Break

“Mom! I ordered sushi!” I holler as I walk into the sprawling space.

We’re still decorating, but we have a giant black and white photo of me dancing hanging right behind the couch. It was a gift from JP Morgan in exchange for a little advertising deal.

“Hi, sweetheart. How’d your first day go?”

“Superb. In a word.”

“I’m so thrilled. Did you see any familiar faces from Haverton?”

Mom brings up Haverton casually because she wasn’t as traumatized as I was. I never wanted to see any of those people ever again. But the dance world is small, and that would be impossible.

“Some.”

“Was Sam there?” Mom asks frankly.

I nod and push a button on the new espresso machine like I’m not impressed enough to talk about it.

“Was that awkward, or did it go okay?” Mom lifts a lever and pushes my cup under a different little spout.

“I’m not a barista,” I tell her.

The door buzzes, and we both turn to answer it.

“Sushi,” I tell her. “I’m gonna shower quickly, and if you want to eat early, I’m down.”

My private bathroom is my favorite part of the apartment. It’s all mine, the hot water never runs out, and no toothless men spit toothpaste or worse over my shoulder. If I find a stray hair on the tile, it’s always mine.

Under the hot stream of the shower, my mind runs to Sam, how much she’s grown up, how beautiful she’s become. Still thin as a rail. Still the best dancer I’ve ever laid eyes on. And still so fucking dysfunctional about food. So dysfunctional that for someone who has it out for her, she makes a laughably easy target.

But what has changed is how feeding her makes my dick impossibly hard. My fingers in her mouth, the sweet suction of her tongue and lips, the faces she makes when sugar hits her tongue and she’s allowed to swallow it. I want to make her come while feeding her chocolate and whipped cream or slipping sugar cubes between her ruby lips.

I bet her shitty boyfriend doesn’t feed her. I bet he doesn’t give her any pleasure at all, and Sam’s so used to taking abuse that she’ll mistake any kind of attention for love.

I jerk off, imagining feeding Sam the sushi I’m about to eat. After throwing on basketball shorts and a clean white t-shirt, I throw a towel over my shoulders and head back to the kitchen, where a large brown paper bag from the Sushi joint sits next to an impressive bouquet of long-stemmed red roses.

Mom has a bottle of wine corked and is sipping red while reading the card. “‘Congrats on the BA Studio Company. I love you. Dad?’” she reads. “Sorry, honey, but this has to be a mistake. There’s no way in hell your deadbeat dad sent you long-stemmed roses.”

There’s no way my dad could know. We haven’t had any contact in ages.

I raise an eyebrow and snatch the card from her. Then I grab her wine glass, help myself to a sip and consider the possibilities.

Maybe a secret admirer trying to get into the building this way? Maybe my dear old dad has finally cracked, and he thinks this is the way back into my good graces now that our pockets are full? Figures. A lot of fucking people start popping out of the woodwork as soon as you have money.

“It doesn’t make any sense because Dance Props announced the prizes from the get-go. Anyone who watched the show knew two weeks ago that you got a spot in the company,” Mom says, pouring more wine and lifting out the sushi boxes.

“Where’s the envelope?” I grab a fishbowl-like wine glass and pour some for myself while Mom gives me a look that displays her disapproval.

She points to the garbage, and I dig through it until I find the envelope.

“Penthouse A, Mom. The flowers are for whoever lives across the hall. But that means whoever does is a dancer, too, and we’ve made the same company. Guess you’re right about the dance world being small.”

I grab the large vase off the counter and march toward the front door. The thing weighs twenty-five pounds and must have cost dear old Dad a fortune. I buzz the door impatiently and switch arms with the gigantic glass vase.

When Natayla Koslova whips the door open after yelling, “Coming!” I nearly drop the flowers at her feet.

“Sam, what are you doing here?”

Her eyes are wide and she’s as white as a sheet. “I live here, Dashiell. What are you doing here?”

We stare at one another in bewilderment for a beat.

“Listen, I know we have a past, but I’m in a relationship, and I cannot accept those flowers,” Sam says.

From what I can see of her through the small crack in the door and with my face obscured by the roses, Sam is clad in a red satin robe. She’s bare-footed, hair down, and the soft scent of soap rises from her freshly showered skin.