Grease Monkey Jive (45 page)

“What am I supposed to do?”

“How would I know? See me holding down any significant relationships besides the one with you?”

“Trevor.”

“Blood doesn’t count.”

Alex reached for Scott’s hand and he took it. “We’re a fine pair, aren’t we? I’m miserable still. I thought it would fade. It’s getting worse. I miss him so much. I thought maybe he might realise and... Shit, tell me I’m a silly fool.”

“Maybe you should go see him. Aversion therapy. You might see him again and think, oh God, how did I ever go there?”

“Do you think that might work?” It couldn’t be worse than this gnawing wondering.

“Who knows?”

“I’m tempted.”

Scott closed his eyes and said on a groan, “God, you are a silly fool.”

“I feel like one.”

“Come on then, fool, we need to get our score. Then who knows? We could go out and celebrate my return to the dance floor. I can think of somewhere we could go; we might even know some people.”

Alex didn’t try to keep pathetically hopeful from her voice. “Do you think he still goes there?”

“I’m willing to go find out if you are.”

The door bitch must’ve been cold. She was only half dressed, a bit of leather, a bit of lace, a lot of attitude. Maybe that kept her warm. She made Alex feel like she was wearing a shroud in her long-sleeved, high-necked sheath dress, and now that they were at the top of the queue getting waved in, she panicked.

“Scott, I want to go home.”

“Girlfriend, we’ve been in this queue for twenty minutes. You couldn’t have thought of that earlier? I need in to thaw out.”

“I can’t.” She didn’t want to see Dan. The smart thing would’ve been to check the streets for one of his cars, but she’d thought of that too late. What was she supposed to say to him if he was in there?

“You coward. What do you have to be scared of?”

“Me. I’m scared of me.” She was scared she might take one look at him and forget the reason why it was smarter to stay apart.

The door bitch was chewing gum; it snapped in her over-whitened teeth. Maybe chewing was keeping her warm? “In or out? Decide now.”

“Out,” said Alex.

“In,” said Scott, and Alex felt his hand on her back pushing her through the doorway.

Inside it was muggy and dark and loud. It would thaw Scott out and prevent him from griping at her. It might be possible to stand somewhere and hide until he gave up the plan. Why had she agreed to this? It was a bad idea to the power of three. If Dan wasn’t here, she’d feel cheated somehow. If he was, and he was with someone else, she’d feel gutted. But if he was here and alone with the boys, what was she supposed to do then?

The logic of Scott’s aversion therapy plan was that any of these outcomes were good. They’d all serve to help work out what to do next. The reality of Scott’s aversion therapy plan was scattered wits, liquid knees, and hyper-vigilant peering into the near dark. If Dan was here, Alex didn’t want to be surprised by him.

She parked in a corner by the bar and sipped a coke. In this crowd he might be here and she’d never see him anyway. Maybe they could have a drink, pretend to enjoy themselves, and leave. There was probably some rule about the proportion of time you should spend in a club after twenty minutes in a queue, but screw that.

When Scott left her to go ‘exploring’, she almost fled for the ladies room, but since that would mean leaving her safe, dark corner and moving halfway across the room, she decided against it. She twirled a bar coaster and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. She tried to think about their performance, their score, their next routine, and the assignments due this week – anything but what seeing Dan might do to her.

The look on Scott’s face when he returned was a map of bad ideas.

“He’s here, isn’t he?”

“What do you want to do?”

“Did he see you?”

Scott hesitated. “No.”

“No what?”

“He’s kind of busy.”

Alex closed her eyes and felt the hot pulse of the music under her lids. Busy, a player’s euphemism, it could cover a lot of sins.

“Do you want to see?”

No. Yes. No. A fear and courage arm wrestle, a strong desire to run instead of dealing with this.

“Alley?”

She nodded. She needed to see him, needed to know. She took Scott’s hand and followed behind him as he snaked through tables, shadowed the wall, and skirted the dance floor. When he came to a stop they were close to the DJ and the sound was blistering. All she could see was a mass of shifting bodies.

“There,” Scott shouted in her ear, pointing to an area of tables raised above the pit of the dance floor.

