39. Best Modern Choreographers

THIRTY-NINE

#13 Gene Kely

Nathan followed me down the stairs of Marie's little building, out onto her street with its crooked alleys and topsy-turvy buildings, and down the block despite the fact that I had no idea where I was going.

When I'd first arrived in Paris, Marie had let me wallow for exactly a week. Then she tried to use some of her spare time when she wasn't in her cooking classes to take me around the city, but quickly discovered I was only interested in lying in bed. Museums held no appeal. I didn't care about architecture. Music, art, fashion—none were interesting at all.

Since arriving, I'd only left her apartment to buy tampons and chips at the corner store. If I had to find my way back now, I honestly wasn't sure I could.

"Do you know where you're going?" he asked when I'd circled a building that brought us back to a corner that I was pretty sure we'd already passed.

"There's a river somewhere," I grumbled, looking down another identically charming street with white plaster buildings, shuttered windows, and cobbled sidewalks.

Nathan looked around like he thought the river might pop up out of the gutter, then seemed to make a decision. He took my hand and turned to the left. "It's this way."

I snatched my hand right back—not because it burned, but because it felt too good. I'd been yearning for that strong, capable touch for eight solid weeks, and now that he was offering it, I was legitimately afraid I wouldn't let go.

And I had to let go. That was the one thing I was sure of.

"How do you know your way around here so well?" I asked, noticing that Nathan seemed comfortable guiding me through the neighborhood.

"My parents took us on several tours of Europe when I was younger. We spent a lot of time in Paris." He looked around. "I always liked St. Germain. It's very clean."

Of course, he'd been here before. Up until two months ago, the fact that Nathan had obviously come from a rich family had been essentially theoretical. I'd always known he had money. The fancy apartment. The luxe wardrobe. The expensive painting.

But having money to spend on things like that didn't compare to an entire lifetime built on that kind of privilege—something I was quickly realizing I'd never really understand about him. Not completely.

"Paris is a notoriously difficult city to navigate because it's not designed on a typical grid, like New York," Nathan said.

He led me down another cobbled street, past several small galleries and a church from which Chopin was floating out to the sidewalk. I only knew that because it was the same song Mrs. Suarez used to play on a rickety piano while my beginner ballet class practiced our pliés.

"The arrondissements are organized kind of like a spiral," he continued. "Your sister lives in the sixth, which is close to the city center. All of the neighborhoods have touchpoints from which the streets extend like asterisks, which can be even more confusing. But if you can find the Seine—that's the river—you can usually reorient yourself pretty quickly." Nathan paused, glancing at me sideways. "I'm going on. Sorry."

I shook my head. "It's interesting. Good to know, I guess."

And it was, I supposed. Especially if I was going to stay here a while longer. Not because I'd listen to that voice read a user manual and be perfectly entranced. Not at all.

Nathan led me down another street lined with apartment buildings similar to the one Marie lived in, with their white plaster exteriors, limestone trims, and the garret roofs with their tiny balconies. The sun was shining, the occasional flower bloomed pink from cracks in the cobblestones, and the city smelled like wine and sunshine.

Under normal circumstances, this might have been the picture of a romantic day—April in Paris with the man I loved. But a cloud of dread hung over me the longer we walked. Mostly because I knew this had to end.

We rounded a corner and found ourselves on a busy street, directly across from which flowed the Seine, twinkling bright blue under the sun. On the stone walkways that ran alongside the water, people rode bikes, walked their dogs, or simply just meandered while smoking their cigarettes. Bridges arched across the water in both directions.

"That's the Jardin," Nathan said, pointing to the long expanse of green across the water. "And beyond that is the Louvre. But I thought we'd go here instead." He pointed to a large building that had massive arched windows and multiple clock towers topped with spires like hats. "It's the D'Orsay."

I stared up at the building. The name meant nothing to me.

"It's where the Degas collection is," Nathan told me. "The artist who painted the ballerinas. I thought you might like to see them in person."

I looked at him, at the hopeful expression on that ridiculously chiseled face.

"What are you doing?" I burst out before I could stop myself.

Nathan reared back, almost like I'd slapped him. "What do you mean?"

I waved my hand around like a flapping bird. It was so small, but I felt like a secret button had been pushed, shoving the adrenaline into my body that had been missing for two solid months. Suddenly, I wasn't stuck in an endless cycle of listlessness. I was energized—mostly out of frustration.

