‘What doctor? What’s going on?’ asked Nolo, leaning into the screen to peer at me.
‘Just a routine check-up, nothing to worry about,’ I said, cringing inside.
Part of me wanted to tell them the truth there and then, but I was holding back until I was certain I wasn’t going to mess everything up and get fired from the show in my first week of rehearsals. Plus there was the small matter of the studio – how was it going to run without me? I’d always prided myself on keeping everything ticking over with as little fuss as possible – perhaps it was eldest child syndrome, but pleasing my parents and making things easier for my siblings had always felt like a priority. And they were grateful for the work I put in at James Jive, I knew they were – it allowed them to go off and pursue their own dreams. Somehow, I was going to have to find a way to keep the studio running while I was working on the show. There had to be a way around it and the last thing I wanted was for them to worry. We all relied on the money the business pulled in – living in Shoreditch wasn’t cheap and Manhattan even less so, and if the studio wasn’t packed full of lessons and classes, that probably wouldn’t happen.
‘So, how’s life?’ asked Nolo.
I shrugged. ‘Same old, same old.’
How could I even begin to tell them how much had happened in the last forty-eight hours? It would be Gabriele they’d be most shocked about – I’d told them about him in detail over and over again, the three of us only teenagers at the time I’d met him. I had been the most experienced when it came to guys, but in the end even Nolo, who had only been fourteen, had told me in no uncertain terms that I was going to have to get over it; that there were plenty of other boys out there in the world, and that if it had been meant to work between us, it would have done.
I wondered what they’d say if they knew I’d just been dancing in his arms at Pineapple Studios.
Nolo narrowed her eyes at me. ‘Something’s wrong. Look at her, DJ.’
Sedi looked at me. ‘Oh yeah, I see what you mean. Come on, spill,’ she insisted.
I wanted to be vulnerable in front of them, to ask their advice, to scream from the rooftops about this amazing job opportunity I had and ask them what they thought, and what they imagined our parents might say. But talking with my sisters about my feelings wasn’t something I could do right now; not yet. Not when it came to this.
‘There’s nothingtospill. And if you’re done staring at me, you can tell me how it went today at the studio,’ I said to Sedi, changing the subject. ‘Did the toddler class go well? Did everyone turn up for their private lessons?’
Sedi looked utterly bored as she reeled off the details of how everything had played out at James Jive while I’d been gone. Apparently, she’d sacked off teaching the toddlers a samba and had taught them street dance instead – fair enough, but I really hoped I wasn’t going to get a ton of complaints from disgruntled parents tomorrow.
But as she talked and Nolo joined in, my mind kept wandering back to earlier that day; to Gabriele, who had made my entire body fizz with excitement every time he took my hand. Luckily, there wasn’t a lot of contact in the American smooth, but what was I going to do when we started working on the rumba? There couldn’tbea more intimate dance. And then, of course, there was the Argentine tango. And the fact was, it didn’t really matter what I was feeling inside, I had a job to do. We were going to have to work closely together to create the routines of our lives; the very best dances we’d ever come up with. The chemistry Carlos had seen at my audition was going to need to be recreated again and again and again, forweeks; for the rehearsals, then in front of a paying audience at the London shows and the European tour.
It would be fine, I reasoned – we could turn up the heat on stage and then, afterwards, we could dial it down again, go our separate ways, back to our hotel without giving it another thought. Except, the idea of staying in the same hotel as Gabriele again made my cheeks turn a shade of pink that they definitely hadn’t been two seconds ago.
Aaargh, Ihadto get over this! He was arrogant andobnoxious – what had I ever seen in him?! I forced myself to focus on listening to Sedi and Nolo gossiping about their careers, realizing I didn’t feel the usual pang of envy. I was doing it too now. I was a professional, working dancer, just like them. And I could not let this opportunity slip through my fingers.
After Nolo had rushed off to rehearsals and Sedi headed back to Mum and Dad’s, I put in some calls to every single dance instructor I’d ever worked with. By the end of the evening, I had tentatively filled all the teaching slots for the next nine weeks, keeping the reason for my absence vague, and warning them that there was a chance the whole thing might fall through. If itdidall work out, Dad did the wages, so at some point I was going to have to come clean to him, otherwise the dancers would never be paid, and my own salary would need to be reduced while I was away on tour and not physically working at the studio. But it felt good to have a plan in place and, starting from tomorrow, rehearsal times were all covered.
I smiled to myself, taking a moment to acknowledge that I was really doing this; that there was no going back now.
The entire cast spent the following afternoon at Pineapple Studios learning the choreography for the group dances. Knowing how time was likely to run away with us, Gabriele and I had agreed to rehearse our duets again tonight at James Jive. I was shocked he’d agreed to leave the confines of London, to be honest, but I didn’t question itfor fear that he would change his mind – I needed all the time I could get to learn the steps, which were far more complicated than anything I’d been used to lately.
Gabriele had stayed late to work with Carlos on a dance I wasn’t involved in, and I had some admin to do at the studio, so I gave him all the details and told him to follow on.
He looked distinctly irritated as he swung through the door just after 7pm, all swagger and brooding good looks.
‘That train is much too slow,’ he said.
‘Hmmm, can be,’ I said, refusing to engage. In the absence of any more central rehearsal space, he would just have to get used to it.
‘I’ll be with you in a second,’ I said, keeping it casual, tapping away on the keyboard as though he was disturbing me, when actually I was only pretending to work.
‘So,’ I said. ‘Shall we pick up where we left off with the Argentine tango?’
‘Sure,’ said Gabriele, strutting onto the dance floor as though it was he and not my parents who owned the place.
I made sure the front door to the building was locked and followed him, surreptitiously watching him in the mirror. He’d already put his bag down in the corner, pulled out his water bottle and was drinking from it, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as liquid flowed down his throat. I used my phone to select an Argentine tango track, letting the hauntingly high notes of the violin ring out across the studio. My finger hovered over the button for the glitterball. I didn’t think Gabriele would appreciate me switching it on – he didn’t seem in a particularly joyful mood (was he ever?) – and my head was already all over the place with rotas and changing session times and wondering how the hell I was going to do all of this without upsetting my family.
Gabriele walked into the centre of the room and I joined him there, standing opposite, definitelynotlooking at the biceps bulging out from the arms of his T-shirt. And absolutelynotthinking about what it would be like to run my hands over them, to see if they were as rock-hard as they looked.
I lifted my head, making eye contact, my heart hammering in my ears so loudly that I could barely hear the music, although thankfully I could still feel it in my body.
First things first, we needed to find the character of the dance – this was where I could shine. I might not have been dancing in Gabriele’s league for many years, but I had been creating routines all day every day, and since we could only use limited steps with our clients at the studio, I had a ton of ideas built up in my mind already.
I restarted the track so that we could listen again.
