Bullet

She beamed at him, and she had every right to be proud. Micah congratulated her, too. J.J. said, “For three he’s amazing.”

I spoke in her and Monica’s direction. “I hope that Jason and Nathaniel got to see it; I’ve been watching them work with him.”

“Matthew has really enjoyed his time with his uncles,” Monica said.

I pulled back a little, because I didn’t like the whole Uncle Nathaniel and Uncle Jason thing, and I had put a stop to Aunt Anita. Matthew had given us his own version of nicknames; Natty, Jason-Jason, and ’Nita for me. Jean-Claude was more Gene-Clod. Asher was the closest to getting his whole name. We’d been seeing a lot of Matthew lately.

The music came back up and the next group of little girls, slightly older, came out. And there was a lot of that in the next hour and change. Older girls, sometimes the same girls, because we got to see them do ballet, jazz, and modern, even a couple of tap dances. I liked dance, and it was no reflection on the kids, but my will to live began to seep away by about the fifth group of sequined children.

I had been warned that the dance school didn’t allow anyone to grab their kids and leave until every last student had had their chance onstage. I just hadn’t understood what that meant.

In between acts I leaned over J.J. to Monica and asked, “How long is the show?”

“Last year it was four hours,” she said.

I gave her wide, horror-filled eyes. She giggled. I sat back in my seat and exchanged a look with Micah. He said, “Nathaniel and Jason will be up soon.”

Wicked leaned back from the seat in front of us and whispered, “Did you say four hours?”

I nodded. He looked pained as he turned back to give his attention to the stage, though I knew as security he was actually aware of a lot more than the performance. He’d be aware of things that I would miss, and so would Truth behind us.

Jean-Claude raised my hand up and laid a kiss on the back of it. He was smiling at me in that trying-not-to-laugh way. I glared at him and then caught Asher giving me the same look. I rolled my eyes at both of them and settled back in my seat.

I fell into a sort of daze, and then Micah raised the open program in his other hand in front of my face. I had to blink to read it. Jason Schuyler was listed as accompanying senior student Alicia Snyder. He’d said that the men were really just mobile props so the senior girls could have a wider choice of dances for their last hurrah before going off to college. “We’re just there to make the girls look good, and tote and fetch them.”

When I’d asked, “Then why do it?” he’d looked at me as if I’d said something silly. Jason had been in dance and theater all the way into college; apparently it was just some sort of dance thing that I wasn’t going to understand, but it made sense to him and to the other men that he’d talked into doing it. It had been Jean-Claude and Jason’s idea to make the exotic dancers at Guilty Pleasures, and the less exotic dancers at Danse Macabre, two of Jean-Claude’s clubs, learn to really dance. Jason and Nathaniel had been working with them and the teachers at the school all summer. It was the most men that the senior girls had ever had access to for partners, and most of them had taken our men up on the offer.

The ballerina with Jason was actually shorter than he was, and since he was only an inch taller than me, she was tiny in her black proverbial ballerina outfit with white tights and a flash of sparkle in her bound hair. He’d tied his own longish blond hair back in a tight, smooth ponytail so that it gave the illusion of being short. He wore an outfit that matched hers and I realized I’d never seen Jason in black before. They both looked elegant. Jason was usually smiling, joking, and one of my best friends. He was a lover as well. He was cute and even handsome, but I’d never realized that he could be elegant and beautiful. The music began and I saw instantly why she’d wanted him to partner her. I knew Jason moved well, even danced well, and I’d seen some of the practices, but I hadn’t seen much of him with the girl. I’d never seen him move like this in dance.

He had the grace both of his years of dance training and of being a werewolf. All the wereanimals moved well, as if it came with the disease in their veins. He didn’t have a lot to do but hold her en pointe and help her twirl and do some lifts, and finally lift her completely over his head one-handed and carry her rainbowed body across the stage to bring her in a heart-stopping drop to be caught an inch above the floor with her body still graceful and taut in his arms.

The last move made the entire audience gasp. There was a moment of dead silence and then thunderous applause. J.J. leaned over and said, “That moment of silence is worth more than the applause afterward. It means you’ve nailed it.” She was clapping as she spoke, and when the audience actually rose to their feet we joined them.

The girl curtseyed and was given a bouquet of roses by one of the earlier students still in costume. They kissed cheeks and then the ballerina took two of the long-stemmed roses out of her bouquet and handed them to Jason. He came forward, took the roses, kissed her hand, and then she insisted on bringing him forward so they bowed together. I didn’t need anyone to explain to me that Alicia was showing that she knew she could not have wowed the audience without Jason’s help.

He was beaming, eyes glowing, even as his chest still rose and fell from the effort of lifting and throwing her, and making it all look pretty and effortless.

J.J. said, “I don’t envy who goes next.”

I agreed and was glad it was a senior girl by herself. I didn’t want to see one of our own guys compete with what we’d just seen. It seemed like a damned hard act to follow.

The senior girl was good, but she wasn’t as good, and I sympathized that here at her last performance she had to know she wasn’t going to nail it. I think that would feel bad.

But the next senior girl had Nathaniel Graison listed as her partner, and I actually found myself leaning forward on my seat. It was no longer about just the performance but how Nathaniel would feel after seeing Jason onstage. They were best friends and not competitive in that typical guy way, but still, Nathaniel was my other live-in sweetie and I was a little worried. Nathaniel, unlike Jason, had never been in dance class other than with Jason taking him. He’d been on the streets before age ten, and it had gone downhill from there. Nathaniel had been a prostitute, porn star, still was an exotic dancer, so he’d performed before, but not like this.

Micah’s hand was tense in mine, and we exchanged a glance. Micah said out loud, “He’ll be fine.” But simply by his saying that, I knew he was worried, too. I realized it was more than just being in love with Nathaniel; because of his horrendous childhood we felt almost parentally anxious. It sounded stupid, but he’d never had a chance to be one of the little toddlers in their costumes seeing the parents smile. He’d missed so much as a child, and in a way this was him trying to experience some of what he’d missed. He hadn’t expressed any stage fright about tonight. It was all just my nerves and Micah’s apparently.

Nathaniel entered the stage hand in hand with his ballerina. The girl wore a filmy white gown around her white leotard so that it had the look of white and silver rags, elegant rags, and moved around her as though it were breathing. He wore white tights but his shirt was of rougher material and loose around his upper body, even open at the neck. His shoulders looked amazingly broad, and the rest of him looked even better in the white tights, but that might have just been me. His ankle-length auburn hair was up in a bun at the nape of his neck. The ballerina’s blond hair was cut short and flattened around her face like lace. From this far out in the audience his lavender eyes looked blue.