“What’re you doing?” I whispered, walking up behind her.
“Shit,” she gasped, standing up, rounding on me, one hand balled into a fist, the other still clutching her phone, ready to throw down. Obviously, I’d startled the hell out of her.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “Don’t hit me.”
She clutched her heart, still staring at me with wild, frightened eyes.
“You must be guilty of something,” I told her. “Why’re you sneaking around out here?”
Grabbing my hoodie—it was cold this morning—she yanked me down beside her and tipped her head down the street as she turned her phone sideways to snap more pictures.
From our vantage point, I saw Senan in front of the CBC, having what looked like a tense conversation—there were a lot of sharp motions involving his arms and hands—with a tall, handsome, swarthy man wearing what looked like an Italian bespoke suit.
“What are we thinking?” I asked Luna.
“He’s steppin’ out on Lincoln. Look at the body language. What else could it be?”
The man took hold of Senan’s bicep, and Senan yanked free, shoving the man back and then flipping him off while giving him that smirky, arrogant smile I hated. The man shrugged like whatever was happening didn’t mean a thing to him.
“Not sure you’re reading that right,” I told Luna.
“Whatever, who cares, I’m taking pictures to show Lincoln, and hopefully, he sends Senan packing.”
“You think this is all Senan’s fault?”
She turned and looked at me. “Lincoln Palmer is an extremely talented choreographer. I met him a while back in Rome, and that guy and the one here with us now are not the same.”
I had to agree. When Eli brought up Lincoln’s past work last night at dinner, hisBrocéliande, I was reminded that Lincoln was, in fact, amazing. But the harried, drug-addled guy working with us was not a man at the top of his game. Something was very wrong.
“We should talk to Lincoln,” I told her.
“Why do you think I’m documenting Senan fucking around on him. Maybe this will snap him out of the spell he’s under.”
“I think it’s over,” I said as the man got into a BMW sedan with blacked-out windows. “Can we go in now?”
“Stop petting me,” she snapped.
“I can’t help it. It’s soft and kind of soothing.”
“Uh, fine,” she grumbled, letting me stroke her jacket as we made our way to the front door once the coast was clear.
Lincoln was notin the practice room, or his office, or anywhere in the building as far as we could tell. When I poked my head into Nura’s office and asked after him, she said he had a personal matter he had to attend to that morning.
“Of course he does,” Luna said, eyeballing Senan as he worked out at my spot at the barre. “Why does he have to do that?”
“Because he can, and I shouldn’t care,” I apprised her with a shrug. “I mean, yes, it’s been my spot when I practice for three years, but this was bound to happen.”
“Why was it?” she asked sharply. “Most dancers I know respect the process of others and aren’t total fuckin’ asshats.”
It was hard to argue.
Later, once we were changed and heading into practice, Senan yelled from the other side of the room, “What were you even doing there last night? What were you trying to accomplish with that show of grandstanding?”
I leaned around Luna and realized everyone was looking at me.
Senan went on, “Were you hoping Lincoln would be there alone so you could talk him into changing your non-role into something, anything at all inSwan Lake?”
It took me a second. “I’m sorry, are you talking to me?”