Fade to Red (9 page)

He closed his eyes to shake it off and imagined her with short hair again. So weird. When he opened them, her long hair was whipping around in her ponytail. He squinted his eyes. Those lips, her beautiful neck, blue-green eyes staring up at him. She twisted gracefully around him and then he grabbed her waist and held her close, as their hips rocked in time with the slow, but driving tempo.

“Have I met you before, Roxie?” He stared at her, curious.

She went completely still. Her face went white, and she turned around quickly, but he’d already seen the look. She stalked over to her water bottle and kept her back to him. He walked behind her and put a hand on her back. She jumped.

“Everything okay? Need a break?” Anthony asked from across the room.

Roxie nodded and this time she did run out of the room.

What the hell?
This girl was all kinds of unpredictable. He shrugged at Anthony and paced the stage as they waited for her to come back.

When ten minutes went by and she still hadn’t returned, Beckham told Anthony he’d go look for her. He looked everywhere. There was no sign of her. Finally, he went outside and saw her sitting in her car. He knocked on her window. She jumped again.

“Sorry!” he yelled. He opened her door and squatted down so he could see her better. “What’s going on, Rox?”

She turned to face him and he froze when he saw she was crying.

“What’s wrong?”

“I made a mistake coming here. I-I can’t … I can’t do it,” she whispered.

“Roxie, you’re the best dancer we have. You can totally do this.” He grabbed her hand and squeezed it hard, trying to convince her he meant it. He meant it with a force that surprised him. The thought of her leaving had him panicked.

“I really can’t.” She shook her head and then leaned her forehead on the steering wheel. She was still for a couple of minutes and when she lifted her head, she looked determined. “I am so sorry to do this, but I need to get out of the tour. I-I’m so grateful you gave me a chance, but I made a huge mistake. Please,
please
let me out of the contract. I know it’s a huge inconvenience, but it’s still early enough … there are so many dancers that would jump at this opportunity.”

“I want
you
,” he said sincerely. “Roxie, look at me.” She didn’t, so he kept talking. “We need you—you’re the one who makes it all come alive out there. You’ve gotta know that with that attitude you must be a brilliant dancer to still be here.” He grinned, but it dropped when he saw another tear falling down her cheek. “We can’t lose you.” He felt like he was talking to a board. “What’s going on here? Why do you want to leave? I would send everyone
else
home before you!”

Roxie narrowed her eyes. “My, how things have changed…” she said, her tone caustic now.

“What do you mean?” He was beginning to get nervous. She didn’t answer. He looked at her for a long time. “Wait—was it because I asked if we’d met before?
Have
we?”

She pulled her head back and leaned it against the headrest. “Oh, this is so fucking rich. I can’t believe you. Either you’re fucking stupid or the biggest fucking jerk that ever lived.”

Beckham stood up, angry now. She was swinging his emotions around like a game of tetherball.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I would be glad to listen if you’ll explain it to me.”

“Look, I can take a lot of things, but don’t make me out for the fool. If you recognized me, you should have just said so from the beginning.” She looked at him then and he nearly staggered to his knees from the daggers.

“I didn’t recognize you!” he said quietly. “I was drawn to you the moment I saw you, but I didn’t know we’d met before. I still don’t know w-”

She practically choked on a laugh and a sob. “I don’t know why I ever thought I could make this work. It was a stupid,
stupid
idea.” She started up the car. “I’ve gotta go.”

He grabbed the door before she could shut it.

“Please stay. I’m sorry—I don’t know what I did to make you so angry, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. I need you on this tour.”

She wiped her face and nodded once. He backed away from the car and she slammed the door. Her tires squealed as she drove out of the parking lot.

Chloe and Leo were outside when Roxie pulled up, and they both came running when they saw her crying.

“Why you cryin’, Mommy?” Leo wrapped his arms around her leg and looked up at her with the sweetest eyes.

“I’m just tired and frustrated,” she told him. “And I needed to see my boy.”

Leo hugged her harder. “Here I am.”

“Here you are.” She hugged him tighter.

Chloe studied her and finally came over to hug her too. “Well, we’re glad to see you. We were gonna go to the beach as soon as you got home. Want to head out soon?”

Roxie nodded. “Sounds good.”

Leo reached up for Roxie to pick him up. He put his hands on either side of her face and peered at her carefully. “You feelin’ better?”

“I am now.”

“Good. Wanna hear a joke?”

“Of course.”

“’K … what did the cat ask the zombie?” He bit his bottom lip to keep from yelling out the punchline.

“Hmm … I don’t know. What?”

“
Meow’s life?
” He’d started laughing before he got it all the way out.

“Meow’s life?” Roxie pulled back, looking in Leo’s eyes.

He stopped laughing but couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah, you know, like … how’s life? Meow’s life … ’cept zombies are already
dead
.” His lisp was extra heavy when he got excited.

“Wow, that’s actually a pretty good one, Leo.”

The beach calmed Roxie more than she’d thought possible. When she left Beckham, she was strung so tight, every muscle felt jittery. Now, just looking out at the endless waves and feeling so incredibly small—it made her anger slowly fade away into the tide. She would get back to hating Beckham again tomorrow, but for now, she welcomed the peace.

They found a spot to lay their blanket and stretched out. Leo barely ran in the water and quickly hightailed it back to their towel, teeth chattering. The cold water always shocked him, but he kept going back in for more.

“So what happened?” Chloe asked.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Roxie groaned.

“Oh no, you’re not getting out of it.” Chloe poked Roxie in the side.

“He asked if we’d met before,” Roxie whispered.

“Shit!”

Of course that’s when Leo surprised them by running back to get warm.

