Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 67

Hello lovelies! I hope that ya'll are having a good week . . . hopefully a chapter from me will brighten your Mondays. I will try to publish another chapter later this week before I get back onto my regular Wednesday update schedule. 

Enjoy! As always, leave me some stars and comments. Love ya'll!

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The pleasant ache of exhaustion and a cool night breeze dance through my lungs.

I've traded in my leotard, tights, and pointe shoes for a cotton T-shirt, a pair of black shorts, and a fresh pair of running shoes. They're pretty cute with their lilac purple laces and splatters of grey, mauve, and cherry, dammit. The worst part is that I had to go buy a new pair yesterday, having woken up from a long slumber and remembering the mistake I had made.

At my side, I feel my contemporary teacher's gaze.

I agreed to go on a run with Cal.

We're going at a seven-forty pace. The numbers and graphics of my Apple Watch glow faintly at my wrist, almost melding with the rest of the city lights. A moment later, the watch goes dark.

The pavement comes fast, and glowering, I glance between it and Cal under the brim of my ball cap.

Unlike me, Cal doesn't have a fancy watch. The one that he wears on his wrist is plain with its black strap and darkened display. Otherwise, Cal wears a grey T-shirt and a pair of running shorts that stop a few inches above his knees. The motions of running make the muscles in his tall legs pronounced, flexing beneath tanned, hairy skin with every step. His running shoes, black with streaks of red, chase after my own along the pavement.

Our steps aren't matched. I have to take extra, make my legs run a little faster to keep up with Cal's long strides.

"You look angry," Cal acknowledges. The autumn breeze musses Cal's hair. His bronze eyes, staring innocently at me, could be two imposters among a city full of lights. "Are you mad at me?"

He notices how I glare at him. My mouth curves downward in a frown, and my nose scrunches up a little. Tension mixes with the cool air on my skin.

Two miles in, and I can't decide how to feel about my Monday evening with Cal.

"I'm always mad at you," I tell him. My words are breathless and casual.

About fifteen minutes ago, Cal knocked on my apartment door with a smirk. He knocked not a second past eight o'clock, one hand on his hip and the other on my door frame. Something about that pose, the pose that he stayed in as he asked where in Central Park I wanted to run, incited something in me.

"Well, I would hope that you're not mad because you're realizing that I'm faster than you. Don't feel bad, Mare. Few people can keep up with me, and you haven't run in a while anyway."

It's a nice evening for early October. Remnants of summer still linger in the air, keeping it warm enough to wear T-shirts and shorts on a run. Married couples and groups of friends meander along the tarred pathways, chattering as they go. Their laughs and murmurs complement my bickering with Cal nicely, along with the far-off sounds of Manhattan traffic.

The dying trees and foliage of the city are turned into vivid autumn golds and shadows by the city light. The hulking buildings of Billionaires' Row are never really gone, and their reflections leap into ponds and lakes. Central Park could be a board game while the skyscrapers of Manhattan are its players. Streetlamps line the tarred paths that cut through Central Park like arteries, the same pathways that I saw not so long ago from a brunch table on Fifty-Seventh Street.