She pulled her head back and leaned it against the headrest. “Oh, this is so fucking rich. I can’t believe you. Either you’re fucking stupid or the biggest fucking jerk that ever lived.”
Beckham stood up, angry now. She was swinging his emotions around like a game of tetherball.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I would be glad to listen if you’ll explain it to me.”
“Look, I can take a lot of things, but don’t make me out for the fool. If you recognized me, you should have just said so from the beginning.” She looked at him then and he nearly staggered to his knees from the daggers.
“I didn’t recognize you!” he said quietly. “I was drawn to you the moment I saw you, but I didn’t know we’d met before. I still don’t know w-”
She practically choked on a laugh and a sob. “I don’t know why I ever thought I could make this work. It was a stupid, stupid idea.” She started up the car. “I’ve gotta go.”
He grabbed the door before she could shut it.
“Please stay. I’m sorry—I don’t know what I did to make you so angry, but I promise I’ll make it up to you. I need you on this tour.”
She wiped her face and nodded once. He backed away from the car and she slammed the door. Her tires squealed as she drove out of the parking lot.
Chloe and Leo were outside when Roxie pulled up, and they both came running when they saw her crying.
“Why you cryin’, Mommy?” Leo wrapped his arms around her leg and looked up at her with the sweetest eyes.
“I’m just tired and frustrated,” she told him. “And I needed to see my boy.”
Leo hugged her harder. “Here I am.”
“Here you are.” She hugged him tighter.
Chloe studied her and finally came over to hug her too. “Well, we’re glad to see you. We were gonna go to the beach as soon as you got home. Want to head out soon?”
Roxie nodded. “Sounds good.”
Leo reached up for Roxie to pick him up. He put his hands on either side of her face and peered at her carefully. “You feelin’ better?”
“I am now.”
“Good. Wanna hear a joke?”
“Of course.”
“’K … what did the cat ask the zombie?” He bit his bottom lip to keep from yelling out the punchline.
“Hmm … I don’t know. What?”
“Meow’s life?” He’d started laughing before he got it all the way out.
“Meow’s life?” Roxie pulled back, looking in Leo’s eyes.
He stopped laughing but couldn’t stop grinning. “Yeah, you know, like … how’s life? Meow’s life … ’cept zombies are already dead.” His lisp was extra heavy when he got excited.
“Wow, that’s actually a pretty good one, Leo.”
The beach calmed Roxie more than she’d thought possible. When she left Beckham, she was strung so tight, every muscle felt jittery. Now, just looking out at the endless waves and feeling so incredibly small—it made her anger slowly fade away into the tide. She would get back to hating Beckham again tomorrow, but for now, she welcomed the peace.
They found a spot to lay their blanket and stretched out. Leo barely ran in the water and quickly hightailed it back to their towel, teeth chattering. The cold water always shocked him, but he kept going back in for more.
“So what happened?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Roxie groaned.
“Oh no, you’re not getting out of it.” Chloe poked Roxie in the side.
“He asked if we’d met before,” Roxie whispered.
“Shit!”
Of course that’s when Leo surprised them by running back to get warm.
“What’d you say, Auntie?” Leo’s head whipped around faster than lightning.
“I said, ‘Sit!’ Come on, sit by me and I’ll warm you up!” She looked at Roxie guiltily.
“Hmm, yeah,” Leo said, but he went and sat by her anyway.
Roxie flicked Chloe in the arm. Leo sat for all of a minute and then ran back to the water.
“What did you say back?” Chloe stared at Roxie, who was watching Leo jump up and down in an inch of water.
“I got out of there … after I basically got stuck on the f-word and told him all the ways he was fucking stupid.”
“No! What did he do?”
“He apologized for whatever he’d done to make me angry and asked me not to leave the tour.”
“Wait—you’re thinking of leaving? No, Rox. You have to do this.” She grabbed Roxie’s arm and forced her to look at her. “I know this is so hard, but you’ve done the hardest part—seeing him again. Now that you’ve gotten past that initial shock, you have to go all the way. We’ll finally get ahead a little bit. You’ve worked so hard, for so long. There’s no other way you can make money like this—not any time soon, anyway. And this is the safest I’ve felt since I met Alex. I didn’t even realize until being away from him this long, how much I was still fearful that he was around every corner…”
Roxie put her arm around Chloe. “I’m so relieved you got away from him. You seem more like yourself than you have in a really long time.”
Chloe leaned her head on Roxie’s shoulder. “I feel more like myself,” she admitted. “I let him control me far too long. I mean, I get why it was easy for him to control me when we first started dating—I was 14. Remind me one day not to let my daughter date that early.” Her laugh choked in her throat and sounded painful. She sat up and looked at Roxie. “I’m embarrassed, Rox. I wasted so much time with an abusive boyfriend. I never thought I’d let someone … hurt me. I’m the baby of the family—you guys have loved me my whole life. Why would I put up with that trash?”
“He lied to you, made you think he loved you one minute, and then turned on you after you trusted him,” Roxie said softly. “It happens all the time, Chlo-bo. Just be so grateful that you got out. You took control.”
“So can you, Rox. You’re controlling this situation for your son and his future. You can do this. It’s a really huge deal that you got in to begin with … you can’t give up now.”
“He just … Beckham’s very…” Roxie couldn’t get out a complete thought, so she gave up trying. “We’d be okay without the money. We’ve gotten by before this.”
“Barely. And do you really want to live in your tiny apartment the rest of your life?” Chloe snapped.
“Well, no, but … being around Beckham was a lot harder than I expected, too. And I’m paired up with him, Chloe! I never expected that when I tried out. I thought I’d be in a big group of other dancers and that I might not even have to deal with him! And I’m being awful—I should have been fired a couple of times already. It’s mortifying, really, how awful I become when I’m around him!”
Leo came back then and they stopped talking about it. They enjoyed the rest of their day at the beach and Roxie tried to put Beckham out of her mind completely. When they got back home, she checked her voicemail and there was a message from Anthony. He told her he expected her there the next morning for the full rehearsal with Beckham.
At the end of the message, he said, “Beckham said it was his fault you left this morning, so I’ll let you off the hook. This time. But there better not be a next time. If you have an issue, come to me directly and we’ll work it out.”
The next morning on the way to rehearsal she made up her mind to stick it out. No matter how intense things got with Beckham, no matter how much she cringed every time she saw him, no matter how her insides liquified every time he touched her. She was doing this for Leo. He deserved so much more than she’d been able to give him.
It physically hurt her to walk in that morning; her pride was sweating through her pores, but she held her head high. She was a few minutes early, but Beckham and Anthony were already there. She looked them both in the eye and nodded at Anthony.
“I shouldn’t have left without telling you. It won’t happen again.”