Earthquakes

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Bryn

“Two-forty Riverview in Mirbest,” Bryn said to the driver.

“Yes, sir.”

A tic involuntarily twitched Bryn’s upper lip, and he massaged it with one finger. The car’s windows were tinted, so Ellis didn’t see Bryn watching him as the car drove away.

Strange. The guy was…strange. Annoying, persistent, and, damn him, they’d had such an easy arrangement before he went and got all interested. What did the guy think, that Bryn went in early when nobody was around so he could talk to people? For the love of Christ.

At least getting hit on hadn’t been a problem at the last range. The childishly named Shoot Fast Gun Emporium employed men of a very particular kind: overweight, over fifty, and with classic city manners. Or lack thereof, really. They’d all taken one look at Bryn, dismissed him for a fairy t**t, and kept their eyes on his wallet, which spoke their language far better than Bryn ever would.

Bryn hadn’t minded the rough treatment. He had moved to the city from Charles Towne, South Carolina, for two reasons: to dance for the New Amsterdam Ballet Company, and to get away from the South. He had shed his accent along with his inbred Southern socialite standards, and he’d never looked back.

Unfortunately, Shoot Fast decided to change its operating hours. Old Earl or Paul or whatever the hell the man who ran—Bryn used the term loosely—the place was getting tired of opening the range early enough for the before-work crowd. Earl/Paul/Whatever likely wasn’t going to keep running his business very long. He had a chain of dollar theaters that were doing gangbusters next state over, and he and the family were going to move.

So Bryn had learned from Earl/Paul/Whatever’s niece, when he called to inquire as to why there was a sign reading CLOSED one morning when Bryn tried to go in and shoot. The niece had been inside, of course. She worked the cash register. But could she open the doors for a loyal customer waiting in a car in the parking lot? Why, f**k no.

No one in the entire world understood a ballet dancer’s schedule other than ballet dancers and the presidents of countries. The second was the only occupation Bryn could conjure that might require similar rigors of stress and time. Though nobody ever saw the president wake up at six A.M. to attend pre-warm-up for daily class before spending five hours at rehearsals before performing for two hours every night for six days a week during the season. So ballet trumped president, but at least the president would understand why.

Before Bryn rearranged his entire morning schedule, he had called the only other shooting range that was still this side of the state line. Maggie had been calm and collected on the phone, and she hadn’t sounded overly eager when Bryn suggested he pay for an hour of the range’s time for solo action. Bryn counted that as professional, and he’d thought the entire experience would be smooth sailing until, of course, he came face-to-face with the redheaded devil child who apparently had the morning shifts.

Not that Ellis Parker was that much younger or older than Bryn, who was twenty-eight and, yes, still dancing, and, yes, planned on doing it for several more years. For God’s sake, Nureyev had danced over two hundred performances a year or some such insanity and hadn’t stopped dancing until he was freakin’ fifty. Bryn had a while to go. He’d been lucky with injuries so far, and he would continue being lucky. Bryn was careful. Oh so terribly careful.

Other than his habit of frequenting gun ranges. But he’d not shot himself in the foot yet, and he had no plans on doing it in the near future. Though there were days when it was by turns tempting and comforting. If he ever wanted a way out of dance, he had a surefire one. Pun intended.

The car hit a nasty pothole, and Bryn glared at the back of the driver’s head before settling in the seat once again. The leather was warming with his body’s heat, and maybe he could catch a short nap before they arrived at his apartment, on the way to coffee and the Belmeade Center. Bryn crossed his arms and closed his eyes and immediately saw the goofy gun jockey’s grin light up the darkness behind his lids.

What had been going on in that fool’s head this morning?

Bryn was used to the questions. He was used to the attempts at getting information or starting conversation. Bryn could avoid those. He’d been dealing with human sharks in old-money suits sporting Carolina drawls long before facing gossiping corps and hungry paparazzi. Ellis was not a challenge. He wasn’t even a blip on the radar. Forget that they had nothing in common and were terribly unmatched, as his mother would have said. From her grave. Where she would be turning circles in her coffin before she’d admit to herself or anyone else what gay meant. That would mean admitting it existed in the first place.

Anyway, Ellis could keep his toothy smile and his lumberjack-fantasy build and his Christmas-green eyes. Bryn didn’t want anything to do with them. Bryn didn’t want anything to do with anybody. Unless they regularly wore tights, Bryn didn’t do people. And, honestly, he wouldn’t even bother with the tight-clad except they seemed to come as part and parcel of the whole performance career shtick.

He was busy. He was dedicated to his craft. Take the pick of excuses, Bryn didn’t date. Bryn was and always had been f****d-up. He had no interest whatsoever in letting anybody ever know the exact nature of said f****d-up-ness. Other than his therapist, of course, who probably wouldn’t approve Bryn for general s****l consumption. He’d probably have a stroke if Bryn ever mentioned it in one of their sessions. All the better. There were only two people who knew the details of Bryn’s issues, and if his therapist expired, they’d both be dead.

