Hooked 2 (Hooked #2)(18)

But I knew they would never hear me over the striking of the great steel ball, over the anger of the whirring machine.

One man in the center was rather tall, sharp-looking. He held a great clipboard, and he appeared to be talking to everyone else, giving the most orders. He looked so sleek, so important. I looked down my nose at him, hating everything that he was. A corporate snob, certainly. Someone who wouldn’t understand anything I truly cared about.

Suddenly, however, the man turned. The sun glinted against his yellow construction hat. His suit—finely cut—traced his muscles, his firm, taut chest. He smiled at the crew before him, revealing those wolf-like teeth.

My jaw dropped. Drew, for some god-awful reason, was stationed before my dance studio, helping to bring it down.

He was moving his arms wildly, speaking with a broad smile on his face. I wanted to know what the hell was going on. Had he only been sleeping with me to get to my place? But that didn’t make sense! Was he going to build his bookstore here? But why here?

I remembered how I had met him mere blocks away at that coffee shop. I remembered how he had been scouting for a place for his bookshop. Femme Fatale. Why hadn’t anybody told him that was a terrible name for something? Why hadn’t anybody told him that he needed to take his bookstore and shove it?

The fire was burning in my stomach. I scratched my boots against the pavement beneath me. I longed to tear him apart. I remembered how well he had f*cked me the evening before, and I felt hot, angry. I felt used.

I stormed across the street, unable to stop myself. Drew stopped speaking to the people before him as I approached. His face grew surprised, distracted. He smiled at me, removing his yellow construction hat as I approached. Sensing my anger, his smile started to filter off. He frowned.

“Drew,” I said. I stomped my foot a bit, trying not to make a scene. “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Drew held up his hands to the other guys. They all smirked at him, murmuring “trouble in paradise,” to each other.

I led Drew to the side alley next to the studio. I looked up at him with broad, orb-like eyes. I wanted to start crying. “Drew. Drew. How could you do this to me?”


“Do what? Not text you? I have been so busy. So tirelessly busy trying to get this place up and running.”

But I was shaking my head vehemently. “No. How could you have bought my dance studio?” My voice shook as I spoke. I pointed behind me, at the sad-looking building on the corner of Le Moyne Avenue. I knew it was the perfect location; I knew it was a place he would have wanted, regardless of anything else. Perhaps he had chosen me, squashed me on purpose.

But he was shaking his head, frowning. “I didn’t even know you had a dance studio until the other night. I didn’t even know this place WAS a dance studio. The owner told me that it had been several different things. A craft store. A home good store. A health food store.” Drew shrugged before me. “I didn’t know it was yours.”

I started breathing heavily, wanting to crawl into a shell and hide. I could feel the eyes of all the construction workers behind me. “This was my home,” I told him simply. I shrugged, feeling tears wafting down my cheeks.

But Drew just shook his head. “I have a business plan. This is where it’s happening.” He licked his lips subtly, feeling the tension in my eyes. “I’m sorry.”

I backed away from him, feeling the ultimate betrayal. I walked back out of the alley, touching my hand to the glass on the exterior of my beautiful studio. I remembered the hundreds of times I had entered and exited the door, the way the bell had jangled. I remembered, then, that I hadn’t grabbed the bell.

I turned toward Drew, almost ominously. I grabbed my keys from my key ring and deposited the key in the lock, opening the door. Sure enough, on the other side, jangled the small bell I had bought at a local craft store—a store that had since gone out of business. It had been my first decoration for the goddamned place.

I jangled it in the air as if it meant everything to me. I frowned at Drew as I did it, as if everything in the world that was wrong was his fault.

And with that, I turned on my heel and walked sternly back to my apartment. I knew, in my heart, that I couldn’t watch the place get torn down. I couldn’t watch the place fall. I couldn’t watch each beautiful brick become unattached from one another. I couldn’t watch my very heart, my very soul rupture before me.

Jangling all the way home I walked slowly, serenely, feeling at one with the spinning earth. Everything bad that had happened in the past couldn’t affect me anymore. Once, I had been a dancer, the finest at Butler University—and one of the finest in the country. I remembered the way my arms had pivoted through the air, the way my face had looked upwards toward my slender hand during the final pose. I remembered the way they had risen in Clowes Hall, the auditorium, and cheered for me with resounding applause. I remembered my mother, finally proud, spewing over and over again that I—and I alone—was her daughter.

But it all couldn’t go on. A busted knee had happened; a bad audition had happened. Nobody had wanted me, after all those years of continual pirouettes, days of starving myself. Nobody had wanted me—not even myself.

And yet in these past few weeks, I had thought things were starting to look up. This brilliant man—this Drew—had wanted me. He had taken me bungee jumping, and I had been able to feel the serene power of flying, of jumping to a sure death and coming up strong and energized. I had been able to enjoy a beautiful dinner with my best friend, her husband, and this new man—Drew—who seemed to fit in the equation perfectly. Never had anything come together so perfectly before. Never had my heart beat so perfectly in tune with another’s.