The Running Back and the Prima Donna, Book 2 - Paperback

Collette

I’d kill to be the kind of dancer my mom wants me to be, but it’s just not in the cards. I’m sick of dieting. I'll never fit into the perfect ballerina mold and I’m tired of wishing that I could.

I’m over it. I’m done trying.

I’m perfectly content to dance alone in the dark while the rest of the school is sleeping.

Ethan

Coach says our football team needs discipline. That dancing alongside a bunch of prissy prima donnas is how we’ll learn our lesson.

Only problem?

I don’t have time for ballet. Not when I’m busting my butt to be the star quarterback, the dutiful son, and the perfect student…all so I can achieve my father’s dream.

When I meet Collette, I can’t help but take notice. She’s a vision of grace and beauty all wrapped up in snark and sass. And she helps me see that my own dreams aren’t so stupid after all.

I just wish she could see that in herself. But when I try to bring her out into the light, I can feel her slipping away. Her walls are built up so high, I fear they’ll never come down. I want to love her like she deserves—but that’s just the problem.

She doesn’t believe she deserves it.

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Like with dancing, when it came to staring contests—I was a champion. 

Someone really ought to have told Ms. Boucher this because she was glaring at me in her office as if some tense silence would break me.

Please.

Ms. Boucher might’ve run this ballet academy, but she knew as well as I did that I was one of its rising stars. She couldn’t keep me from dancing forever. Besides, I’d overheard enough gossip to know that this school was in financial trouble. 

She needed me as much as I needed her. 

But if she wanted some sort of silent showdown to prove who had the power here, that was fine by me. I had no place to be now that Ms. Boucher had banned me from dance classes.

A wall clock ticked the seconds as we waited one another out. After a few seconds, I patted my open mouth as I gave an exaggerated yawn, not bothering to hide my boredom.

Was it rude? Perhaps. But I wasn’t at this school to play nice. I was here for one reason and one reason only. This was my out. Ballet was my means to a better life, and no one was going to stand in my way. Certainly not some washed-up former dancer, no matter how much sway she thought she had over me and this school.

“The nurse said you never went to her office after the audition,” Ms. Boucher said. It was a barely veiled accusation.

I arched a brow. “So?”

Ms. Boucher’s nostrils flared. She looked so much like her daughter Collette when she was annoyed, it was kind of funny. But, of course, Collette had no power and Ms. Boucher could literally kick me out of here on my butt so I couldn’t ream her out for implying I’d lied like I would have if this was between me and Collette.

“We’ve been over this, Bianca.” Ms. Boucher leaned back in her desk chair and her foot twitched steadily in time with the wall clock. Even when she wasn’t trying, the former ballerina’s body was moving in time with an inner metronome. “I can’t let you continue dance classes until you’ve been cleared by a doctor.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from lashing out. Anger management had never been my strong suit. And right now? I was pissed.

I shouldn’t have even been here. No one should have known that I’d gotten injured. My throbbing ankle would have been another one of my dirty little secrets if he hadn’t gotten involved.

Ryan Avery.

This was all his fault. The guy had been a thorn in my side ever since he and his football teammates started taking classes at the academy last month as some sort of cruel and unusual form of punishment all around. Torture for the football players because they couldn’t keep up—they might have been able to throw a ball around on a field, but at the barre, they were freakin’ pathetic. 

And it was torture for us dancers because the guys were taking up valuable time and space that should have been used to perfect our skills, not teach some Neanderthals how to stretch properly.

It would have been bad enough if they just came and went, and left me alone. But nooo. These guys weren’t content to just take classes. They expected us to interact with them. They didn’t just attend class, they harassed us and annoyed us and drove us nuts with their slacker attitude and their too-long hair that was always hanging in their eyes, and their—

Ugh, fine. Maybe ‘they’ didn’t do all that. 

He did that.

Ryan had been a pain in my butt since day one, but he’d officially gone from an annoying pest to the bane of my existence when he’d ruined my audition by rushing me off the stage.

Maybe Ryan hadn’t caused my ankle injury, but if he hadn’t interfered, I would have recovered. I would have sucked it up and made it through to the end of the audition. Instead, he’d stormed into the spotlight like the football brute that he was and carried me offstage like he was some unkempt knight in shining armor.

Thanks to him, I’d been booted out of dance classes and I’d had to watch my best frenemy Tilly cry with joy when she’d won the spot in the Juilliard piece that should have been mine. 

It would have been mine—if I’d just been able to finish.

