Page 32 of Just One Bite

Chapter Twenty-Five

Olivia

“It’s you,” he says, with no trace of doubt. “It’s always been you, Olivia.”

I’m full. Infinite. Safe. Home.

It’s not my fault. It’s just one day, sleeping became impossible without being next to Parker. It makes no sense. But his scent and warmth are a calm to my senses, and everything in my brain turns off almost instantly. He’s right, though, I can’t keep working my body like this with no sleep.

I feel sluggish after my warm-up, so I turn on my music.

It’s just me and Giselle. And that’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s the whole reason I’m here. I move from one variation to the next. It’s simple at first. Fluid and easy. Then I forget a step and stumble in my recovery.

My body is slow, but I’ve been eating enough. I know the variation. It should be perfect by now. But I’m stumbling, clunky. A step behind, and my arms are too rigid.

When I watch myself in the mirror, I look like I don’t know anything. There’s a child somewhere with better talent and shiny promise making me look like a fool.

It’s good but not great.

My ankle slips and I stumble back, attempting to find my rhythm again. But my form is sloppy .

I do know the steps. I do. Fast feet. Balance. Balance. Balance.

My right pinky toe rubs raw in my shoe. It’s no excuse for why I can’t complete the variation all the way through.

Why did I get picked for this role?

I’m going to blow my chance.

I’m going to choke as an ultimate failure.

Fear floods my brain, and I slip. A tear of frustration runs down my cheek, streaking the mascara stinging my eyes.

I know better than to wear nonwaterproof mascara to ballet. I’m better than all of this. Maybe my talent has run its course. Or maybe it was never there at all. I abandon my variation to sit on the floor with my head on my knees to catch my breath.

What would my mother say? Or worse, my father or sisters.

Everyone would try to comfort me and offer their full acceptable lengths of condolences to the end of my career. My gut twists. They’d be sad for me. They’d pity me. It would be a big deal. Earth shattering for them and me.

“Whoa, what’s with the tears?” Parker’s voice echoes in the studio.

“I keep messing up. This is it for me. I suck.”

He sits next to me, wipes the tear from my cheek, and sets down a plate of food.

“You’re being too hard on yourself and working your body too hard.”

“But what if I can’t do it? What if … it just crumbles.

What if I fail? What if I’m not as good as I thought I was?

I can already imagine what everyone will say when it’s over: ‘It’s fine, Olivia.

You’ll be fine.’ But it doesn’t make it better.

Everyone knows me as a dancer. If I fail …

I have to face all the pity. The disappointment.

Everyone will worry about me. I can’t even think of the press. ”

“Okay. Say it crumbles … You get to the performance of your lifetime, and then fall apart on stage. I’ll pick you up and wait for you to get changed.

We’ll get some food and then … I’ll take you somewhere alone.

Whether that’s our rooms or if you want to take the train to the city, we’ll figure out the next step.

Ride out whatever wave of press follows, and then … you’ll dance again.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it. The world doesn’t explode.”

“What would you think of me?”

“That you had a shitty night, and it doesn’t touch the talent you have. Olivia, I love that you dance. I love that it makes you happy, and I love that you’re carrying on your mother’s passion … but ballet is the least interesting thing about you.”

I sit with that, first slightly offended. Ballet is who I am. It’s an extension of myself. It’s all I work toward. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Who would I be without ballet?

“To me, you’re the same whether you dance or not. Whether you become the most famous ballerina in the world or you don’t, won’t affect the way I feel about you. You’re just Olivia to me, and you're my favorite person to be around.”

I don’t know who just Olivia is. I replay Parker’s scenario again. Making a fool of myself on stage, and then … running into hiding. Would it be so bad?

I move my hand to his, and he rubs my knuckles. What Olivia could he be talking about? My life without ballet is just me eating and sleeping and attending classes. I have no other hobbies. I’ve never wanted anything else.

“Why am I your favorite person, then?”

Shouldn’t it be someone like Zant who’s funny? Or Gavin, who I’m sure has many interesting things going on. It’s probably my blood or my smell …

“I think waking up next to you and watching you brush your hair is interesting, the little comments you make about the weather, or when you tell me what you’re learning in class, or eating dinner with you.”

“Those things sound boring.”

“It’s not with you. I just like you. I like the way your brain works and the cute way you get embarrassed when you open up about something.

The competitiveness you try to hide, but I know how good it felt for you to beat Darien in chess.

And you listen to me … and that’s nice because …

for a long time, not many people did. I had Zant and Gavin, but it’s not the same thing.

I like … that you look for me. That you definitely don’t need me but you get excited to see me like you do. ”

“You just like me,” I repeat his words.

There’s nothing to do about that. He says it like it’s a fact I can’t deny. There’s no way I can run away from it or make it better. My baseline of existing is good enough.

My shoulders fall from my ears as I surrender to the sense of relief it brings. I lay my head on his shoulder, then tilt my head to kiss him on the cheek .

He beams, taking a monster bite of his burrito before setting it aside.

“Now, that being said, let’s get you up and try again.”

“Maybe I should just stop for tonight.”

“No, don’t end practice on a bad note. Can I help?” He hauls me from the ground and helps me brush off my practice tutu.

“Well, you could hold my waist while I practice the second act.”

“Got it. Tell me what to do.”

I run him through it all. It’s clumsy, but I’m more sure. I do know this ballet. And all that practice comes back. The heat of his hands through my leotard accompanies our lifts. He has no trouble lifting me, but we laugh through his lack of grace.

“My feet are trashed.” I groan, moving to take off my pointe shoes.

“Come on, I’ll take you to the ice tub.” In seconds, his arms are around me and I’m being cradled as he ushers me down the hallway. His heavy steps sound on the wooden floor.

