Dance With Me (2 page)

Chapter Three

What the hell was that about?
Sherry wondered as she paced the hall, waiting for Alexi and trying to regain her cool. She pressed a hand against her cheek, feeling the heat there. Blushing. Not her style at all. You had to have serious lady-balls to approach the family of a murder victim on the steps of the funeral home. You had to be shameless.

Glancing into the open doors of the rooms she passed, she realized that ballet dancers were a different kind of shameless. In one room, a group of girls sprawled in various stages of undress, picking at bags of baby carrots and looking at their phones. In another, a male dancer was whipping clothes off his body as the other dancers took their places at the barre.

“Better shake it, Lance. Margot’s coming,” a girl said, smacking his bare buttock as she sauntered passed him. Clearly, nudity wasn’t a thing.

So, Alexi’s impromptu striptease wasn’t intended to seduce or unnerve. He was just changing. But the way he held her gaze. The body beneath those grey tights. Thinking about it wasn’t helping the flush in her cheeks dissipate. It had clearly been too long since she’d seen a naked male body. One hundred and seven days too long.

Sherry didn’t want to think about day zero, but it flashed through her mind in painful Polaroids. The call from reception that someone was there to see her. The petite blonde woman waiting for her in the lobby, silently holding out the picture of three blue-eyed cherubs with Glenn’s smile. The woman’s expression like a raw wound—hurt, angry, and condemning. Sherry had never called Glenn again and wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get so much as a goodbye text, even though they’d been together, sort of, for over a year. He had never mentioned the kids. But then, Sherry hadn’t asked.

Sherry stuffed her hands into her pockets and shook her head, as if to clear out the images. She had a job to do, and it seemed pretty clear that Alexi was not going to make it easy on her. However cool dancers were about getting naked in front of complete strangers, the look in his eyes told her he intended to make
her
dance.

The door to the studio opened and there he was, hair artfully disheveled, a black biker jacket open over his sweatshirt and jeans. If anything, he looked even hotter. Slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder, he glanced at her. His eyes were only on her for a second, but she felt them take in her rosy cheeks, lighting with first awareness then amusement before they flicked away. He might not have meant to unsettle her, but he did. And he liked it.

“I can give you half an hour,” he said.

“Perfect. That’s all I’ve got,” she answered. He didn’t have to know it wasn’t true.

She followed him down the hall, observing the reaction of the other dancers they passed. Nervous giggles, studied indifference and bare-faced awe—they ran the gamut. He was like the star quarterback in high school. Not everybody liked him, but everybody knew who he was and what he was. He was money.

At the end of the hall, he pushed open the fire exit door. “Short cut,” he said. He held the door, gesturing with his head for her to go through.

“Ah, an old fashioned gentleman,” Sherry said, brushing past him. He smelled of fresh sweat and leather.

He gave her a perfunctory smile. “I would like to say my father taught me well, but…” he said.

“Your father left when you were three,” she finished for him. He didn’t stop moving, but a micro-tightening of his shoulders told her she had surprised him.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and pushed open the door. His expression was hard to read. Curiosity? Amusement? Sherry wasn’t sure. “An arts columnist who does her research. How unusual.” He gave her a quick head–to-toe appraisal, his green gaze taking her in. Sherry looked away. God, those eyes.

The door opened onto Broadway. He turned right, slipping through the midmorning crowds like oil through a sieve. Sherry had to lengthen her stride to keep up.

“You don’t look like the usual ones. No, not with that bag.” He flicked his hand at her weathered messenger bag. “Or those shoes.”

Sherry glanced down at her Docs, a defensive response rising to her lips before she could stop it. “What’s wrong with my shoes?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he answered with a smirk. “They look very … functional.” He turned abruptly and ducked down an alley and into a concrete archway, holding the unmarked door for her again.

