Off Balance (Ballet Theatre Chronicles Book 1) by Terez Mertes Rose

virtuous smile. Three bites and the smile faded. She doggedly plowed through her salad as she watched the men wolf down their second and third slices. Finally she set her fork down. “This is bullshit,” she muttered to herself. “Utter bullshit .” Finally she leaned over and grabbed her own slice of pizza. Plopping back down on her chair, she hesitated before taking a defiant bite. She nodded, as to herself, and took a second bite, her shoulders relaxing.
    Courtney, the pretty dark-haired dancer Lana had admired in company class, had peeled back her cheese and laid it on the side of her plate before taking a bite of the denuded pizza. “Trade you,” said her friend, sitting across from her, “I’m doing protein and not carbs this month.”
    Boyd, a corps dancer with golden, surfer-dude good looks, watched their exchange of cheese and crust with exaggerated amusement.
    “You ladies,” he said. “All of you. You’re gorgeous. You look great just the way you are. And you know you’ll burn everything off, now that we’re working all day again.”
    The protein-eater, a girl named Charlotte, shook her head. “I’m not easing up until I get back to pre-layoff weight.”
    “What, you didn’t work out all July?”
    “I was trying to give my left hamstring extra healing time. And it was family this, family that, all month long. Two weddings and an anniversary party. All these big sit-down meals and relatives pushing me to eat, eat. Casseroles. Mashed potatoes and gravy. God. It’s no wonder America has an obesity problem.”
    “You’ll be fine in no time,” Boyd said. “Especially with classes like today’s.”
    The comment elicited groans and rolled eyes.
    “God, Anders was brutal,” the salad-eater said.
    “I thought I was going to die after that sixty-four-count jump combination,” Courtney said. “And did you notice the way he smiled through it all? Positively evil.”
    Boyd nodded, grimaced. “What a bastard he can be.”
    The others continued discussing the class, but Boyd had turned to Courtney. “Did I see you afterward, in the café with Gil?” he asked.
    “You did.” She smiled. “He owed me a Diet Coke.”
    Gil .
    They were talking about Gil. She strained to listen in.
    “We had this little bet going,” Courtney was saying to Boyd. “I won, he was paying up.”
    “You had a big grin on your face. Was he making a pass at you?”
    “No way,” someone cut in, and now everyone was listening, as if the mention of Gil’s name had the same charmed effect on everyone. “Gil’s not a flirter with the talent, not in that way.”
    "God," one of the guys breathed, "what I'd give for an hour alone with Gil. I could teach him a thing or two about flirting with the talent."
    “Oh, trust me,” Courtney said, “Gil flirts. But he and I are just friends.”
    To Lana’s shock, Boyd turned to her next. “And how about Gil and you , Lana?” He seemed pleased by her panicked reaction. “Min-jun says he saw you two on Monday night, having dinner together at Primavera’s. What are the chances of that?”
    His innocent smile didn’t seem all that innocent.
    Everyone had grown silent, waiting for Lana’s reply. She paused to fortify her response with a gulp of Diet Coke, which went down too fast and made her cough. “It was nothing,” she said once she’d regained her breath. “He saw me leaving on Monday evening and offered me a ride to my place.”
    “I thought I heard you say you lived nearby,” Charlotte said.
    “I do, and that’s what I told him, but it was the end of a long day.”
    “And he has a nice car,” someone else commented slyly.
    He did, a sleek, red Audi TT Roadster. When she’d slipped into the seat and shut the door behind her, encapsulating her in Gil’s more luxurious world, it had felt like a dream.
    “So he offered to drive you home and took you to dinner instead?” Boyd asked.
    “It was his idea, I was just keeping him company,” she stammered. “He was