“What’d you say, Auntie?” Leo’s head whipped around faster than lightning.

“I said, ‘Sit!’ Come on, sit by me and I’ll warm you up!” She looked at Roxie guiltily.

“Hmm, yeah,” Leo said, but he went and sat by her anyway.

Roxie flicked Chloe in the arm. Leo sat for all of a minute and then ran back to the water.

“What did you say back?” Chloe stared at Roxie, who was watching Leo jump up and down in an inch of water.

“I got out of there … after I basically got stuck on the f-word and told him all the ways he was fucking stupid.”

“
No!
What did he do?”

“He apologized for whatever he’d done to make me angry and asked me not to leave the tour.”

“Wait—you’re thinking of leaving? No, Rox. You have to do this.” She grabbed Roxie’s arm and forced her to look at her. “I know this is so hard, but you’ve done the hardest part—seeing him again. Now that you’ve gotten past that initial shock, you have to go all the way. We’ll finally get ahead a little bit. You’ve worked so hard, for so long. There’s no other way you can make money like this—not any time soon, anyway. And this is the safest I’ve felt since I met Alex. I didn’t even realize until being away from him this long, how much I was still fearful that he was around every corner…”

Roxie put her arm around Chloe. “I’m so relieved you got away from him. You seem more like yourself than you have in a really long time.”

Chloe leaned her head on Roxie’s shoulder. “I feel more like myself,” she admitted. “I let him control me far too long. I mean, I get why it was easy for him to control me when we first started dating—I was 14. Remind me one day not to let my daughter date that early.” Her laugh choked in her throat and sounded painful. She sat up and looked at Roxie. “I’m embarrassed, Rox. I wasted so much time with an abusive boyfriend. I never thought I’d let someone … hurt me. I’m the baby of the family—you guys have loved me my whole life. Why would I put up with that trash?”

“He lied to you, made you think he loved you one minute, and then turned on you after you trusted him,” Roxie said softly. “It happens all the time, Chlo-bo. Just be so grateful that you got out. You took control.”

“So can you, Rox. You’re controlling this situation for your son and his future. You can do this. It’s a really
huge
deal that you got in to begin with … you can’t give up now.”

“He just … Beckham’s very…” Roxie couldn’t get out a complete thought, so she gave up trying. “We’d be okay without the money. We’ve gotten by before this.”

“Barely. And do you really want to live in your tiny apartment the rest of your life?” Chloe snapped.

“Well, no, but … being around Beckham was a lot harder than I expected, too. And I’m paired up with him, Chloe! I never expected that when I tried out. I thought I’d be in a big group of other dancers and that I might not even have to deal with him! And I’m being awful—I should have been fired a couple of times already. It’s mortifying, really, how awful I become when I’m around him!”

Leo came back then and they stopped talking about it. They enjoyed the rest of their day at the beach and Roxie tried to put Beckham out of her mind completely. When they got back home, she checked her voicemail and there was a message from Anthony. He told her he expected her there the next morning for the full rehearsal with Beckham.

At the end of the message, he said, “Beckham said it was his fault you left this morning, so I’ll let you off the hook.
This
time. But there better not be a next time. If you have an issue, come to me directly and we’ll work it out.”

The next morning on the way to rehearsal she made up her mind to stick it out. No matter how intense things got with Beckham, no matter how much she cringed every time she saw him, no matter how her insides liquified every time he touched her. She was doing this for Leo. He deserved so much more than she’d been able to give him.

It physically hurt her to walk in that morning; her pride was sweating through her pores, but she held her head high. She was a few minutes early, but Beckham and Anthony were already there. She looked them both in the eye and nodded at Anthony.

“I shouldn’t have left without telling you. It won’t happen again.”

“Okay. We’ll forget about it and move forward. You ready to work? Thousands of girls would kill to be in your spot,” he reminded her.

“I’m ready.”

Beckham handed her a coffee and she mumbled her thanks. She took as many gulps as she could before they got started and then popped some gum in her mouth. She might hate him, but she still wanted to smell decent when she was grinding up against him.

She barely looked at Beckham, but as soon as the music started and they began to move together, the magic began. Their chemistry was undeniable.

Beckham began showing up at all the rehearsals. And she’d thought he might stay to himself a little, but he was always in the center of everything. He had an easy way with everyone else. In the middle of lunch one day, he started doing imitations from
Harry Potter
and had it down perfectly.

He was in the middle of going back and forth between Dumbledore and Snape:

“He has her eyes…”

(A gasp from Snape.)

“If you truly loved her…”

“No one can ever
know
…”

He nailed it and Roxie started laughing along with everyone else. He noticed her laughing and cut off in mid-sentence, his cheeks suddenly tinging with pink. She quickly stopped and the hurt that briefly crossed his eyes made Roxie’s stomach clench with guilt. The rest of the week she went home for lunch.

Anthony had asked her to meet every weekend so far and each time she agreed without any argument. When she walked in, Beckham’s eyes burned on her like they had every day for weeks now. He tentatively gave her the coffee he’d continued to bring and she quietly thanked him. This time, though, his hand brushed against hers when he handed it to her. She looked up quickly and almost dropped the coffee.

“When am I gonna win you over, Roxie Taylor?” he asked quietly.

“Never,” she replied.

He laughed nervously. “Well, at least you’re honest. I’d like to talk to you after the rehearsal today. You run out of here so fast every day, I can’t seem to get to the bottom of what I’ve done to make you despise me.”

She studied him.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking that you’re not used to someone not falling all over themselves just because they’re near you.”

He blinked and bit his lip, a grin just under the surface. “You’re right. I’m not. Can I be honest now?” He raised his eyebrows and leaned in when she didn’t answer. “It gets annoying.”