When he says he can show her his world, at first she thinks it’s another dirty joke.
It’s coupled with his ever-present grin and a lazy wink, so honestly, she has the right to ignore it. “Get back to work, Alton,” she orders, and he gives her a cheeky salute before obediently stretching his leg up onto the barre. She takes a moment to marvel at the fact that he’s listening to her (she’s still not quite used to it) before realizing that she’s been staring at him.
“Like what you see, princess?” he asks, and even though she can’t see his face, she’s pretty sure he’s smirking. Of course, that only makes her think about his lips, and really--
“Your technique’s improving,” is all she says, her own lips a fine line.
He does a swift jumping twist that somehow changes his position at the barre so that his left leg is now behind him and he’s facing towards her (really, modern dancers are such show-offs). “So’s my ass,” he informs her, his smile absolutely infuriating. “Maybe I misjudged ballet. It has its benefits.”
She tries very hard to keep her eyes off of those benefits and responds coolly. “Maybe if you spent less time looking at your own ass in the mirror and more time practicing, you wouldn’t still be here.”
“You’d miss me, princess,” he returns, switching legs and (purposefully, she’s sure) turning so his behind is facing her once more. She’s so distracted by this that the realization that she would miss him hits her like a ton of bricks. She ignores this epiphany and instructs him to do thirty more pliés.
It’s only at the end of the lesson, when he’s toweling off his head and she’s teasing off her pointe shoes, that she starts to realize that he wasn’t joking. “I meant what I said before, princess,” he tells her. At first, she’s certain he’s talking about her missing him, and she opens her mouth to-- what? deny it?-- before he clarifies. “About showing you my world.”
“Oh,” she says, closing her mouth. “What do you mean?” She’s never really thought of Dean Alton having a world. Of course, she knows all the modern dancers typically hang out in the eastern half of campus, under the stairs and in the shadows of the auditorium, but she’s never really seen him there. She’s seen him smoking in the alley next to the studio building when he’s trying to pretend he hasn’t gotten there early. She’s noticed that his smile is the brightest when he’s talking about his family and his life at home. But she’s ashamed to say that she doesn’t know all that much about him, really. This worries her more. How can she feel so drawn to someone she doesn’t even really know?
His voice breaks her free from this line of thought. “You know,” he says, shrugging, “I’ve seen you dance.” She smiles slightly, remembering. He’d come early, and she’d been practicing for the Nutcracker auditions. She didn’t know how long he’d stood there, but the second she’d seen him, he’d hastily excused himself. “But you’ve never seen me, really.” There’s an odd note of something in his voice, and she examines his face, trying to figure out what it is. There’s the usual light of mischief in his eyes, but there’s something indescribable in there too. Suddenly, she’s struck with the desire to make that go away.
“Okay,” she says, slightly breathlessly. He looks surprised for a moment, almost as if he hadn’t expected her to agree, and that same shame comes back. Is that really what he thinks of her?
“Er, alright then,” he says, pulling sweatpants on over his tights. “We just gotta stop by my house first, I gotta get something.”
They take the subway to his neighborhood. They walk quickly, and she notices his friendly smile has retreated, replaced by a challenging glare. They’re given a wide berth even on the busy street, and she thinks she learns a lot about Dean from the way his fists clench when they get to a corner where a group of men loiter with beer bottles. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” he tells her shortly, and she starts to understand why he punctuates his pirouettes with punches and adds kicks to his arabesques.
There’s no doorman in his building, just a mildew-ridden lobby and an out of service elevator. “Mom’s working,” he says as they climb up the stairs to the fifth floor. “Kay’s got softball, so she won’t be home ‘til five, but Sally could be home. Either that or at the library.” She notices a pregnant silence instead of a mention of his step-dad, and she’s sure that even if he was home, she wouldn’t get an introduction. Luckily, after he’s jiggled his key in the lock a few times to get it to work and pushed the creaky door open, the only person in the tiny living room is a small girl. “Hi, Sally,” he says, tossing his keys on the table and unzipping his hoodie.
“Hello, Dean,” she greets him cheerfully, snapping her book shut. Her eyes widen when she sees Olivia and her unitard. “Are you a ballerina?” she asks.
Olivia nods. “Yes, I am.” This, apparently, is a big deal, because Sally walks over to Dean and tugs his elbow.
“Don’t you think she’s pretty, Dean?”
Olivia can’t see his face, as he’s turned around to grab a water out of their fridge, but his voice sounds unconcerned. “I’ve got eyes, don’t I?” he asks. He turns around, and though Olivia thinks she can see a bit of a blush on his cheeks, his voice maintains its casual tone. “Olivia’s gorgeous.” For some reason, he makes eye contact on this, and she feels something burning in her chest. She shuts it down and wonders if he’s got anything stronger than water in that fridge. She realizes it’s the first time he’s ever called her Olivia and she decides she’ll try and steal one of the bottles from the winos at the bodega when they leave.