A group of people, women fluttering about with drinks, hands waved in shouted conversation, Fluke with his arm across a chair Carlie was sitting in, Mitch with Belinda by his side, Ant chatting to a surgically enhanced blonde in leopard skin. No Dan. Maybe Scott had been mistaken.

“Wait,” he said in her ear.

Then Ant moved and she saw him. His head bent to catch something a tall dark-haired woman said. He looked different. Honed, his body stripped down and even more defined, all his lovely hair gone, clipped close. He looked older and harder. Now he was laughing at something another woman said as she leaned in to him, tapping his chest. He accepted a drink accompanied by a kiss on the cheek from a third woman.

“Enough,” Scott shouted.

But she couldn’t look away. She was fascinated by this vision of him, the player in his office, tending to his business. She watched until a redhead grabbed him in a hug, almost pushing him over in her enthusiastic attack. He stumbled backwards, laughing, and his arms went around her to steady them both. She saw the ripple of annoyance pass among the other competitors as the girl made her claim on him.

“Alex!” Scott pulled at her arm and, in a daze, she followed him in the near dark, back though clumps of people, furniture, and fixtures towards the lit-up exit doorway. It would be good to be in the cold again; it might help take the burn away, the sting of seeing him in his natural habitat.

Just before they reached the exit foyer she was grabbed from behind. Strong arms, big calloused hands, a hard body lifting her backwards, and the sharp edged thrill that he’d come after her ripped through her, until a brush of hair against her cheek. Mitch. He was turning her around and grinning madly, expectantly. He rattled questions at her with puppy dog enthusiasm. Did they compete, what was the score, why were they here? He hugged her again when he learned they’d made it into the final five and then with an insistent drag on her hand said, “Come say hello.”

“No, no. Mitch, I’m really tired. I need to go.”

Mitch frowned, “Five minutes.”

She shook her head, looked to Scott, arms folded, leaning back against the hallway wall, not buying in – the ratfink.

“You should talk to him.”

“He looked busy.”

“Busy,” Mitch repeated, as if the word was foreign. “He’s just hanging out. I’m sure he’d like to see you.”

“He dumped me, Mitch, and he didn’t look starved for attention.”

“Alex, he...God, you have to know...”

“I know, I saw.”

“What did you see?”

“Please Mitch, I need to go.” She looked to Scott again. “We should never have come here.”

“You don’t know how he’s been. You think...”

“I know a player when I see one.”

“Alex,” Mitch protested.

“Let it go, Mitch. This is a woman who knows her own mind.”

Alex felt her whole body tighten, a spasm of fright at the splash of hot coffee from his voice, a sharp kick of lust at the sight of him up close. He was harder and leaner and more compelling than ever.

Dan gave Mitch a good natured shove, but he was looking at her with an intense expression.

She closed her eyes to block him out, but he stepped closer. She could sense his warmth, smell the salt tang of his skin.

“Alex, are you alright?”

She blinked up at him, blue-blue eyes, tearing at the fabric of her resolve to hate him. “I’m fine.” He made her a liar ten times over.

“Is it going to be like this?”

“Like what?”

“Avoiding each other, never talking again?”

Yes. No. Yes. What was the therapeutic response? Just his voice was mashing her senses, shredding her thoughts. It hurt. It hurt. “We have nothing to talk about.”

A smile teased at his lips, but his brows drew down and, without the hair to shade his forehead, she saw his confusion magnified. How could he be confused? He made this happen.

“Did you think I’d join your harem and dance attendance on you with the other happy slave girls?”

His frown intensified, “Slave girls?”

“Slave to your charm. Ignorant to your intentions. Interchangeable. Disposable.”

“Alley cat.” Scott had pushed off the wall and eased in beside her.

“Come away, Dan,” Mitch growled.

“Is your father in gaol?”

“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. Neither did she. She pushed past Scott and felt him follow. She flung herself at the door and the shock of cold night air as it hit her body was enough to snap freeze her tears before they could gather, and frost over the pain of seeing Dan again.

Back inside the small foyer Mitch thumped the wall with an open hand. “Shit.”

“Yeah, that went real well,” Dan sighed. “Why did you chase after her?”

“Because you wouldn’t.”