I took two deep calming breaths and forced a small smile for Ms. Boucher’s benefit. “As I told you on Monday, Ms. Boucher. I’ve seen a doctor—my doctor—and he says I’m fine.”

I widened my smile in the face of her scrutinizing stare. She was looking for a chink in the armor, but she wouldn’t find one.

See, here was the thing about lying. To be good at it—to really sell a lie—you had to believe it yourself, at least to some extent. 

Right now, I thought of all the many times I’d been to see doctors over the last seventeen years I’d been on the planet. They’d all told me I could dance.

Had I been to a doctor for my ankle since I’d collapsed on stage two weeks ago?

No, of course not. I could barely afford the pointe slippers I was toting around in my bag right now, let alone the astronomical bill that would come with seeing a specialist. 

“I want you to see one of our doctors,” she said. “I can give you the name—”

“Why would I do that?” My voice was in full-on brat mode when I interrupted. But desperate times, right? I mean, I couldn’t lose this fight. Literally and figuratively, I couldn’t afford to lose this battle.

“Bianca Jones,” Ms. Boucher snapped. “I am speaking.”

I pursed my lips as I waited for her to continue. She was too slow. “I just asked a simple question. Why would I go to one of the small-town doctors at the local hospital when I have one of my own?”

Her nostrils flared with annoyance, but she was too dignified to get into it with a teenager. Either that, or she needed my tuition check too badly to risk pissing me off even further.

I sensed her weakness and I leaned forward with a gloat. I was going to win this argument, and we both knew it. 

Why? 

Because I had more to lose.

“You can’t bench your prima ballerina just because I’d prefer to go to my own doctor. What would the board members say?”

Her lips pinched at the dig. She knew that I knew that she needed me…and she hated it. It was rude of me to remind her, no doubt, but here was another lesson I’d learned in my life: You could either let people walk all over you or you could be the one doing the walking. Throbbing ankle or not, I intended to walk out of this office the winner.

I sniffed and tilted my chin up in the air. “Honestly, Ms. Boucher. Why would I settle for one of the second-rate doctors that have a deal with the school when my specialist is one of the best in the country?”

Another rule when it comes to lying? Go big or go home. 

I stood and slung my bag over my shoulder, ignoring the stab of pain in my ankle. I meant it when I’d said I didn’t need a doctor. I’d suffered worse than this before. All it needed was some time, some ice, and some tightly wrapped tape. 

“Is your ankle still hurting you?” she asked.

I’d just managed to fix a frosty stare in place when she softened her tone, and her gaze lost its edge. “And before you answer that, Bianca, you should know I’ve been watching you. I’ve seen you limp when you think no one is looking.”

Her words stole the lie right off my lips. I didn’t recover quickly enough and next thing I knew, Ms. Boucher was leaning back in her chair with a resigned sigh. 

My heart sank at the sound, because I knew… It was done.

I’d lost the battle in the blink of an eye.

“You’re not dancing again until you show me a note from the doctor,” she said. 

Her tone was so firm, I knew better than to argue that point. I’d just have to come up with a way to get a doctor’s signature. It couldn’t be that hard. 

“Our doctor,” she added.

Crap.

I watched my chances of dancing any more this semester dwindle and disappear right in front of my eyes.

I gave my head a little shake.

Yeah, right. I took a deep breath and straightened my spine. As if I’d cave that quickly. 

Bianca Jones did not quit.

This was just a setback. I met Ms. Boucher’s gaze evenly and was horrified to see sympathy in her eyes. Maybe even pity.

Ew. I so did not need pity. Especially not from her.

What I needed was a plan. Shoving aside the fear and anxiety that were threatening to break out like an invisible rash, I forced myself to instead focus on the reality of this situation. Game planning was my specialty. You didn’t get to be where I was without a plan, and right now the plan needed to be adjusted, that was all.

I crossed my arms and planted my feet hip width apart, ignoring the stabbing pain when my left foot landed. “The winter showcase.”

I didn’t have to explain the significance to Ms. Boucher. At the end of every semester recruiters from dance schools and troupes all over the East Coast came to the academy to watch us dance. It was what we were all working toward. 

My ankle would be fine by then, of that I was certain. But there was another issue that could thwart my plan. “If I don’t get credit for the advanced level dance classes, I can’t participate.”

She arched her brows in acknowledgement. “So that’s what this is about.”

I frowned. “This is about the fact that I am totally fine and hate missing out on rehearsal time.”

Ms. Boucher looked unconvinced as I rolled my eyes. 