“Is she your girlfriend?” Sally persists, and yet another unrecognizable emotion passes through his eyes before he looks away from her eyes and down at his sister.
“Nah, she’s just my ballet tutor,” he answers, and starts walking towards a door she presumes is his bedroom. He pulls his shirt off as she goes, and even though she's seen him shirtless about a hundred times thanks to it apparently being the modern dancer uniform, as well as his blatant exhibitionism, she finds herself tracing the lines of his back muscles with his eyes all the way down to the slight dimples above the waistline of his sweatpants before she remembers that his sister is in the room, watching her with a mischievous look. If Olivia didn’t know they weren’t related, she’d swear that grin was genetic.
"So, what were you reading?” she asks, trying to change the subject to something less dangerous.
“Caro’s Book of Poker Tells,” Sally informs her. “Dean says every young girl should know how to gamble.” Olivia smiles a bit, trying to imagine him lecturing his sisters on card games. The fluttering, burning feeling comes back and she squashes it. “So, are you in the Nutcracker?” Sally asks. “Dean’s been saving up to buy us all tickets, he says--”
“Alright, time to go,” Dean says hastily, coming out from his room in a tank top and yet another pair of sweatpants. For the first time, Olivia notices the small gold chain he wears around his neck, and she suddenly feels about as flustered as he looks. “Fuck off, Sally,” he adds, and Sally blows a raspberry at him before walking into the same bedroom he’d just exited. “Sorry about her,” he says, but she interrupts.
His face splits into a big grin. “Yeah, fucking annoying, but I love her,” he agrees. “Anyway, you probably shouldn’t be dressed like that where we’re going,” he says, gesturing to her ballet tights, “so I brought you some of Kay’s shorts and one of my shirts. Kay won’t mind, she barely wears ‘em anyway, and obviously I don’t care, since I’m giving it to you, but--” He seems to realize he’s babbling and he shuts up. “Anyway, there’s a place to change there, if you want to, or you can change here. I’ll turn around and everything.”
"Here’s fine,” she says, shrugging, and watches as he claps his hands over his eyes and turns around, nearly tripping over the couch. This is a very different Dean from the one she’s gotten to know over the past four months, she realizes as she pulls off her tights and unitard and replaces them with his soft t-shirt (Journey, she reads, and laughs to herself-- of course he’d like dad music) and Kay’s shorts. She wonders if this is what he’d meant by showing her his world, but tosses the thought aside. He’d been talking about dancing, of course.
“Bye, Sally,” Dean shouts behind them once she’s told him to open his eyes. “Tell Mom I’m at the rec center.”
“Bye, Sally, it was nice meeting you,” Olivia calls as well, and from his smile, an even brighter, more boyish version of his usual beam, she’s sure she made the right choice.
“Alright, so, I couldn’t get us my favorite teacher ‘cuz she just had a kid,” Dean says, walking out of the main office at the rec center. “Mandatory maternity leave or some bullshit,” he says, rolling his eyes, though Olivia has a feeling he’ll be off to visit the baby the second he can. It’s a pleasant feeling, knowing him like this, and suddenly she’s grateful that she agreed earlier. “Anyway, the teacher we’ve got is kind of a dickhead,” he continues, frowning, “but at least you’ll get to meet everyone.”
He is kind of a dickhead, Olivia agrees privately once they’ve met him. The sort of dickhead she would have thought Dean was-- the sort of dickhead she had thought Dean was, she corrects herself-- all full of lewd comments towards the women in the class, and convinced he’s a better dancer than all of them. When Dean tries to get them a spot in the back to avoid him, Olivia is struck with a better idea. “No, let’s go in the front,” she says.
“Uh, okay,” he says. She grabs him by the hand and tugs him to the front. She ignores the instructor when he looks her up and down and greets her in a slimy sounding voice. Dean moves forward as if to shove him and she shakes her head slowly. She’s got a plan.
When the instructor turns on the music, she’s struck by how different it is than what she usually dances to. Sure, she choreographed a variation to Panda to piss Dean off once when he kept acting like all she knew was classical music, but he kind of had a point.
She learns the moves as the teacher calls them quickly, but everyone else in the room seems to feel them ahead of time, including Dean. She looks over at him at one point during a particularly complicated combination, and though his eyes are closed, it is not with confusion but something that looks like peace. She sees now why ballet infuriated him at first. Looking at the flowing of his hips and knees and torso, she can’t imagine putting that motion to Tchaikovsky.
She also sees, though, the way the instructor’s feet miss steps even as he calls them, and the way Dean’s feet fill in the gaps smoothly. She sees the way the instructor’s hips sway just a second too late, and the way Dean’s don’t even need instruction to shift into the next position. When the instructor calls a break, the look on Dean’s face is that of a man waking up from an invigorating slumber. He looks more alive than she’s ever seen him. Unfortunately, the instructor has seen all this as well, and his lip curls in distaste as he examines Dean.