"I mean, what in the mixed signals is going on here? This isn't a date, Nathan. We aren't meeting up for a stroll and a movie. Two months ago, you found out I was in a sex tape and hid it from you. Your family found out, and it ruined your chances of getting independence from them, which means I basically ruined your whole life. And now you're here, acting like nothing happened, and I don't understand. What do you want from me?"

By the time I was done speaking, my voice was cracking on almost every word. Several people glanced at us and murmured in French as they passed, clearly curious about the girl on the verge of a breakdown.

Nathan, to his credit, didn't seem the slightest bit ashamed as he closed the distance between us. His hands hovered over my shoulders, but when I looked at them, they fell to his sides.

"I found out where you were, and it seemed like the right thing to do," he said. "The only thing to do."

"Why?" The question pained. I hated that I didn't know the answer. "To punish me? To sue me? To rub my misery in my face? Or just to show me what I can't have anymore?"

"None of that." His brown eyes were full of something mournful. Something deep. "I came because I had to know you were okay." He shook his head. "What my brother did was deplorable. I don't blame you for leaving at all."

"Blame me," I muttered before I stumbled backward and walked around in a quick circle. Suddenly, I felt trapped in my own body, buzzing with energy that had no way of getting out. "Blame me for leaving? What about you? You left with them. Walked right out of the planetarium while I was standing there, bawling my eyes out."

It wasn't until I said it that I realized I wasn't just sad. I was also mad. For months, I'd been beating myself up over the whole situation. Depressed that I wasn't enough for him to stand up for. Heartbroken because I'd failed to protect him from my past.

But that was just it. My past. I'd made mistakes. Big ones. But also, I had been so young. That tape was an enormous stain on my life, but it didn't have to define me.

But he had let it. He had looked away from it then, and he was looking away now, seemingly unable to meet my angry gaze while people around us continued to watch and whisper about the odd Americans making a scene on the steps of the famous museum.

"Was I supposed to stay there and punish you?" he demanded right back. "Allow my parents and my brothers to continue talking about you as if you were nothing, hurting you like that? I couldn't bear it, Joni! I couldn't stand the look on your face every time my mother called you a name or someone played that goddamn video. It was fucking torture."

"How do you think it felt for me?" I shrieked.

We seethed at each other for a good long minute, letting the sounds of tourists, traffic, and the rest of the city argue for us.

When I tried to turn away, though, Nathan took me by the wrist, forcing me to face him.

"The only thing I could think of was to get them away," he said, his voice back to a normal timbre. "I knew if I stayed with you, they wouldn't go either. So I left. I was always going to come back. Please believe me."

I couldn't answer him then. My throat was too choked with grief, and I was too busy fighting tears to think of anything to say.

"Pardon?" We both turned to where a man, maybe a little older than Nathan, was approaching, hand raised to me. "Mademoiselle, ?a va bien?"

I shook my head. "I don't speak French."

"We're fine," Nathan snapped at him in an unusually rough voice. Then to me, much more gently, "Would you prefer to walk along the water? Maybe a museum wasn't a good idea."

Wordlessly, I nodded. "Sure. The water sounds…fine. I guess."

He could have offered a shipping container for all I cared. I just wanted to get out of this place.

He reached out as if to take my hand again, but then seemed to think otherwise.

Oh, that hurt too.

"This way," he said, gesturing toward a crosswalk.

I followed him across the street, then down a set of stairs that led to the cobbled pathways lining the river. We walked for a while in silence, passing under one bridge, then another.

It was like being on a movie set. I sighed and found myself humming the lilting bars of one of the musical numbers I remembered, just like I used to as a kid. It would get me in trouble at school, but it was one of the few things that would calm my screaming brain when it felt like this, like a caged animal clawing to get out.

"What's that you're singing?"

"‘Our Love is Here to Stay,'" I replied, my voice dead. "From An American in Paris. Ironic, I know."

When he shook his head blankly, I sighed and went on.

"Gene Kelly sings it to Leslie Caron, and they dance here on the Seine. Nonna and I used to watch that movie when I was little. I memorized all the steps." I did a few of them, just out of habit, then sighed again, dejected. "Leslie Caron wasn't much of a singer either, but she could really dance. I wanted to be just like her."

Nathan watched me carefully through a few more steps but didn't speak, even when I returned to walking next to him.

It took several more steps and then about fifty yards of walking while watching the river before I calmed down again.

"Were we in a relationship?"

I blinked and turned to where Nathan walked; hands shoved into his pockets in a way that made his biceps bulge distractingly. "Huh?"

