Page 30 of Slow Burn

Slow Burn had been well-received in Spain.

In fact, I wondered why we hadn’t performed more dates here given that Carlos was pretty much a national treasure.

After a four-night run in Madrid, we had arrived in Barcelona for our final three nights in the country and it was a sell-out.

Most of the cast were having lunch together at a bar on the beach to celebrate.

I’d never been to Barcelona before – in fact, I’d barely been anywhere outside of the UK, come to think of it – and I was loving everything about it.

The beach bars were modern and trendy, with cool, ambient dance music playing out of speakers and a perfect view of the vast sandy beach.

‘Who is up for sangria in a cosy little bar after the performance later?’ asked Daniella, throwing her arm around Gabriele’s shoulders.

She had, of course, commandeered a seat next to him, and now and again her eyes had flickered to mine, her eyebrows arched as if to dare me to protest. I refused to get pulled into competing for a man I didn’t even want. Well, that wasn’t strictly true. A man I absolutely shouldn’t want.

‘I’m in, if everyone else is,’ said Luca, catching my eye.

‘Gabriele, are you up for it, my love?’ Daniella asked, pulling him close to her possessively.

Perhaps I was only seeing what I wanted to see, but he didn’t exactly seem happy at her sudden display of affection. In fact, he looked positively pissed off about it.

‘I’ll be getting an early night,’ he growled.

‘Boo. Party pooper,’ she teased, pouting.

I thought she must have got the hint, though, because she swiftly removed her arm and began gossiping with Abi, the dancer sitting to the other side of her.

I caught Gabriele’s eye. For some reason, since our little heart-to-heart in Madrid a couple of days ago, I’d found it easier to look at him without my whole face burning up.

Everything that had been left unsaid between us had now been said – there were no more secrets.

We’d had our chance and we’d blown it, and now life had moved on.

Neither of us were in a position to commit to any kind of relationship and I, for one, wanted to focus on myself, without any distractions.

I had stuff with my family to sort out, my career to think about.

Gabriele was far too complicated for me to want to add an affair with him into the mix, too.

Then again, who had said anything about an affair?

I didn’t think two, albeit spectacular , kisses constituted that.

When my phone rang, I was surprised to see my mum calling and quickly excused myself, imagining her mid-ocean, leaning glamorously on the railings, the wind in her hair.

‘Back in a sec,’ I said to nobody in particular, squeezing past Carlos’s knees and walking out onto the sand.

I thought that looking out at the water might keep me measured, whatever it was that my mum might be calling about.

I realized how sad it was that I saw her name come up on my screen and assumed I’d upset her again.

It never used to be like this, but that was back then when I agreed to anything she asked.

‘Mum!’ I said, bracing myself. ‘How’s the cruise?’

A breeze licked against my face and I closed my eyes for a second or two, letting calm wash over me. It would be fine. This was my mum: she loved me, she wanted the best for me – even if what I wanted was proving temporarily inconvenient. Eventually, she’d come around.

‘Very nice. We’re docking in Crete tonight,’ she said.

‘Lovely. Enjoy all that delicious Greek food,’ I said, mentally putting the country on my ever-increasing list of places that I wanted to visit.

‘And where are you, may I ask?’ she said. ‘I was expecting you to update me on your plans for the studio and the house while you go off on your tour.’

‘I sent you a message last week!’ I insisted, irritated. She was already having a go at me and we’d been on the phone for less than thirty seconds.

‘Oh. Well the Wi-Fi on board is terrible. Perhaps your message has been delayed,’ she said, sounding huffy that she was having to backtrack.

‘Maybe. So Sedi’s friend, Jess, is house-sitting for us,’ I explained, keeping my voice as calm as I could manage.

No point having a row when we were thousands of miles away from each other.

‘She’s in London for a couple of months working on a show and needed somewhere to live, so it seemed like the perfect solution, and it saved her paying extortionate rent elsewhere.

She’ll look after the place for us in exchange for free bed and board. ’

‘Is she trustworthy, Lira? Have you met this girl?’

‘Once,’ I said. ‘She seemed nice. But I guess we’re going to have to trust Sedi’s judgement on this one, aren’t we?’

