༆ 003 - Well Hello!

The apartment was dark when I pushed the door open, which lasted exactly two seconds before every light snapped on and Natalie materialized from the hallway like she had been stationed there for hours.

Which, knowing Nat, she probably had.

“Where the hell have you been?”

I opened my mouth.

“No—” She held up a finger. “Do you have any idea how worried I was? I called you so many times, Mia. I was this close to calling the police.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I just needed to blow off some steam.”

She stopped. Her eyes dropped—traveling the full length of me slowly, and back up—and her expression shifted.

“Blow off some steam.” Her voice was flat. “Mia. You reek of alcohol. And you look freshly fucked.”

I groaned and walked to the couch, throwing myself on it.

“I’ve also got a headache that wants to split my skull in two.”

Nat followed, dropping beside me. “What have you been up to? What happened tonight?”

“I might have just had the most humiliating night of my life,” I said.

She sat forward immediately. “Tell me. Every single thing. Right now.”

So I did.

I told her about the bar, the drinks, the stranger, the hotel room. And the payment part and me slapping him.

By the time I finished, Nat was sitting completely still with her eyes as wide as I had ever seen them.

“Oh my God,” she breathed.

I covered my face with both hands. “I know. I am so damn stupid—”

“Don’t you dare.” Her hand came down on my knee. “Don’t you dare say that. Not once. That bastard stood up on that stage and shattered five years of your life and then had the audacity to call you and explain why you deserved it. There is nothing stupid about going out and taking something back for yourself after that. Nothing. You hear me?”

I lowered my hands and looked at her.

“Although… I genuinely do not know how to feel about the hooker part and the slap. That is a lot, Mia.” She paused. “But hey—if anyone on this earth deserves that thrill right now, it is you. I stand by that completely.”

Something loosened just slightly in my chest. I almost smiled.

“Okay, but how was it though?”

I blinked. “What?”

“The sex. What was he like?”

“Nat—”

“I’m asking a simple question.”

I dropped my head back against the cushion and stared at the ceiling. “It was the best sex I have ever had in my life.”

She squealed so loudly I almost jumped. “That is exactly what I am talking about!” She clapped once, stood up, and pointed toward the hallway with authority. “Okay. Here is what is going to happen. You are going to go freshen up, and when you come back out you are going to be a functioning human being, and you are not—not—going to waste yourself sulking and crying over that fool. Understood?”

My shoulders sagged. “It’s difficult not to, Nat. I loved Frank with everything I had. Everything. And I genuinely believed—I really thought we were going somewhere. I thought all of it meant something. And the whole time he was just using everything I gave him as a stepping stone, and I didn’t even see it.”

Nat was quiet.

“Do you have any idea what I lost because of him?” My voice had gone small in a way I hated. “Everything. I lost everything.”

I literally lost my entire family because of him.

“What’s done is done,” Nat said finally. Her voice was gentle, but it had no give in it, which was exactly what I needed. “You cannot sit here and drown in it. What you can do is take every lesson this whole nightmare taught you and use it. Start dancing again. Go back to school. Get back everything you gave up, Mia. Every single thing. Get it all.”

I exhaled slowly. “It won’t be easy.”

“It’s never easy.” She said it plainly, without dressing it up. “But it’s possible. And speaking of possible—I have very good news for you.”

I looked at her sideways. “What did you do?”

“So.” She clasped her hands together. “A few weeks ago I may have submitted an application on your behalf.”

I stared. “To who?”

“The Chicago Vortex dance team.”

“Nat—”

“Before you say anything—”

“I haven’t danced in years.” I turned to face her fully. “Properly, competitively, at that level—I’m out of practice. Why would a team like the Vortex want to hire someone who hasn’t been on a stage in years? Why would you even—”

“There is no harm in trying,” she said firmly. “And they clearly disagree with you because they have invited you in for an interview. Today. Four o’clock.” She held my gaze without blinking. “So you need to look your absolute best and bring your A game. This could be the beginning of you getting your life back.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. Turned and looked at the television instead, where the morning sports segment was running—the easier option while I worked out what I was feeling, which was somewhere between terrified and something else I wasn’t ready to look at directly.

I sat up straight.

On the screen, a man was grinning at a press conference—that very familiar grin.

Navy jacket. Relaxed posture. Saying something I couldn’t hear yet at low volume.

I knew that face.

“Turn it up,” I said.

“Hm?” Nat reached for the remote absently, still half in her own thoughts. The volume rose.

“—officially welcoming Cole Ashford as the new captain of the Chicago Vortex—”

“Nat.” I couldn’t pull my eyes from the screen. “That’s him.”

She turned. Looked at the television. Looked at me. Back at the television.

“That man,” I said, pointing slowly, “from last night. That is him. That is the man from the hotel.”

Nat stared at the screen. At the broad frame and the easy grin and the name sitting in white letters across the bottom of the broadcast.

“Damn,” she said, barely above a whisper. Then she turned to me with an expression of genuine, almost reverent awe. “Mia. You didn’t just go out and find yourself a hot man.” She paused for effect. “You found a celebrity.”

“Nat—”

“That is Cole Ashford.” She pointed at the screen as though I needed the direction. “He is—that man is fine—and you just—”

“He’s the new captain,” I said quietly, reading the banner again. The dread that had started as a flicker was now something much more settled and specific. “Of the Chicago Vortex.”

The room went still.

We turned to look at each other at the exact same moment.

“Nat.” My voice came out very flat. “What team did you say you submitted my application to?”

Her eyes were wide. “The Vortex,” she said. “I submitted it to the Vortex.”

I stared at her.

She stared back. And then she began to clap, her whole face breaking into a grin.

“Ouuuu. Okay, but just imagine—you are hired and now you have to work right alongside your one-night stand with all that history and all that tension between you two…”

“Please,” I groaned. “stop watching those short dramas. I am begging you.”

She was still clapping.

I looked back at the television. Cole Ashford was shaking someone’s hand, still grinning.

I had an interview with his team in less than eight hours.

༺༺༒༻༻

I arrived at three forty-five.

The lobby was already full—rows of dancers, all sharp posture and quiet nerves.

I found a seat, straightened my back, folded my hands in my lap, and spent the next fifteen minutes having a firm, private conversation with my heart about its behavior.

It did not cooperate.

A woman appeared at the inner door and scanned the room. “Mia Caldwell?”

I stood.

“They’re ready for you.” She pushed the door open and held it.

I walked through with my chin level and my hands steady and every remaining piece of composure I owned pulled tight around me like armor. The room was clean and quiet—long table, single chair facing it, professional and ordinary in every way.

The man behind the table had his head down, pen moving across something in front of him.

For one merciful second, I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was someone else entirely, and the universe was not, in fact, constructed specifically to humiliate me.

He looked up.

The pen stopped.

And I froze.

Those same dark, level eyes landed on my face and held it—and something moved through them too fast to catch, recognition and something edged with amusement and something else underneath both that I absolutely did not have the bandwidth to examine right now—and then the corner of his mouth curved into that easy, unhurried grin.

“Well, well, well…hello. Fancy meeting you again.”

It was Cole Ashford.