Nathan's brows were furrowed in concentration. "A relationship. I'm not always very good at figuring those things out, but I thought that's what it was by the end. We lived together. We talked a lot. Had sex. Agreed things were no longer pretending. Wasn't it a relationship?"

I blinked. Usually, it was the girl who had to wheedle these things out of the guy.

"I—yes," I said. "Yes, it was. At least I thought so."

"So, that meant you were my girlfriend, right? My real one."

Past tense, I noticed bitterly. "You would think."

Nathan stopped. "Then shouldn't my girlfriend have told me where she was going instead of just disappearing?"

I scowled. "Shouldn't my boyfriend have stayed in the room when I was clearly in pain?"

"Shouldn't my girlfriend be honest with me about something that was endangering her in the first place?"

"Endangering me? I think you mean endangering you?—"

"The video of you having sex with another man was never going to do anything to me or anyone in my family," Nathan said impatiently. "Despite what my brother and parents might say about it. But the fact that your ex…I don't know what to call Shawn…had a recording of you like that. You couldn't have thought that would end in anything good."

"I thought he would forget about it," I said. "And then, when I realized he hadn't, I had hoped not to burden you with it."

"That's a lie. You weren't trying to protect me. You were protecting yourself. You were ashamed and afraid, so you blocked out the possibility instead of dealing with it."

I opened my mouth to argue, but found that I couldn't. He was right, infuriatingly so.

"But if you're in a relationship with someone, you share those burdens, don't you?" Nathan went on.

"Like you shared all your burdens about Isla?"

"Not immediately, no," Nathan admitted. "When I realized what we were…I did share them."

"It was still different," I retorted. "Your burdens make you a hero. Mine just make me an idiot. A sad, stupid…"

He closed the space between us almost instantaneously and grabbed my waist. "Stop talking about yourself like that."

"Why? It's true." I couldn't help the bitterness leaching into my voice. It tasted like poison. I probably deserved it.

We blinked at each other through the afternoon light, seething at each other a bit like cats.

"Whatever," I said in the end. "It's not like I really know the rules. I was the worst person you could have picked to teach you how to be in a relationship, considering I've never really had one before. Not like that."

Nathan stared at me for a long time, some muscle in his jaw ticking before he gave a curt nod and relaxed his shoulders. "Me neither."

I nodded back, not knowing what to say. Why was he even telling me this? Working through his shit so he could be ready for the next person? That Charlotte woman, maybe. Someone on his level. Someone who wasn't such a mess.

Gradually, the cracks in my heart turned to fissures. And when Nathan stepped away, the hand at my waist leaving a print as surely as if it had been dipped in ink, those fissures split completely.

"I didn't like doing it," I blurted out as we continued walking along the water's edge. "The video."

Nathan cast me a wry look. "That seemed obvious. Based on what I know about you…that way."

I could feel myself color at the memories. Yes, he would know what it looked like when I enjoyed myself in bed.

"And I don't like serving drinks topless either. Stripping, whatever you want to call it. And I've been in plenty of risqué shows, even done a burlesque class. Nudity doesn't bother me. Never has."

Nathan nodded. "It makes sense. Bodies are just bodies."

Such a surgeon's clear-eyed assessment.

"I did like yours, though."

Another assessment. He wasn't even looking at me when he said it, but I couldn't help the way my stomach flipped anyway.

Until I remembered he had said "did." In the past.

"Some girls are fine with it, maybe even like it, and that's great for them," I continued. "But I don't like being looked at that way. If someone's going to look at me dancing, I'd rather they see the dance. Not the shape of my ass or how well my tits shake in their face. I was only doing it for the money, but I decided I don't need it that much. Not yet anyway."

By the time I was done speaking, Nathan's hands were clenched at his sides, fists opening and closing in that way that meant he was agitated. I took it as a sign to stop talking.

"How old were you?" he asked a few moments later. "In the video."

My face flushed. "I don't want to say."

He stopped and turned. "How old?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Joni. How. Old?"

"Sixteen!" I blurted out. "Sixteen, all right? So, you can't just say I was a child because, by that age, I definitely was not. And yes, the guy behind the camera is Shawn. He said it would be hot. Said it would only be for him, and that it was how I could show him I loved him. You don't know how it is, thinking you're in love with someone like that. Someone who twists your words around all the time, strings you along like a puppy some days, leaves you cold on others. I was desperate, I guess, and stupid, and…"

By this point, tears were streaking down my cheeks. All the emotion that had just been lost in a dead void for two months was rising to the surface, and I didn't know what to do with it.

