Ripped (Real, #5)(37)

She loved him and he LEFT her.

Make him regret walking. Without a word, or a goodbye, or an “I’m sorry,” or a reason . . .

The thought only invigorates me, and I’m still shaking my little ass seconds after the song stops.

“Good job, girls!” Yolanda calls with another clap.

The dancers seem quite composed, while I, on the other hand, am gasping for breath as I follow them to the towel stack and wipe my neck. Yolanda comes over to me, approval shining in her eyes as she pats her cleavage dry. “You have something to prove. I like that.” She tips my head up with her free hand and dissects me with her eyes. “You in love with him?”

“Pfft!” I spit accidentally. “Sorry!” I laugh my evil witch laugh. “No way.”

She smiles a strangely expressionless smile. “Pandora. Hmm.” She walks away.

As if she knows something nobody else does.

? ? ?

THE REST OF the day, I watch the band’s rehearsal from backstage, my eyes trained on you-know-who. He laughs out loud. A lot. He curses a lot too. The twins pick on him and he picks back, exchanging endearments such as “f*cking jackass,” “get to work, douche,” and—my favorite—“suck my dick, *.” At one point, I’m pretty sure they talk about me.

“You get it on with your box of chocolates last night?”

“If I did,” says Mackenna smoothly, almost cockily, “that would be none of your goddamn business.”

Me? Box of chocolates?

“We’re being filmed, asshat. What we do from now until Madison Square Garden is everybody’s business,” Jax tells him. Is it Jax? I don’t know, I mix those two up so much. It helps when they’re bare-chested because Jax has a snake tattoo. Lex seems more talkative and is, in fact, grinning at me as I hide between the stage curtains.

I sink a little deeper into the shadows and wait for Mackenna to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead he rubs the back of his neck and rolls his shoulders, his body sweaty and moving in complete rhythm to the beat as they start up again.

The twins strike their guitars, the orchestra takes up with a frenzy, and Mackenna adds the vocals while a dozen male dancers dance in perfect synchrony behind him.

Yolanda’s right. No man should be so masculine, so muscular, and still be able to dance like that. A thrust of his hips, a swing of his body, and then he’s up on his arms, then back on his feet, singing in low tones while Bach and their rock music play in alternate tempos. It’s a perfect duet.

Up on the stage, he’s a rock god, but I can still remember when he used to give me wildflowers. I remember being so nervous that my mother would find out about us that sometimes I threw them away before I got home. What a coward I was.

He was the one. It’s the truest thing I know about me. That he was the one.

“I want to be someone one day, you know? Make a difference . . .”

“I don’t know who I want to be yet,” I said.

“I have an idea.” Kiss. “Be you.”

Relaxed as I listen to him now, I lean against the wall and close my eyes, letting his voice soothe me.

“Making friends already,” Lionel says from behind me. I spin around, and he smiles approvingly.

“Heard you did great at rehearsal.”

“I made a fool of myself, but at least some of your other dancers had a good time,” I say. I find myself smiling when he laughs, a booming laugh.

“Yolanda said you’re quite the natural. That you really brought it with you today.”

“Huh,” I say, disbelieving the compliment.

But it feels really good, actually. I’d forgotten how good. To get praised for something.

When Mackenna walks offstage, Lionel waves at him and proceeds to inform him of the same. “Your girlfriend’s apparently a natural dancer,” he says.

Mackenna is sweaty and breathing hard, eyebrows rising at the news. “Of course she is. Who’d you think you were dealing with?”

I’m blushing so hard, I can feel my toes grow red.

“She’s a great skater too,” Mackenna says softly.

When our eyes meet, my heart grows wings. Do you remember, Kenna? How you spun me, caught me, held me?

A long moment passes, and I feel like Lionel gets too uncomfortable with our silence, for he quickly excuses himself.

“So.” I tug on the strand Melanie dared me to paint, suddenly feeling shy. “You had a good rehearsal too.”

A deep, unexpected laugh leaves him, and we start heading into the back of the stage. “I think I missed you, Pink,” he says softly, shaking his head as if that’s stunning news. “All this time.” He reaches out, and his silver ring rubs over my chin in a soft caress.

Briefly.

One second it’s there, the next, gone.

My smile falters as the ghost of his touch lingers on my skin. “I think you’re deluded.”

“Yeah, I missed you,” he says, nodding to himself, his smile sincere. “Such a brave, angry little raven . . . hiding the sweetest, warmest little chick inside.”

I roll my eyes, struggling with how genuine he sounds. “Whatever, Kenna,” I say. Like I’ll ever forget he wrote a song basically telling me how much I suck!

“Hey, Kenna!” One of the backstage roadies passes him a red cup of what I assume is water. He grabs it and starts downing it while the twins come toward us with their guitars slung behind their backs. We watch them head for water too.