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went through that appearance checklist again, skirt, hair, nails.
    “Well… you know I don’t do…” I trailed off and swallowed.
    “Anything,” Leslie teased.
    “That’s not true.”
    “When was the last time you had sex?” Oh great, the inquisition. Who knew it was Madrid, Spain in the fourteen hundreds and not Florence, Oregon in the early twenty-first century. “Seriously when was it? A year? Two?”
    “Why does it matter?” I smoothed my skirt again. “Is it really any of your business?”
    “Yes, it is and it does. So… three years? Fuck! Three years! Was it Garrett?”
    “Yes, Torquemada. Yes, it was Garrett. And yes, it was three years ago.”
    “Franklin and fifth,” the cab driver said, interrupting the third degree I was about to get.
    While Leslie paid the cab driver, I slipped out of the door and practically ran into the building. I dashed up the stairs, all the way to the seventh floor and stood panting at my door as I fumbled with my keys.
    “You forgot I dance for a living, Autumn!” Leslie yelled as she cleared the landing. The three of us had the only apartments on this floor. She advanced on me swiftly, but I still managed to open the door, slip in and lock it before she could get her foot in.
    “I don’t want to talk about Garrett. I’m going to bed, you can torture me more tomorrow when I meet you for dinner.”
    “Garrett’s coming back.” I blinked at the door.
    “What?”
    “Oh, you heard me.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “As a fucking heart attack.”
    “When?”
    “End of the month. He’s our Prince Charming.”
    “Oh… that’s….” I trailed off. “That’s great.”
    “Not for his career. It could have been worse though, at least he didn’t tumble all the way down. He went from London to Paris, to New York and now he’s back where he started. Dmitri would call it a lateral move. He’s hard to work with now.”
    “I don’t…” I trailed off and sighed. “I’m going to bed, Leslie. I enjoyed the Ballet.”
    “Good night.”
    I waited by the door until I heard Leslie’s close. Don’t cry about him. I slapped the door and turned away from it. I had cried enough over Garrett. There was however, one good thing about Leslie bringing up Garrett—it distracted me from Aleksi.
     
     
     
    The next night I found myself climbing the back steps to the theater. I continued back through the grayscale of the rehearsal studios listening to the faint conflicting melodies drifting through the air. Then I saw something which caused me to stop dead in my tracks. Garrett, all six foot four of him gliding down the hall and beside him the equally tall and blonde Anna. They looked how Cinderella and Prince Charming were supposed to look. He danced around her with a charismatic smile on his lips as he attempted to get her attention. I swallowed hard, remembering how he used to try to get mine.
    Those green eyes fell on me and he smirked. The actual acknowledgment of my presence: a wink and a hastily blown kiss.
    I was on a mission then as I stormed down the halls, my open red pea coat billowing around me. Leslie and Kendra were coming out of the dressing rooms when I found them. Don’t yell at them this is a very public place.
    “Hello, my two lovely, dearest, closest friends.” I grinned at them.
    “I can see by the deranged Donna Reed meets Stepford smile that you saw Garrett,” Kendra quipped.
    “He isn’t supposed to be here, but no one is going to tell him to leave. Unfortunately.” Leslie sighed.
    “Tell who to leave?” A very familiar voice said behind me. My stomach sunk as I felt hands on my shoulders, his thumbs trailing over the back of my neck. I shivered and shrugged out of the touch.
    “Hi, Garrett. How was Europe?” I turned and beamed at him, I actively tried to tone down my smile which by this point bordered on deranged.
    “It was very European and yet I found myself missing our little Florence here. And my three best girls, of course.” He