Mum scoffed. ‘It’s not like she always chooses the most desirable friends.’

Sedi had befriended a group of girls at school who Mum had had a pathological dislike of.

They were ‘it’ girls, the popular crowd, and they were okay individually, or in small doses, but as a group they were pretty toxic.

Even Sedi had eventually seen sense and barely spoke to any of them again once she left town to go to dance college.

‘She’s fine, Mum. In her mid-twenties, seems very sensible.’

Mum tutted, clearly not entirely appeased. It sometimes seemed like she wanted it both ways – to relinquish control to me so that she could go out and enjoy her own life, and to control the decisions I made in her absence.

‘I’ll make contact with both Sedi and Nolo whenever I can,’ I reluctantly reassured her. Since our Zoom call I’d barely reached out to them, and honestly, I didn’t see why I should. If Mum was that worried about her adult children, she could surely call them herself.

‘And as I said in my message, the studio is all in hand. I’ve emailed my clients personally to let them know I’m away and that they’ll have a stand-in teacher for five weeks, plus I’m on hand 24/7 to answer any questions. Everyone seems happy.’

I could practically hear Mum bristling on the other end of the line.

‘Mum? Are you still there?’ I asked.

‘Yes, yes, I’m here.’

There was an awkward silence, during which I glanced back over my shoulder, catching Gabriele’s eye. I quickly swung back around to face the ocean.

‘I saw the reviews for your show,’ said Mum, sounding hesitant.

‘Did you?’ I asked, keeping it light. I had no idea where she was going with this.

‘When the Wi-Fi came back on again. I looked them up.’

I felt a shot of pride – she’d cared enough to find out how the show was doing. Maybe, secretly, she was prouder of me than she’d been making out.

‘It sounds as though you are dancing very well, Lira,’ said Mum. ‘Well done.’

I braced myself as I waited for the punchline, because there was bound to be a ‘but’ involved. But you belong in the dance studio. But you are not a dancer anymore. But you’ve let us all down. When no ‘but’ came, I was forced to cobble together a response.

‘Thanks, Mum. I hope so,’ I replied. ‘I’m enjoying every single second of being on that stage.’

Mum was quiet for a few seconds. For once, I’d refrained from telling her what I thought she’d want to hear and expressed what I truly felt instead. But was it too much too soon?

‘This Gabriele Riccitelli, he is very good. Very talented. Extremely handsome. Have you danced with him before?’ asked Mum.

‘No, not really. Never professionally.’

‘And are you? Keeping it strictly professional?’

‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘Of course.’

Me and Mum never talked about men or relationships or love.

There was never really time and there had never been anything of note for me to say.

Was I really going to tell her about my arrangement with Jack – which reminded me, I owed him a message to tell him I was away – or that I’d been fantasizing for years about Gabriele, a man I’d met once?

It would be mortifying. She’d think I was mad.

There was no way I could explain that, while we mostly danced together, we’d almost had sex in his dressing room.

‘I know men like this, Lira. If you’re serious about dancing again, don’t get involved. That would be my advice. He thinks only of himself, I can see it in his eyes. He will hurt you.’

I squirmed. One minute Mum spoke to me like I was a na?ve young child who was going to make the biggest mistake of her life, and the next she expected me to run the entire James family while she cruised around the world. Which was it to be? Which version of me did she want?

‘I’m not going to get involved with Gabriele Riccitelli, Mum,’ I said, shutting the conversation down. I looked over my shoulder at the group laughing and talking together in the bar. I was sure I could see Gabriele watching me again. Somehow, I could always feel it when his eyes were on me.

That evening’s show took place at a very grand theatre in the El Poble-sec area of the city, the theatreland of Barcelona.

I noticed the Spanish crowd were much livelier than the Brits, with a jovial, slightly more unpredictable atmosphere in the auditorium, which was uplifting and infectious.

For some of the more upbeat numbers – the samba, the salsa – a large portion of the audience even jumped to their feet, gyrating their own hips to the music, their arms raised above their heads with delight, their bodies twisting in time to the music.

I liked to see how much joy we were bringing them; that maybe we were helping even just one person in the audience feel better that day.