Did she have to go so far? Aria sped up her steps. Now she couldn’t get the image out of her head.
“You confuse me, Miss Darling.”
Aria turned to her. “Why?”
“Are you in love with him or not?”
Aria’s mouth went dry. How should she answer that? Harper might as well be his mother asking a question like that. “It’s a bit early to—I mean I like him, sure, but—it’s difficult not to fall in love with him.”
Harper smiled and kept going. Thankfully, not pressing Aria about it further.
When they reached the hall, Gray was already there warming up.
Aria envied him that he was able to do what he loved most. She also liked looking at him while he stretched his long, shapely legs on the bar.
When he saw her, he smiled. There were people in the future who smiled when they saw her, but not every single time. Gray made it clear that she pleased him no matter what was going on in his life.
Without speaking a word, Harper took her place on the stool and readied her violin to play it.
Aria thought she was going to sit and watch him dance, but when he lifted his leg off the barre and went to the corner nearest her to retrieve something from the shadows, her blood swooshed loudly in her ears.
He went to her carrying something that hung from his fingers like a cloth.
“I had this made for you,” he said thickly. “I used your tiny skirt as a model for something a bit less scandalous in the ballroom.” He opened his fingers and let the peach silk fall over them. “The women tried to match the color of your Dartmouth top. This was the closest they could get to it. Are you disappointed?”
Aria stared at his offering. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was silk chiffon. She reached out to touch it. As expected, it felt like a sheer veil in her fingers. “Silk chiffon is very costly. I couldn’t wear it.”
Immediately, he gave her a pout that made her want to give in to his every request. “Why can’t you wear it because it’s costly?”
She took it from his hand and held it up to her waist. It was made of three sheer layers that fell at midcalf. She looked down at herself and then closed her eyes. No. She wasn’t meant to wear ballet skirts anymore. What if she fell here in this century and broke something? She’d never recover.
“Gray, it’s beautiful, but it’s for me to dance in, right? I can’t. I can’t da—”
He closed his fingers around her waist and lifted her straight up into the air. Then set her down as softly as a feather. “I won’t let you fall, Aria.”
When she still hesitated, he asked her to just try the clothes on. The ladies would be disappointed if she didn’t at least try them on.
She agreed and disappeared behind a screen closing off another shadowy corner with a clean bucket inside. She hurried. The skirt fit perfectly around her waist with plenty of room for spreading her legs if she danced. There was a small top with it, the same color peach that made her smile warmly at the thought of whoever dyed the fabric trying to match her pink Dartmouth sweatshirt.
She dressed in the set they made her, keeping on the hose she already wore. There was no mirror to see herself, but Aria filled with tears—an ocean of them waiting to spill forth from her. She felt like a dancer wearing these clothes. She hadn’t felt like a dancer or hoped to be one in so long, it was incredible how deeply she missed it. Before she stepped back into the light, she heard Harper’s voice.
“So, you’re both on a first name basis.”
“Yes,” Gray replied.
“And you had a costly skirt made for her, thoughtfully trying to match it to a color she likes.”
“Harper,” he drawled, “do you have any other obvious observations to make?”
His aunt said nothing more and began to play her violin.
When Aria stepped into view, the music stopped. “I haven’t seen twenty-first century fashion on anyone in a long time,” Harper said with a smile aimed at Aria. “You look like a dancer.”
Gray said nothing but just stared at her. His eyes dropped to her legs donned in hose visible behind the flowy chiffon. Then he smiled. “It’s perfect.”
She blushed and took a seat near Harper rather than go to him and be tempted to dance with him.
He surprised her when he sat beside her instead of dancing. When Aria asked him what he was doing and why he wasn’t dancing now that he had the go-ahead from the physician, he shrugged his shoulders.