Tempting /A Jordan Knight fanfic ✔️

Chapter 13: An Uncertain Turn of Events

Are you and your friend going to be home for dinner?

A smile slipped onto my lips as the word 'friend' jumped out at me in Jordan's text.

He'd been considerably nicer to Gabe after he learned that he wasn't here to sleep with me, and even more so, that I wasn't even his type.

I typed back a quick message to Jordan letting him know that we'd be rehearsing late and would have to miss dinner.

Tossing my phone back in my purse, I made my way back to Gabe standing center in the dance hall. It was just us two and the studio—almost like old times.

"From the top?" Gabe nodded, running the back of his arm over the beads of sweat shining across his hairline.

We'd been at this for four hours so we were both a little tired and a little sweaty with a lot more work ahead of us. The competition was less than five months away. We'd changed our entire routine two months before I left New York, meaning we had roughly three months of practice with this piece with a three week break in between. That wasn't enough. We'd rehearse until our heels bled and Gabe knew it too. He knew it was necessary to win.

Thank goodness getting AIM Dance Studio on our side went as quickly and as smoothly as I hoped it would or else Gabe and I would be out a rehearsal space tonight. We met with the woman I spoke with on the phone a couple days ago when we arrived late this morning after a night of gossiping and little sleep. Lucky for us, she took us in gladly, and we'd been rehearsing ever since.

I ran back over to my phone and pressed play on the song I'd chosen for this routine. The song that spoke to the tattered pieces of my heart that were still drenched with betrayal. Soft piano notes drifted into the air, each one sinking down on my soul until it sunk so far, I'd lost it completely within the words of the song. This song, the lyrics, the melody cried with a familiar sorrow weaved into its notes and captured my body in a way that I'd never known until this routine. I danced without thinking about dancing. My mind took a backseat to the music that overpowered my body as it moved and swirled and bled out in heartbreak.

Usually, dancing brought me joy and a release from my own emotions. With this song and this dance? That's when I felt the pain the most. Every second of music that passed through my body was another second I let myself feel the hurt that had been put inside me against my will. For four minutes and seventeen seconds, the heartbreak was as real as it was the night it happened.

Gabe's touch, his fingers, his body against mine were memories of Daniel clipped in and raw. His hands around my waist were mine and Daniel's first date, as he held me as we overlooked the city we both loved on top of the Empire State Building. Gabe's hands around my ankles as he dragged me along the floor were Daniel's hands, grabbing at my legs the first night he learned how ticklish I was and refused to relent.

And as Gabe moved our bodies along the floor until I was on top of him, straddling his waist and looking down at him, I remembered back to the first night Daniel and I made love.

Each movement was a memory and more painful than the last. With the memory of our first date came the self-ridicule of how foolish I was for believing anything he said to me that night. The fond memory of Daniel tickling was lashed with the reality that that was the only time he'd ever done that. He'd discovered something he said he loved about me and yet, never made me laugh like that ever again.

The night that Daniel and I first made love would never come without the after thought of me wondering if the first night that he and Hannah made love was while he and I were still together. I'd bet my life that it was. Every memory was tainted with his unfaithfulness, and as the music grew, so did my resentment.