“But yes,” I continued. “I really want to participate in the showcase, Ms. Boucher. And if I can’t take class, then—”

“You can teach.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

She was already shifting papers around on her desk, and I got the feeling she was already moving on to the next item on her agenda. 

“What do you mean…teach?” 

Ms. Boucher’s lips twitched with ill-disguised amusement at my confusion. “It’s this thing where you take the skills that you know and relay them to others.”

I rolled my eyes again. Ha ha, our teacher was hilarious. “I don’t know the first thing about teaching.”

“You’re an excellent dancer, Bianca. You know more than you think.”

I huffed as I stood there, arms still crossed. 

“Look,” she said. “I’ve got my hands full with the board presentation coming up and the auditions for the first-year girls’ recital.” She sighed wearily and for the first time since I’d come to this academy, Ms. Boucher looked less like a former prima donna and more like…well, a human.

“So in order to get the credits I need to audition, I have to…teach?”

She outright laughed this time. “You don’t have to sound quite so disgusted, Bianca. You’ll be teaching the younger girls and the class with the football players. Trust me, you are more than equipped to teach those classes.”

My nose wrinkled up in horror at the thought. The young girls—fine, whatever. But the football class? That was filled with my peers. Tilly was in that class, just waiting to gloat about stealing my role. 

And the realization hit me like an oversized linebacker. Ryan was in that class.

Ugh…I so did not want to teach that class.

“It’s either that or sit out your classes and wait until the spring to join the showcase.”

I glared at Ms. Boucher and she came back with a smile. There was no way she was going to back down.

Crap. It was like facing off with myself. 

“Fine,” I snapped, turning too quickly and gritting my teeth against a new jolt of pain. “I’ll do it.”

“Glad to hear it.” Ms. Boucher’s voice was laced with amusement. “You can start in one hour. The team will be ready and waiting for you.”

And she wasn’t lying—the guys from Oakwood High’s football team were ready and waiting when I showed up one hour later, along with the girls in this class.

“Bianca, you’re dancing again!” Eve welcomed me with a big smile when I walked in.

The scowl I turned on Eve had her cowering behind her behemoth dance partner, Cooper. The two had one of the weirder dance partnerships I’d ever seen. Unlike every other pair here, they’d known each other from outside the academy, but don’t ask me how. I honestly never cared enough to ask. All I knew was that they weren’t friends, that much was obvious. She was all nervous and shy around him, and he was super standoffish. Trust me when I said this was not a good combination for dance partners. Every time I looked in their direction they were standing there pointedly not looking at each other in tense silence. 

I was going to have my work cut out for myself with them.

I paused before the next set of dance partners, Ethan and Collette. The newly minted couple looked disgustingly in love as they whispered and laughed about something. 

Probably me.

But I’d happily put up with both of those couples if it meant I could escape the one that came next.

“Bee, I’m so glad you’re back in class,” Tilly called out, all saccharine sweet as if she actually meant it. 

“I’m not dancing,” I said. “I’m teaching.”

“Oh.” She gave Ryan a sidelong smirk. “Well, you know what they say. Those who can’t do…”

Ryan had the good sense not to laugh. He didn’t even join in on her smirking, which must have been hard for him since cocky was his default setting. The guy had resting smirk face. 

“Welcome back, teacher,” he said softly. His eyes were fixed on mine, way too intense and annoyingly serious. He’d been like this ever since the audition. The audition he’d ruined. Too serious around me. Too quiet. Too…knowing. 

Ugh, I hated it. 

I sneered at him now. “I am back,” I said. “And I’ll be dancing again in no time…no thanks to you.”

I whipped my head around and marched to the front of the class. This was a bad idea for two reasons. My ankle did not love the stomping, and also…Ryan took that to be his cue to start humming the Darth Vader theme song under his breath.

I whirled around to face him when I’d reached the front of the room and ignored all the snickering and giggling. Ryan’s serious expression was gone, and he was grinning at me now.

This Ryan I knew. This was the guy who didn’t take anything seriously—not me, not himself, and certainly not dancing.

This Ryan drove me nuts.

This Ryan I could handle.

“Are you through?” I asked with a haughty sniff.

“With you?” He winked as he gave me a lopsided smile that probably made every other girl swoon. “Never.”

I sighed loudly as I rolled my eyes. 

This was definitely going to be the longest semester of my life. 

I clapped my hands together to get the attention of every dancer in the room. “Enough chitchat, ladies. Line up at the barre!”

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