So yes, it was vaguely interesting that Ellis was a Midwestern farm boy, which certainly explained some things, and he was even, dare Bryn say it, adorable when flustered. A blush could flush Ellis’s fair skin bright pink from cheekbones to neck. Even the tips of his ears turned—

Anyway. Bryn didn’t do people. So Ellis needed to go back in the box in Bryn’s mind where he kept memories and accumulated information about anyone remotely interesting. Bryn visualized shoving Ellis into a hole in the ground and slamming a metal door over it. He pictured himself locking it shut. And then he stared at the door while it vibrated with mental Ellis’s protesting slams.

Bryn shivered in the backseat of the car and pulled his jacket tighter around him. “Turn up the heat, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” said the driver, and Bryn managed to doze off for the rest of the ride to his apartment.

It was approaching nine by the time the car pulled into the sweeping covered drive in front of Bryn’s building. “Wait here,” Bryn instructed the driver. Bryn jogged to the door, through the lobby, and hit the button for the elevator until the chime dinged. He rode to the twentieth floor and beat a hasty path down a short hallway to the last door on the right. He used two keys to get into his loft-style home, and he didn’t bother going more than two steps inside. With the lights off and his hip holding open the heavy fire door, Bryn dropped his weapon case in the entryway, grabbed his gear bag, and returned to the hallway. He got the doors locked and was back on the elevator before it’d had the chance to switch floors.

Back in the car, Bryn gave orders for Belmeade Center, which was only a few blocks away, but with traffic, it’d take forever. “Coffee shop’s on the way on the right,” Bryn instructed, and the driver complied.

Half an hour later, Bryn had released the driver from further duties for him that day. Coffee in hand and bag slung across his chest, he walked briskly up the wide concrete-and-marble stairs leading to Belmeade Center’s three-story, solid glass front. He didn’t bother with the revolving doors. He picked a regular one with a pull handle and walked into the atrium. The ceiling was thirty feet above his head and painted with a fantastical scene involving fairies, trolls, devils, angels, and all manner of creatures. Bryn had spent his first year or so debating with other dancers over what myth the mural was supposed to depict. Bryn’s money was still on Dante mated with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Twin curving white marble staircases led to the upper floors and the main entrances to the theater surrounding the stage where men and women had performed ballet for decades. Posters lined the atrium’s smooth walls, and most of them were of Bryn and Jules Sommers in their full The Firebird and The Sleeping Beauty costumes. The season closed in two weeks. Tonight was the last performance of Firebird, and then they’d get a few days to run through lighting and choreo for The Sleeping Beauty. They were going out with a story ballet, which were Bryn’s favorite. The company would be putting on Midsummer in June for a couple of weeks, and Bryn would dance lead.

At the thought of having to dance beyond the end of the season, Bryn’s entire body twinged. By the time he made it to May, he was in peak physical condition but felt like hell. Every night he crashed like a dead man and slept until his alarms, plural, woke him, but it was never enough rest. By the time closing night rolled around, there wouldn’t be enough coffee in the world to sustain him. He used to do pills to keep him going, but he’d stopped that because they made him vomit practically every time he hit the wings during a performance. He’d been put in the clinic for dehydration, and after that, he was done with pills. Coke and harder drugs were out of the question. Not because he didn’t approve of them but because they gave his damaged-goods brain more crazy fodder.

He saw more s**t on drugs. Enough said.

These days he pulled through with sheer willpower and by living for those moments on stage. Decades of his life and day in and day out of practice, and it was all for that moment when he walked into the spotlights.

In that instant, and for the moments he could perform to the vast wash of white light and the darkness beyond it, he was free. Then and only then, he was alive and whole and healed of all the wrongs in life, the pain and heartbreak of it. Being on stage was a nightly baptism. Performing was his religion and a pirouette his prayer.

Bryn took a deep breath. The thoughts of stage could keep him going, but he had to live through warm-up, class, and rehearsal. He headed for the somewhat discreet metal detectors. Bryn went through without a hitch and ran up the stairs to the fifth floor.

There were two practice studios. Both were the size of the main stage, and they were separated by a long hallway. Glass windows along the galley allowed a view into the rooms. Class officially started at ten, but Studio A was full of dancers stretching out in layers of clothes: the pre-warm-up for the class warm-up. Bryn counted the dancers who got to the Bel early as the smart ones. Ballet was entirely unnatural, and it never felt more wrong than first thing in the morning. As the season drew to a close, the body protested the treatment more and more, until one had to coax ability out of muscles set like stones and joints that crackled with every step.

Usually Bryn had a masseuse who came to his apartment for morning massage, but he didn’t have time for that on the days he chose to go shoot. He’d get his body work done after class. He stripped out of his street clothes down to his tights and T-shirt. Immediately, he layered on warm-up clothes, being careful not to catch a view of himself in the mirrors lining the walls. He didn’t want to see the younger dancers staring at the star of the NA Ballet strip and redress, and he definitely didn’t want to look at himself. He might be lithe and lean and in performance shape, but all he’d see were flaws. The neck that wasn’t quite long enough, the shoulders that could be broader, and the feet that he’d had to beat into submission as a child. Not to mention the calves that were so tight he could crack eggs on them.