He walks me into a large room, where a hexagon stone tub sits in the center. Arched windows surround the tub, with the tops of the trees outside scratching at the glass.

He starts the ice bath while I sit on the edge, then he kneels at my feet.

“Let me do it.” He motions to my shoes.

“No way. I don’t let anyone see my feet.”

“I’m not afraid of feet. I share a locker room with a bunch of men that regularly tear into each other’s flesh for fun. I’m not easily disgusted.”

I shake my head, mortified. “No, seriously I’ve had these on for hours, and I have a bruised toenail.”

He taps my thigh. “It’s okay. Come on. Give me your foot.”

I cringe at letting him grab my calf and watch him remove the elastics. I can’t look at his face. There’s real fear pumping through my veins at the thought of his disgust.

“Oh. Wow,” he says.

“Parker.”

“I’m kidding. I promise.”

I peek at him. His brow is bent as he surveys my feet, but it’s not in disgust. He looks … worried.

“It won’t hurt if I take this off? ”

He’s pulling at the tape on my toes like a sticker he’s afraid to destroy.

“No, I’m used to the pain.”

I guess ballet wear and tear is similar to his sport in that way: continued pain over time that your senses eventually start to ignore.

He carefully removes the tape on both of my feet. It’s disgusting. It’s terrible. I’m mortified and feel like dying, but he’s not reacting. His large hand squeezes my heel, and I groan from the relief.

“Feet in the tub,” he orders, and I don’t protest. The ice water on my swollen feet draws a yelp from my lips, but as the seconds tick by, my muscles loosen.

After a few minutes, he towels them off. One of my toenails is black on my right side, and I have open sores at the top. My pinky toe might lose its nail soon.

I gasp as his thumb moves to the arch of my foot.

“Did I hurt you?”

“No, it … That feels so good.”

“I’m going to try to avoid your blisters.”

He uses a dab of healing balm to massage my feet. There’s a level of shock I have to work through. A man is massaging my mangled feet, and it’s kind of nice.

And better than that … he wanted to. I didn’t need to ask.

I think I’m staring at him too much, so I close my eyes, relishing in the sensation of his fingers bending into my skin.

He grabs more healing balm and works it into my calf and back down to my arch.

Heat trickles down my spine. I have to breathe through some of it.

The intensity of the relief he’s providing is blinding.

He stretches my foot ninety degrees, and I wince. He stops, lessening the pressure, and eases back into it.

“You’re doing great.”

His praise singes through my veins, and I breathe out as he tries again. He breathes out with me. My heartbeat responds, and I feel it everywhere. My head. My chest. Between my legs.

“Does that feel better?”

I nod, watching his hands and the way his veins pop as he continues. I need to change the subject. Focus on something else.

“I’m surprised you didn’t run. My dad used to say my feet looked like a man’s … He was joking, I think. ”

“Not very funny.” Parker is focused on his task, oddly taking working the soreness from my muscles very seriously.

“My dad was clueless after my mom died. He didn’t know how to take care of his girls.

Eva and Emma think he tried his best, but …

I think he just fell apart. He gave up on his life’s work.

He didn’t go out anymore and didn’t let us either.

I was restricted to my town’s ballet classes because he wouldn’t let me go to any of the ballet schools in the city.

It’s like he thought sheltering us would save us from the world, and now I think my sisters and I could have benefited from not being so isolated.

One blog post and suddenly the world is ending. ”

“Yeah, death is … strange, what it does to people. After my mom died, I think my father hated looking at me. He got enough reminders of her at work, and then he’d come home and want a break. That’s why it’s Rage or nothing for me. I can’t go back home.”

That, I understand.

“Ooo.” I exhale as he concentrates his thumb in the arch of my foot.

“Deep breaths.”

“Your mom … What was she like?” I want to imagine her. Did she have the same blue eyes as Parker? The same hair?

“She was tall and warm. Always hugging me. Worked on the Werewolf Council. Really in–your–face bubbly. Straight, dark hair, but her eyes were bright blue like mine. It was how people identified her pack because her eyes stayed blue in shifted form.”

“What happened to her pack … after she died?”

He presses three fingers down the length of my calf.

It burns in a soothing way. “They wanted to preserve all of her work in the Werewolf Council and instead of passing that work to me, they exiled me. She hadn’t specified that she wanted me to take over in her will …

She got sick suddenly … and so they appointed a new Alpha, and yeah … ”

“Is that why you don’t want to accept your alpha blood and make your own pack?”

“Forming my own pack isn’t as simple as just having a group of people to hang out with.

Suddenly, I have to ask myself, what do I want to do for the world?

Do I want to carry on a path like my mother?

Form my own? Then I’m responsible for this whole group of people who form their lives around me, and I don’t know if I feel … good enough for that. ”

Parker doesn’t think he’s good enough? How is that possible? Everything about him is perfect, and it’s not an act. I see it in the way he treats others, and I’ve seen him on the ice. It’s in his touch and how he makes me feel … important.

I think any mother would be proud of a man like that.

“What would your mother say?”

He pauses to look at me. “Probably that whatever I choose to do will turn out just fine. She was so … relaxed. An easygoing leader who never panicked. My mom was my hero.”

“My mom was my hero too.” Heat rises to my cheeks, and I bite back the emotion building in my throat.

“Moms are cool like that.” He smiles and drops my feet.

I like the ease in which he says it. Like they’re still here.

The chime on my phone cuts my focus. It’s Emma sending me a link to a blog post.

Aster Supports Parker Owens in Surprise Backing for Council.

“What did you do?” I hold up the phone. “This has your name written all over it.”

“I wish I could say it was a long story, but I kinda made an impulsive decision that may or may not come back to bite me in the ass. Tell you about it in my room?”

“No … not yours. Mine this time.”

He licks his lips and smiles.