upset. He’d openly smirked and made it obvious he was checking Sean out.

“Oh dear lord. He didn’t even speak to the guy. I hope you’re ready to have him moping and pining all over your apartment.”

Chapter 2

S
EAN
WASN
’
T
proud that he was hanging around outside the studio on Thursday before Steph’s level-four ballet class on the one day he could have made it home early. He wasn’t proud he’d told Alana he was going to work with one of the soloists who was struggling so she’d leave without him, knowing that Travis would think Sean had followed her out. As it was, they’d find out anyway if Lupe or Michael mentioned seeing him. If Sean was lucky, none of the corps dancers would tell Travis he’d slipped back into the dressing rooms to shower.

He was leaning against the wall scrolling through anything he could think of on his phone when a car pulled up to the curb. Lupe jumped out of the passenger seat, her shiny black hair already pulled into a bun, and she gave him a shy wave as she threw her bag over her shoulder and rushed inside. Michael took one look at him and just shook his head before passing. Sean really needed to come up with a better system, but when the door closed behind Michael and Sean looked up, the car hadn’t moved.

Sean pushed off the wall and leaned into the passenger window when it slid down.

“Any chance you can show me a place to park?” Jaime asked, and the sexy smirk Sean remembered was back. He started to point and direct him down the corner, but Jaime reached across the car to pop the passenger door open so Sean could climb in. “I’m Jaime, so you can call me something other than Lupe’s annoying overprotective cousin.”

“Sean.”

“I guess you’re already in the company if you don’t have to be in this class?” Jaime asked.

“I’m a principal. Company classes are over. They put the interns in a junior company class to match their school schedule. Are you planning to just sit in reception and wait the full two hours?” Sean asked as he directed Jaime to a place his car wouldn’t be towed.

“Unless you have a better idea.”

“Hungry?”

“I thought my cousin was the only dancer who actually ate.” Jaime turned to him with his full smile after he killed the engine.

“I burn it off,” Sean answered before opening the car door to get out.

He led the way to a diner a block away where everyone in the company ended up at least once a week to refuel, and the hostess nodded him to a table in the back. As Jaime walked ahead of him, she gave him a quick thumbs-up.

After they ordered and had glasses of water, Sean opened his mouth, only to find himself stopping short and shaking his head instead.

“What?” Jaime asked.

“Am I reading you wrong? Because I don’t think I am, but I have to ask.”

“Lupe told you I have a girlfriend?” For the first time in the evening, Jaime looked less than confident.

“Michael did.”

“I don’t. She’s my best friend. Somehow, when she became my roommate, my family decided we were dating. I didn’t argue.” Jaime’s eyes flicked to Sean’s and then back to where he was gripping his water glass. “I’m not in the closet. My friends know—just not my family. When Lupe decided to go to Purchase, it got complicated.”

“And she hasn’t figured it out? She’s a junior. She’s been here a couple years.”

“I’m just finishing my last year of grad school. It’s a small campus, but not so much that she’s going to hear from the visual arts grad students, and almost everyone I did undergrad with moved away before she came.” Jaime shrugged. “I know it sounds bad, but I pretty much only see her on the drive here three times a week, and I check in on her once in a while. I’m twenty-five. She’s twenty. Trust me, she’s not telling me her whole life either, unless she’s actually making it through college without getting drunk like she’d have me believe.”

“And dinner with me isn’t too risky?”

“I wasn’t aware you planned to discuss your hookups with the interns.” Jaime smiled, but he gave himself away when he bit down on his lip the same way Lupe did when Travis corrected her form.

“I wasn’t aware I’d already agreed to a hookup. Maybe I was just hungry, and I felt bad about you sitting around getting bored.”

Jaime sat back in his chair and frowned for a second before he realized Sean was struggling to hold back a smile. Then he laughed and leaned forward again.

“Sure. I can let you pretend you just happened to be in the area tonight if you want to play it like that.”

S
EAN
WAS
still smiling as he climbed the stairs to the simple two-bedroom apartment he shared with Travis in Brooklyn. Maybe he’d walked away from the diner without a kiss, but only because he was sure that had driven Jaime mad.

He’d just set his duffel down on the floor next to the couch when the door to Travis’s room opened. Travis leaned against the doorframe and watched him. When the silence stretched out past the time it took for Sean to pull a bottle of water out of the refrigerator, Sean gave up his plan to pretend nothing had happened.

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend.”

“She’s a beard?” Travis pushed off the doorframe and came to sit on the other side of the couch.

“Just to his family. He’s been out for years. He just didn’t plan on his cousin seeing you dance at one Purchase event when his family was visiting and becoming so obsessed with you that she insisted on coming all the way across the country with some random hope she could study with you. So really, this new closet is all your fault.”

“I’m just going to ignore that you also would never have met him without me and move on to what you don’t want to hear.”

“He only brings her to classes because her mom thinks she’s too young to travel to the city that much on her own. They’re from a small town. Her mom thinks the city is full of criminals. Jaime worries about her leaving the city alone when it’s dark, so he helps out. She’s not so involved in his life that it matters.”

“She’s involved in
your
life. You shouldn’t have to hide a guy from everyone you work with. He’d have to go to shows and pretend he was only there for her. He couldn’t see you backstage. He couldn’t go to cast parties as your date. So really, you’d be fine going into his world and meeting all his friends, but you’d have to pretend in your own,” Travis said.

“It’s not that big of a deal.”