The Third Message novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Number

Miles's POV

At eleven at night, I was supposed to be locking Studio B.

Instead I stood in the dark of the doorway with the key in my fist and watched Lana Aldridge dance.

She had been cleared that morning. Five months after surgery, her doctor had told her she could try a full phrase, as long as she stopped when it hurt.

She did not know I was there.

She stood in the center of the floor in a black leotard, with her hair in a knot and her bare feet set wide.

She breathed in, and she began.

It was the same eight counts I had danced for her on her first night, the ones she'd said she couldn't do yet.

She did them slowly at first, then right.

I had watched her audition tape forty times. I knew every line of her.

I had not known she moved like this in a room.

Her arms opened and her back arched, and for the length of one phrase she was no one's afterthought.

She turned.

The first pirouette came around clean.

I stopped breathing.

On the second, her left leg took her whole weight, and it folded.

She hit the floor on her hip with a sound I felt in my own knee.

I was moving before I had decided to.

← Chapter 10 · All chapters · Chapter 12 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend