The Million-Dollar Question

Over her head, she heard Evan chuckle. “That was graceful.”

Kill me now.

He set her back on her feet. “You okay?” Evan asked.

“I’m fine. Just clumsy.”

His eyebrow went up. “Maybe it was the wine.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Shaking it off, she rushed ahead with forced cheer and casualness. “Well, thanks again for dinner. And for the ride home.”

His lips twitched. “Take care, Liv. And if you ever need anything, give me a call.”

Oh, the irony. “Good night.”

Evan waited until the security door closed behind her before driving away. It had been a really, really strange evening, where nothing had gone as planned, but it hadn’t been bad either. The beginning and end hadn’t been fantastic, but the middle part, like the over-dinner chitchat, had gone pretty well, all things considered. Had she not gone into it with a specific agenda, she’d have called the evening a success.

But even with that failure, the evening still wasn’t a total disaster. She did live in the same city with Evan, and they might run into each other on occasion; having a truce in place made good sense. And when Jory came to town, he wouldn’t feel as if he had to divide his time so precisely. All good things, she thought, as she climbed the last few stairs to her floor.

Everything else could just be ignored.

Annie was sprawled on the couch, flipping through TV channels, but she sat up when she heard her come in. “How’d it go?”

“Not bad.”

“So he’s going to sponsor you?”

“No.”

“He turned you down? Jeez.” Annie went to the counter and got a wineglass, filling it and handing it to her. “That sucks.”

Olivia accepted the glass gratefully and sank into the cushions on the opposite end of the couch. “He didn’t have to turn me down. I didn’t ask.”

“What? Why not?”

With a sigh, Olivia ran through the evening, all the small things that added up to tip the scales in the direction of keeping her mouth shut. She glossed over her rather disturbing reactions to him, because, for her own sanity, that was best left unexamined.

“I can’t say I blame you. I see where you’re coming from, and I’d probably feel the same way. But,” Annie continued, as she cocked her head, “what, then, did you say to explain why you suddenly wanted to have dinner after all these years?”

“New in town, don’t really know anyone …”

“Olivia, really?” Annie sighed. “He’s going to think you still have the hots for him.”

“What? No. Not likely.”

“You said he has an ego.”

“He does.”

“Then he will. It’s actually the only logical conclusion he could come to, to explain it.”

“He might think I’m insane now, but that’s about all.” And he might not be wrong. She stood and handed her glass to Annie to finish. “I’m going to bed. I’ve got Pilates at eight tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“Me, too.”

It was a shame, but there was always plan B. Plan B involved making sure that everyone from the chairman of the ballet board all the way down to the stagehands loved her and working her butt off to prove her value to the company. She’d also talk to the business office to see if they had any ideas of how she could land sponsorship—and to suss out how important that sponsorship really was.

That’s what I should have done in the first place, she told herself as she got ready for bed. That was a far more sensible idea than a half-baked plan to talk Evan into it. Hell, plan B should have been plan A. Too bad she didn’t think of it first.

At the same time, she didn’t regret their meeting. It would make things easier for Jory when he came to town. She didn’t know exactly how much Jory knew about her and Evan, but her brother had made it very clear he considered his roommate off-limits to his little sister. He’d been unhappy and grumpy about it. She hadn’t asked him to take sides, but he always seemed uncomfortable bringing up Evan around her after that, giving the whole thing a patina of awkward wrongness—at least to her mind. That, as much as anything else, had led to making it a thing—which, now at least, she realized it really didn’t need to be.

So, in that sense, dinner wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.

The wine, the food and a long day—both physically and mentally—were catching up with her, and the bed beckoned.

As she climbed in and pulled the covers up, she realized she’d gotten distracted by the near miss with that skater and hadn’t followed up on his mysterious “genuinely me, not you” statement.

What could he have possibly meant?

The next morning, just outside Boca Raton, the sudden blaring of “Born This Way” caused Evan to swerve dangerously in his lane.

What the sweet hell? The news program chattered on from his car speakers, but that was undeniably Lady Gaga coming from … under the passenger seat?

Pulling off onto the shoulder, he searched under the seat until he found the source: a phone that went silent about the time he got hold of it. It had an overly sparkly rhinestone case, and when he pressed the home button to wake it up, Olivia and Jory smiled back at him.

He couldn’t figure out how Olivia had managed to leave her phone in his car, but now the question was what to do with it. The screen had a long list of missed calls from “Annie” and “Theo.” Presumably those calls were Olivia using her friends’ phones to locate her own. But the phone was locked, so he had no way of calling back.

Based on the sheer volume of calls, though, if he waited another thirty minutes or so, Olivia would be calling again. Sliding the phone into his shirt pocket, he pulled back out onto the interstate.

Last night had certainly been odd. And while he still didn’t have a good explanation for why Olivia had contacted him, he didn’t regret it. He just wasn’t sure what, if anything, it meant, and what, if anything, he should do about it.

It wasn’t a feeling he liked. In fact, he intentionally avoided these kinds of situations. Everything needed to be up front and clear, without mystery or games or prevarications. Jory was a straight-up, no games, kind of guy, so he’d assumed Olivia would be the same. Why then did he feel so bothered at the idea she might not be?

He snorted. Maybe because he wasn’t sexually attracted to Jory.

Of course, the next question was if Olivia was still attracted to him? He’d like to say yes, and there had been moments, but that could be wishful thinking on his part. But she had left her phone in his car … accidentally or intentionally?

He was pulling into the parking lot of Riley Construction when Olivia’s phone rang again. “Hello?”

“Hi.” There was great relief in her voice that didn’t sound fake. “My name’s Olivia, and you seem to have my phone.”

Accidentally. That knowledge came with unexpected disappointment and made his words sharper than intended. “Because you left it in my car last night.”

There was a pause, then a confused, “Evan?”

“Who else?”

“I thought I’d left it at the restaurant or something. I didn’t even think to call you.” He heard her sigh. “I’m so glad you have it, though. My life is in that phone.”

“I know how you feel.”

“We should be breaking for lunch soon. Can I meet you somewhere and get it?”

“I’m in West Palm Beach for a meeting and won’t be back until later this afternoon.”

“Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, let me know when and where would be good for you.”

“I can drop it by the studio later, though, on my way home,” he offered for some reason.

“That would be awesome. I’ll be here until around five-thirty or so. The studio is in Wynwood.”

“Then I can find it.”

“Thanks, Evan. I really appreciate it.”

He silenced the phone’s ringer before putting it in his briefcase. Although Olivia would quit calling her phone now, other people might, and he really didn’t want that annoying song blaring out during the meeting. If he was remembering correctly, the MMBC studio wasn’t too far out of his way home, and he could swing by easily.

But, jeez. She was at the studio already and would be there until five-thirty? When Olivia said she worked her body hard, she hadn’t been kidding. Granted, he knew next to nothing about the subject, but he would have guessed the job would be part-time at best. How long could it take, really? He had to assume she knew all the moves; putting them in a specific order for a performance shouldn’t take all that long.

She’d said yesterday that she’d been in rehearsals for six hours. He’d assumed that was either an exaggeration or at least unusual. Six or seven hours in a dance studio couldn’t be easy, much less doing that every day. Or maybe she didn’t dance the whole time? He had no idea. A six or seven hour workday didn’t seem like much, but then Olivia wasn’t exactly sitting at a desk.

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