The bar was dark and stuffy, the kind of place that would have been grey with a cigarette fog in the days before the anti-smoking bylaw. Under a pressed-tin ceiling, men in paint-splattered coveralls leaned on a scarred wooden bar, their eyes glued to the game on the widescreen in the corner. It was the antithesis of the sleek wine-bars and hipster faux pubs that dotted the city like poppy seeds on a bagel. In fact, it was the kind of place Sherry would have chosen herself, the kind of place she didn’t think existed in the five boroughs anymore, let alone high-gloss Manhattan.

Alexi smiled at the grey-bearded man behind the bar and raised two fingers.

“Hey, Alex. The usual? And for the lady?” the man said.

Alexi inclined his head, waiting.

“Uh. Just water for me.”

The bartender raised his eyebrows and gave Alexi a look. “A real party-girl you got there. Well, a change is nice every now and then, I guess.” He winked, pouring a double measure of vodka over ice and sliding it across the bar toward Alexi. Then, filling a glass with tap water and setting it in front of her, he gave her a smile that was a tooth or two short of genuine. “You didn’t want ice in that did you, sweetheart?”

She picked up her water and followed Alexi. “I’m working,” she said, flashing her press badge over her shoulder. “Besides, it’s barely eleven. I’m not an alcoholic.”

“You a reporter?” he said to her back. “Give it time.”

“Guy’s a real charmer.” Sherry slid into the shadowy booth across from Alexi.

He smiled, shaking the ice in his glass. “Maybe not. But he is real, authentic. The people at the bar, also. This is something that is hard to find in this city, I think.
Za zdrovje
,” he said, lifting his glass towards her.

She copied his salute but didn’t drink. Here in the cozy gloom of the bar, Alexi was different. Gone was the carefully neutral expression, the tight body language. He leaned back against the booth, one arm draped over it, a lazy smile on his lips. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all.

“So,” she started, but Alexi interrupted her.

“If you are not the arts reporter,” he said, “and I think you are not, why are you here? Don’t tell me ballet is now front page news.”

Sherry laughed. “Well, this is Manhattan, so it could be, but no.” The way he was looking at her made her nervous. And thirsty. She flicked her eyes to the bar. Maybe a beer wouldn’t be so bad. A light beer.

She took a sip of her water instead. “So, how this usually works is, I ask the questions.”

He leaned in. “Wrong. How it usually works is a little man in a bowtie or a woman in Prada covers me with smiles and sweet words. Not someone like you telling me she doesn’t want to interview me.”

“Well, it got you here, didn’t it?” She smiled sweetly, or as close to sweet as she got.

“Ah.” His eyes glinted with amusement. “This was a technique. I thought maybe the arts reporter is busy. Your boss sends you. You’re not happy. You are a real reporter. This,” he gestured to himself, “this is candy. This is not news.” He took a sip of his vodka.

It took all Sherry’s years of playing reporter poker not to show close he was to the truth.

“Damn. If you’re going to go all psychoanalytical on me, I’m going to need something stronger than this.” She said it with a smile, as if she was joking. Which she was. Mostly. She turned to the bartender and shouted, “Hey, Prince Charming. I’ll have what he’s having.” She pointed at Alexi’s glass.

“He could bring the bottle,” Alexi suggested, his eyes challenging her.

“He could,” she answered. “But you only have half an hour.”

“I’m from the Ukraine. A bottle of vodka, two people. Half an hour is enough.” He shrugged and stretched his legs out under the table in the slow, sensuous manner of a cat. “And perhaps, for you, I could stay longer.” His smile was either an invitation or a challenge.

Sherry wouldn’t drink much, of course. Just enough to make him feel relaxed, get him drinking and, she hoped, talking. This wasn’t about his cool green gaze or the muscles that rippled under his shirt or the way his slight accent made something stir in the pit of her stomach. This was work. 

A glass of ice and vodka appeared in front of her. Without a glance at the surly bartender, she said, “Bring the bottle.” She picked up her glass and raised it. “
Za zdrovje
.”