“For a good reason, dickhead.” Though right now Dan couldn’t remember what that reason was, just that it was important he didn’t barrel through the door to find Alex and beg her not to leave. He opened and closed his fists and rocked his neck side-to-side to try to clear his vision of her face, pale with distress.

“I don’t know why you don’t defend yourself. Have you touched another woman since Alex?” Mitch caught his flinch. “Ah see, I didn’t think so. But you’re happy to let her think the worst of you.”

Dan turned, ready to walk back into the main area of the club. “This time she did that all by herself.”

Mitch stopped him with a hand to his shoulder. “Yeah – but you’re not helping her see it any other way.”

“It’s better this way.”

Mitch rapped on the side of his head with his knuckles. “You need your skull read.” It made Dan screw his eyes closed tight. He pushed Mitch away.

“If I ask you nicely, will you leave it alone now?”

Mitch grunted.

“Mitch.”

“I’ll leave it alone. Mitch rolled his eyes. “I don’t get it, but I’ll leave it alone.”

Dan gave him another shove for good measure. “Now come and help Katie distract the blonde again so I can get out of here.”

Trevor wasn’t sure what to make of the email. He printed it out and handed it to Scott.

Scott interpreted it with a loud swear word. “Now what do we do?” he said, when he’d finished being dramatic.

Trevor retrieved the piece of paper from the desk and folded it in half. “I guess we let her decide.”

“That’s incredibly reasonable,” Scott huffed on an eye roll.

He folded the paper in half again. “What would you do?”

“Something much less reasonable.”

“Like what?” Trevor folded the paper again and made little triangular wings appear while Scott spun around in the office chair.

“Oh, I don’t know, drag them together kicking and screaming till they realise their differences don’t matter and fall into each other’s arms.”

Trevor laughed. “Did you watch
Titanic
? Again?” Scott scowled as he flashed past in the spinning chair. “I don’t think we can do anything else but ask her what she wants to do.”

“If she’s stubborn enough to say no, what then?”

He made little tail fins in the paper. “She’s a grown up. It’s her decision.”

“Crap.” Scott brought the chair to a stop. “That won’t fly.”

“Well, what’s your suggestion?”

“No, I mean that won’t fly.” Scott nodded his head towards the paper plane in Trevor’s hand.

Trevor pulled the plane up to his shoulder and aimed at the open doorway. “I used to be good at this.” He thrust his hand forward, elbow tight to his side, and let go the paper plane. It hit the doorjamb and tumbled nose over tail to the floor. “Crap.”

“Crap,” Scott repeated and he wasn’t referring to pilot error.

Half an hour later Alex arrived, and Trevor tried to keep the echo of parent out of his voice. “It’s your choice, Alex. It doesn’t matter to the competition at all. You can say no.”

“I need to think about this,” Alex said at last, a copy of the email crumpled in her hand. “You’re sure you don’t care if I do it or not?”

Trevor smiled, “It’s up to you.”

“It’s up to Dan too. Even if I agree to do it, I can’t think why he would.”

“He clearly wants to be friends, Alley cat.” Scott did a good job of trying to hide his excitement, keeping his voice steady.

Alex nodded. She wasn’t sure she could be friends with Dan Maddox. She was less sure she could handle dancing with him again in a highlights performance on the last night of the competition. Even if she could sort those feelings out, there was no reason Dan would agree to do it. But it was all she could think about, the chance to dance with Dan one last time, to feel his hands on her body, to look into his eyes, to know his strength and his gentleness again. And to know it would be the last time. It felt like the perfect way to finally say goodbye properly without the surprise and anger.

Of course it was a dream. He’d most certainly moved on and whatever his little fling with the dance floor had meant to him, it was over now. Which left one more thing she could do. She could say goodbye.

He cracked the door, “Oh, God.” A visitor he’d not expected. “I know I’ve been off the rails lately, but what did I do to deserve you?”

“I love you too. Now let me in; it’s freezing out here.”

Dan slid the side door of the Kombi open and Katie clambered in, causing great tail wags, whimpering, and front feet prancing from Jeff until Dan banished him to the front seat.

“Fluke said you’re camped out here.”

“I’m on holiday.”

“In the middle of Bondi Promenade? You only live ten minutes up the road. You’re a lunatic.”