“Do you think you’re too good for my class?” he hisses.
Olivia can see Dean’s fists clench, can see the way he shifts his weight into a fighting stance. “No,” he grits out, and she wonders if he’s holding back for her sake.
“That’s a shame,” she finds herself saying, “because he is.” She hears a woman behind her gasp, and sees Dean gape at her, but she holds her ground.
“Well then,” the instructor begins, looking furious, “maybe he should teach it, if he’s so good.”
“Maybe he should,” Olivia returns, not sure where the initial courage came from but finding it now in Dean’s eyes.
“Fine.” The instructor looks as though he wants to fight for a moment, but loses his nerve and stalks out through the exit. Olivia regrets her earlier comparison. Dean never would have lost his nerve.
“Er, princess?” Dean asks, looking confused. “Not that wasn’t.. uh, really cool, but... all these people paid for this class.”
Still high on the adrenaline from that encounter, she smiles brightly at him. “Well, now they’ll get their money’s worth.”
“Honestly, princess, I’m sure you’re a fast learner, but even you couldn’t teach them after one go--”
“Not me,” she interrupts impatiently. “You. Like I said to that asshole.”
He gapes at her. She opens her mouth to explain, and then realizes she hadn’t really put much logic into this. It’s a frustrating and new experience.
Luckily, because Olivia’s now starting to wonder if this was all a bad idea, the older woman behind them steps up. “Dean, I’ve been watching you dance since you were seven,” she says. “You could teach this class in your sleep.” She nods at Olivia. “I’m just glad you found someone who knows how good you are. Keep her around.”
Dean’s mouth opens and closes like a fish for a few seconds, as though he’s not sure what to deny first, before he finally snaps it shut. “Right then,” he says, sounding faint. “Okay, everyone, we’re gonna start on the next song,” he calls, and though a few people in the class seem confused by the instructor change, everyone listens to him. He takes a deep breath before pressing play on the next song, and she gives him what she hopes is an encouraging look. He smiles back, and she recognizes some of the old Dean in it. He closes his eyes. When he presses the button, the music seems to flow into him, and his body starts moving before his eyes even open again. He calls out the first step perfectly and she gives him a wide grin as she follows.
“I think you just got me a job,” he says, still sounding flummoxed, and now that she’s had a few minutes to process everything that just happened-- holy shit, yeah, she did. “I was talking to Carla at the front desk, and she says that everyone wants me to come back. At least until Gloria’s back from maternity.” They’re walking back towards his apartment now, and she doesn’t even feel the cold November air on her bare legs.
“Well, you deserve it, Alton,” she says, returning to the safety of his surname. She doesn’t know what had come over her inside the halls of the rec center. She tries not to think too hard about it. “You knew it better than he did.”
“Still,” he says. “Holy shit.” She agrees. They walk half a block in silence before she speaks again.
“So, about the Nutcracker--”
“Oh, fuck, don’t listen to Sally, she just--”
“If you want to come, I have extra seats.”
Her words sit in silence while they wait for the light to change. She feels the need to clarify, to explain, and she continues. “We’re allowed four tickets each. Addie-- my sister-- she’s off at Harvard, and my dad hasn’t left the house in years, so if you want to come, you don’t have to buy tickets or anything. You can have mine.” The absence of her mother is strong in the sentence, and she digs her nails into her palms to try to keep from crying.
His voice softens, almost as though he knows. “Are you sure?”
The light changes and they cross the street in silence. She watches as several emotions seem to flit across his face, and she thinks maybe she can finally start to name some of them. Guilt. Excitement. Calculation. Sympathy. And one more that remains elusive. Finally, he settles on the same cocky grin they’d started with. “So, this cavalier guy. What’s his deal?”
She thinks about Aaron’s cavalier. She considers the note of worry-- and maybe jealousy?-- in Dean’s question. "I think you’d like him. Very brave, knight-in-shining armor type.”
Dean shrugs. “Never met a guy in tights I liked.”
Olivia grins. “You’re a guy in tights now,” she points out. “Does the rec center have ballet lessons?” He grumbles incoherently and, struck by a sudden notion, she links her arm in his. “’Course, you’ll have to practice those pliés a bit more before you you can teach anyone.”
His worry seems to vanish as he banters back with something about his knee strength, and by the time they’ve reached the end of the block, they’ve bickered about twelve different subjects, and things start to feel like normal again. But when he walks her into the subway, wasting his own metrocard swipe to make sure she gets onto the train safely, she realizes that something has changed between them. She folds her hands in her lap as the subway begins to move uptown and she sees him smile to himself before he moves away. Something has changed, and it feels a lot like a good thing.