"I just wanted to be loved," I whispered at the end, then turned to the river as I buried my face in my hands. "That's all anyone really wants."

Several cyclists rode past us, the whir of their bikes filling the silence while I fought and failed to get my emotions under control. As soon as they were gone, I found myself turned back around and wrapped in Nathan's big arms. Wrapped in his warmth. His comfort.

Oh, God, it felt good. It felt like home, though I had no right to think of him that way.

"You are loved," he said as he pressed me into his chest. "You are."

I sniffed into the blue knit of his shirt. "I know I am. I have about a million people in my family who have a new opinion about my life every other second. I know in my heart that if they didn't care, they wouldn't say anything. But back then, I just wanted something different. I don't know how to say it."

"You wanted acceptance."

I looked up, and my heart almost cracked in half as Nathan gently wiped another tear from my cheek and then tucked some of my hair behind one ear. But he didn't speak.

I waited for my own voice to bubble up again, spill out the emotions I generally couldn't keep locked up.

"You have it," he finally said softly. "From me. Joni, I don't care about the video. I don't care if you want to take your shirt off or not while you serve people drinks. I don't care if you want to dance or walk or sit around all day watching television until you figure out what's next. I just want you to be you because…I accept you. And I love you."

I hiccupped back a sob. "What?"

Nathan smiled. Just a little. But it was enough to make my heart squeeze in my chest like a sponge wrung out at the sink.

"I love you," he repeated clearly. "And I think you love me too."

We stared at each other for a long time, close enough to take in each other's scents and for the rest of Paris, the rest of the world, to blur around us like there was nothing else.

I waited for him to take it back. I waited for him to tell me that it was all a joke. Or to add an addendum to the whole thing. To tell me that even if he did feel that way, it wasn't enough, because I'd never be the kind of person who would fit into his perfect, ordered life.

But he didn't. Just stood there, as patient as ever, cupping my face and waiting, waiting, waiting for me.

My Nathan. My Nathan. Waiting for me to tell him just that.

"I do love you," I whispered as one more tear trailed down my cheek. "I love you so much it hurts. I love you so much I want to tear the feeling out of my heart, then shove it back in because I know I couldn't live without it. I don't know what to do with these feelings—they're too much, they're too?—"

"Shh." Nathan pulled me back into his chest and gently rocked me side to side as he stroked my hair out of my face. "I know. I know."

"Do you?" I sobbed, not even caring that I was probably streaking eyeliner and makeup across his perfect shirt.

One of those broad hands came up to cradle the back of my head. "I do. Better than you think."

We rocked like that for a moment, back and forth, a quiet, kind repetition that gradually soothed my soul enough that the tear began to ebb, and I was finally about to look up at him again.

Nathan framed my face with his hands, using his thumbs to brush the last of my tears away.

"So beautiful," he murmured.

He didn't look away. Not even a little.

"Can I kiss you?" His voice nearly floated away on the wind.

I popped onto my toes. "Do you really need to ask?"

"I'm just checking. Consent is important. Especially in moments like these." He took a step closer. "Giovanna," he said in that particular way of his, like he was tasting something extraordinarily sweet. "Joni."

I hummed in response. "Nathan," I whispered, but more to myself than to him.

"Can I kiss you now?"

By that point, his gaze was roving. Hungry. Like he couldn't keep it in one place because there was much to take in. Then his brown eyes met mine like he was forcing them to stay. Wide and open.

Chocolate.

"Yes," I whispered. "Please."

We stared at each other for a few more moments. Then Nathan Hunt—my fake boyfriend who had somehow become my true love—slipped his hand around my waist and placed his mouth with the same precision that seemed to direct every action in his life. Maybe even led him to me.

It was a kiss like no other.

Slow but deliberate, it deepened into something that reached to the bottom of my toes and tugged, linking my soul to his like a chain forged from steel. His tongue found mine with a deep caress that seemed to caress my heart.

And he didn't stop. He didn't pull away. He kissed me and hugged me and loved me until I'd had my fill. Until we'd both gotten everything we needed.

Or at least what we could there on the bank of the Seine.

He pulled away with a gasp, and I whimpered in his response. My hands clutched his hair, unwilling to release the silky locks. He only smiled as he untangled their grip and pressed a kiss to my knuckles.

"I think," he said, "we should go back to my hotel."

"Why there?" I asked.

"Because I don't think your sister will appreciate it if I ruin her apartment. And for the things I want to do to you right now, I'll need some extra space."