Regret coiled in his stomach. Gritting his teeth, Grant turned up the stereo and shook his head. The beat thundered in his chest and made his eardrums ache, yet he couldn’t drown out the thoughts swimming like sharks in his head. Around and around they circled, occupying the space—scaring off any semblance of peace.
He slammed his palm against the sturdy leather-covered steering wheel. He wasn’t looking forward to the rest of his ballet lessons, even with a teacher who was a walking fantasy. He had better things to do with his time...like figuring out how he was going to get his team to victory.
Given his not-too-distant fall from grace, he had a lot to prove and a reputation to rebuild. In particular he had to convince his coach, his team and the fans that he was at the top of his game again. The last thing he needed was to be distracted by a woman. If it were any other girl he’d simply scratch the itch and move on, but that wasn’t going to be possible given the ongoing nature of their lessons.
Groaning, he pressed his head back against the headrest. He had a bad feeling about her; there was something about her that set his body alight in a way he hadn’t felt for a long time. And the way she’d been staring at him after the lesson...talk about an invitation to sin. Warning bells were going off left, right and centre.
He couldn’t do it—not now that he was finally making progress in clearing the mud from his name. This was going to be his season. Nothing was going to distract him; nothing was going to stand in his way.
* * *
‘No!’
Grant sat bolt upright, rigid as though a steel rod had replaced his spine. Perspiration dripped down the side of his neck, his face, along the length of his spine. He felt around in the dark. The sweat-drenched sheets were bunched in his fists as he held on for dear life.
He was alone.
His breath shook; each gasp was fire in his lungs. His chest heaved as he sucked the air in greedily. More. More.
His eyes adjusted to the dark and he could make out the lines of the furniture around him. City light filtered through the slats of his blinds, creating a pattern on his bed. The apartment was silent; the rest of the world was sleeping while he shook.
Slowly his heartbeat resumed its normal rhythm. The tremors would take a while longer to go away—he knew that from experience. It was only a dream. The dream. The one he had over and over and over—the one that woke him with a fright every single time.
Flashbulbs disorientated him, microphones were shoved in his face.
‘Grant! Grant! Is it true you put a man in hospital? Is it true you beat him to a pulp?’
Shaking his head, he disentangled himself from the bedsheets and strode out to the living room. Starlight streamed in through the window and the city twinkled a silent tune. It was a surreal feeling to be in close proximity to thousands of people and yet be completely and utterly alone.
Opening the lid of his laptop, he settled onto the couch. His personal email showed the same sad scene it did every day: zero new messages. Even Dennis, the closest thing he had to a friend, hadn’t sent him anything...not even a stupid Lolcats photo. He clicked on the folder marked ‘family’ and sighed at the measly three emails that he couldn’t bear to delete. The last one was dated over six months ago.
He checked the spam folder, wondering if—hoping that—maybe a message had got caught in the filter, that maybe someone had reached out to him. No luck. The folder was empty.
He’d never regretted leaving the small country town where he’d grown up to pursue football and success in the big smoke, despite the verbal smack-down he’d got from his father. He could remember with clarity the vein bulging in his father’s forehead as his voice boomed through their modest country property. Those three little words: How could you? How could he desert them? How could he abandon the family business? How could he put a pipe dream before his father and sister?
Those wounds had only started healing, with the tentative phone calls and texts increasing between him and his sister. The old bonds had been there, frayed and worn but not completely broken. Not completely beyond repair. Even his father had provided a gruff enquiry as to Grant’s life in the city.
But all that was gone now. Those fragile threads of reconciliation had been ripped apart when he’d brought shame to the family name. They were his father’s words but he couldn’t dispute them. He didn’t have the right to be mad. He was alone because of his own actions, because of the mess he’d made. And, knowing his father, he wouldn’t get a second chance.
All the more reason to make sure the Jaguars were on top this year. If his career was all he had left he’d give it everything. He would not fail.
Slamming the lid of the laptop shut, he abandoned the couch to grab a drink from the fridge. If sleep was going to be elusive he might as well do something to pass the time.
‘Dammit,’ Jasmine muttered as she battled with her large pink umbrella. The blustery weather meant it was virtually useless to ward off the sideways rain as it pelted her in the face and soaked her jeans.
Her hair streaked around her, the dark strands blocking her vision as she wrestled it into submission. She dashed across the busy street, feet sliding on the slick pavement. Panting, she hitched her bag up higher on her shoulder and ducked under the shelter of the doctor’s clinic. She shook the umbrella, flicking droplets of water all around her, and walked through the automatic doors to the clinic’s reception.
‘Hi, Jasmine.’ The receptionist greeted her with a familiar smile. ‘Dr Wilson will be with you momentarily.’
Jasmine sank into a chair and wound her rain-drenched ponytail into a bun. Water dripped down the back of her neck and her ankle throbbed inside her boot, a constant reminder that the accident was not yet behind her.
Another one of the staff members gave her a friendly wave as they walked through the reception area. She was practically part of the furniture here.
After a brief check-up and lecture from her doctor Jasmine left, a fresh prescription in her hand since she’d fed the last one to her shredder. She hated taking the painkillers he’d prescribed; along with her inability to heal, they felt like another sign of weakness.
The doctor had again broached the topic of her seeing a psychologist...as though her problems were all in her head. But they weren’t—they were real. Her ankle would never again be strong enough to sustain her en pointe, and without ballet she had nothing...was nothing. She wrapped her arms around herself as she made her way to the reception desk.
God she missed it—the glitter of stage lights reflecting off sequins, the thunder of the audience’s applause, the thrill of mastering a new part. What could she do with her life now that all those things were gone? Every time she tried to think about it her mind went blank. There was nothing else in her heart except ballet, nothing else she was passionate about. It was ballet or bust...and she was definitely going bust.
Rain thundered outside the clinic and a bright flash lit up the windows, signalling that the storm was raging on. She regretted catching public transport; there was no way she’d get home dry. Stupidly, she’d come without the car she sometimes borrowed from Elise’s mother, thinking perhaps she could save money if she stuck to buses and trams. In hindsight it was a doomed plan, given that Melbourne’s public transport system was prone to failure when the weather turned. But without the cash for her own set of wheels she’d be rocking the drowned rat look on a more frequent basis.
Cursing, she signed the appointment form and paid with the notes from the envelope in her bag. It had her name scrawled across the front in Grant’s chicken-scratch handwriting.
‘Jasmine?’
A familiar voice demanded her attention. Speak of the devil.
Grant stood in