Alexi smiled again, tilting his head and raising his glass.

They drank, watching each other over the rims of their glasses.
Like Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao circling the ring,
Sherry thought. Who would throw the first punch? And who would end up face down on the floor? If the way one sip of the startlingly cold alcohol in her glass was making her feel was any indication, Sherry thought, it was going to be her. Time to feint and jab.

“You’re not a big fan of the press,” Sherry said. “Why?”

The bartender set a chilled bottle of vodka on the table between them. Alexi smiled. “Thank you, my friend.”

“Looks like you’re going to need it,” she heard him say.

“So?” she prompted, ignoring the comment, “What’s your problem with the press? The little men in bowties seem to love you.”

He stared at his glass, spinning it in slow circles, seemingly fascinated by the puddle of moisture forming beneath it. “They,” he said. “Don’t you mean, ‘we’?” He looked up at her with the cold, flat gaze of a shark.

“I thought we’d already established that I’m different,” she said.

His gaze softened, traced the curves of her face. “Yes, you are different.” There was something about the way he said it, the way his eyes measured her as if she was a jacket that he wanted to try on. She shifted in her seat.

His eyes dropped back to the circle of condensation.

“Eight years I gave to the Royal Ballet. For eight years I was the golden boy of the press. Beautiful. Polite. Talented. Then I quit. Within hours, the same people who kissed my cheeks and called me darling were writing shit about me. ‘Bad boy. Mental issues. Breaking under the strain. His last performances were weak’.” He brought his glass down hard on the table so hard that vodka sloshed over the side. “Bullshit! Reporters are vampires,” he continued. His voice had regained its calm, but she could see a muscle twitching in his jaw as he refilled his glass. “They live by others’ misery. And if the misery is not there, they will find a way to make the victim bleed, because blood is what sells.”

Sherry wished she had thought to turn on her voice recorder. Even as the thought entered her mind, she realized she was proving him right. Still, it didn’t stop her from tapping furiously with her thumbs to get the quote down.

“Present company excepted. You’re different.” The corners of his lips twitched as his eyes held hers.

Was he being sarcastic? She couldn’t tell. The way he looked at her almost made her wish it was true.

“And being different, of course you know this is off the record.”

Sherry stopped tapping. “You’re telling me I can’t quote you.”

He shook his head, taking out his phone. “On this, no. How would that look, a principal dancer complaining about the press? This is not good PR. The company press agent will send you a list of acceptable questions.” His thumbs flew over the screen of his iPhone for a few seconds before he set it down. Sherry heard the ping of a new email. He smiled, a gracious victor’s smile. “Come. You must drink.”

“Cheers,” she muttered, lifting her glass with one hand as she scrolled through the email. She set the glass back down without drinking as she read the email aloud. “Who are your greatest influences? How do you like living in New York?” she read. As vapid as Kim’s questions were, these were worse. “Jesus, Alexi. This isn’t
Vogue
.”

He shrugged, indifferent.

Sherry half wanted to say to hell with it. It wasn’t her beat. What did she care? She could ask the PR agents’ questions, turn out a story no more memorable than the stale donuts they sold at Penn station, then go back to doing what she did best. But she smelled a story. Alexi’s rapid departure from the Royal. The ABC’s near-bankruptcy. They were connected, somehow. Besides, something about the man sitting across from her, his long legs stretched out like an invitation, that cocky smirk on his face … she couldn’t let him win.

“I’ll tell you what, Alexi,” she said, leaning forward and giving him the same smile that had made Glenn do everything shy of leaving his wife to have her. “I’ll ask you these bullshit questions that you can answer in your sleep. But for every one of these questions, you let me ask you one of my own.”

He returned her smile and leaned in toward her, elbows on the table. “That sounds like it might take more than half an hour.”

His face was inches from hers, but she didn’t move. That would be like admitting defeat. “It might,” she said. “But we have this whole bottle to get through.”