Turning Pointe Read Free Page A

his. My heart doesn’t just skip a beat but trips and tumbles to the floor of my abdomen. “You’re not going anywhere.”
    He reaches over to run the back of his hand down my cheek affectionately. One of the first partnering classes we ever took at the Lyon School involved this motion in a dance and it turned into a tiny thing we did, just not normally with an audience. His eyes sag at the corners, though his expression stays bright.
    “I’m not going anywhere,” he promises. “I was joking. But not about the food. Eat.”
    “As touching as this is,” Sakura says as I reluctantly pick up a fork, “if you have this covered, Zed, I need to get home. The husband might want to see me before I abscond to Europe for a month.”
    “Tell Gabe we say hi,” Zed says. “We got this.”
    “He should totally come,” I add. “I don’t mind if he crashes in our hotel room.”
    Sakura laughs and says, “You clearly haven’t heard him snore. I’ll see you two chickens tomorrow.”
    As soon as she leaves, Zed rummages in his bag and surfaces with the Center Stage DVD. I squeal with delight, grinning as he hands it to me. I knew he’d give in and watch the movie I wanted to watch. I load it into my computer and clear off the coffee table, trying to remind myself that I have plenty of time tomorrow to double-check everything before our evening flight over the ocean.
    “Popcorn?” Zed calls from the kitchen.
    “Not with Chinese food. That’s gross,” I call back. “There’s coffee if you want it.”
    “I want to sleep tonight so maybe not.” He flicks off the lights as he comes back into the living room with the box of remaining lo mein. When he hits the couch, his limbs going everywhere, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that control of his body and grace were the primary skills required for his job. But then he pulls me against him, his thumb running down my bare arm, and I remember that he always knows exactly what he’s doing.
    * * *
    After I’ve showered, I sit on the floor of the bathroom, combing the tangles out of my hair, listening to Zed humming just on the other side of the door. Most nights, I like the company. But tonight, something shivers beneath my skin. Two days he was gone, and when he showed up today at my door, the explosion of my heart splattering against my rib cage surprised me. Our banter fades away this time of night, and then I’m unsure of where to go next.
    “Aly, you okay in there?” Zed calls, rapping his knuckles on the door.
    Don’t mind me. Just untangling my feelings, I want to say, my fingers and comb both sorting out a particularly gnarly knot in my hair. Instead, I call back, “I’m dressed, just brushing my hair. You can come in if you miss me that much.”
    Colossal mistake. When Zed opens the door, he’s shirtless, his jeans sitting low around his hips, his abs defined enough that I want to run my fingers along the indents. He doesn’t notice, rubbing his hands absentmindedly through his floppy hair. Zed’s accidentally beautiful in a way that few people manage to pull off, with his dark hair and dark eyes, the way his eyes and smile tend to light up at the same time.
    “You’re sitting on the floor brushing your hair,” he says, fishing the spare toothbrush out of my vanity without asking. He watches me from the mirror, like we’re in barre class in my bathroom.
    “Standing felt tiring,” I admit. “I’m tired of being on my feet.”
    He tries to say something through his toothbrush and I wrinkle my nose. He spits out the toothpaste and rinses out his mouth. “You’re such a princess sometimes.”
    “Too bad you’re not my Prince Charming,” I say without thinking and open my mouth to take back the words, but shut it immediately. I can’t rescind that without admitting the truth: he kind of is Prince Charming.
    “Charming, sure. Princely, less so. We don’t have those in Central Pennsylvania,” he says without missing a beat. He slides down onto the