“Can we do that one more time?” Michelle yelled over the music, which stopped abruptly. Justin looked over at his dancing partner, Tammy.

“Yeah, Tammy,” he teased. “Damn, get it right already.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Okay, can I switch from being his partner?” she asked Eric and Michelle.

“No, your lack of dancing skills makes me look so good though,” he grinned at her, laughing and taking a step back as she threw some water at him from her water bottle.

“Okay, guys, come on,” Michelle said. “Quit fooling around. The first concert’s in two days and we need to get as much practice in as possible.”

“We know,” Tammy said. “We’ll be good. But tell me again why only me and Justin have to practice ninety hours a day and not the others?”

“Because the others aren’t going to be the focus of the audience’s attention and you and Justin will be,” Michelle replied. “Can we take it from the top?”

Justin moved back to the middle of the stage where Tammy was. They had been practicing for the past two hours and he wanted a break. But Michelle was positive they needed to perfect the footwork on a couple songs and he knew they were going to be there until they did just that.

The music started again and he began the dance he had memorized. Everything was going smoothly until he moved across the stage and instead of Tammy coming up behind him, he heard a crack and her shriek. Stopping, he turned around and saw her on the ground, clutching her ankle. The music stopped abruptly.

“Tammy, are you okay?” he asked, going over to her.

“No!” She began to cry. “It hurts!”

Michelle ran onstage and came over to them. She crouched on the ground. “Move your hands, Tammy,” she said gently.

Justin winced a bit as Tammy moved her hands and he saw her ankle. “Oh gross.”

Michelle gave him a look and then turned to Eric. “Can you call an ambulance, Eric?”

Tammy started to cry harder. “You can see the bone sticking into my skin!”

Justin looked away from her leg. When he had broken his leg, it had NOT looked like that.

“Try and not touch it,” Michelle said. “The paramedics will be here in a couple minutes.”

“It hurts so bad,” Tammy whimpered.

“Justin, go grab her some water,” Michelle instructed.

He nodded and walked to the other end of the stage where Tammy had dropped her water bottle. He brought it over to her and squatted down beside her. “Here.” He watched her take a small sip. “How did you fall?”

Tammy hiccupped. “I slipped on that water I threw at you.”

He smiled a bit. “See that’s why you shouldn’t ever try to throw water on me.”

Michelle shooed him away. “Justin, now isn’t the time to be making jokes.”

He sat down on the stage by Tammy and reached over to rub her back. She was in obvious pain, but there wasn’t anything any of them could do about it. He avoided looking down at her ankle. He didn’t have a weak stomach but it just looked disgusting.

The paramedics arrived quickly and Justin stood back as they moved Tammy onto a stretcher. Michelle went with Tammy to the hospital and Eric left, talking on his cell phone. Justin suddenly found himself alone in the empty stadium. He turned a full circle on the stage.

“Right,” he said out loud and then went to the corridor leading backstage. He was walking towards his dressing room when he heard his name being called. He stopped and turned around to see one of the dancers, Shawn, jogging towards him.

“Hey.”

“What’s going on? I saw the ambulance.”

Justin resumed walking and Shawn fell into step beside him. “Tammy busted her leg while we were practicing.”

“What? How?”

“Slipped on some water on the stage.”

“What’re we going to do for concerts then? She can’t dance on a broken leg.”

Justin hadn’t even thought about that. “I have no idea. Shit, I never even thought about that.”

“Think they’ll get one of the other girls to do it?”

“But then there’s gonna be an extra guy.” Justin shook his head. “I have no idea how this is gonna-” He stopped when he heard his name being yelled again and turned to see Eric at the end of the corridor, motioning for him. Justin said a quick goodbye to Shawn and then walked to Eric.

“Eric, what are we doing for a dancer?” he asked when he reached him.

Eric began walking to a small conference room and Justin followed. “That’s what we have to talk about.” He closed the door behind them and sat down at the table. Justin sat down across from him and Eric dialed a number on the phone on the table and put it on speaker.

“Hello?” Michelle’s voice came over the line.

“Hey. I’ve got Justin here. How’s Tammy?”

“They’re taking her upstairs for surgery. She has to get some pins in her leg.”

“How long are you going to be there?”

“Her sister’s flying in so I thought I’d wait around until she got here.”

“So what are we doing for a dancer?” Justin asked again.

“You need to have a dancer for this concert,” Michelle said. “We’re going to have to pull one of the girls from their partners and make her your partner.”

“But then there’s an extra guy.”

“I called one of our backup dancers from the auditions,” Eric said. “Until she gets here and learns all the dances, we’ll just sit the guy out.”

“Won’t that mess things up to only have six people onstage instead of eight?”

“We’ll have to make it work. We have no other choice. Now we have to decide on the girl who’s going to replace Tammy.”

“Eva,” Michelle said immediately.

“Why her?”

“She’s the only one who will be able to learn the dances in time, Justin. We don’t have two months to teach these dances like we did before. And none of the others will be able to learn it in two days. Eva’s the best after Tammy. It has to be her.”

Eric looked at Justin. “That okay with you?”

Justin shrugged. “Sure. I guess.”

“You need to call her right now, Eric, and get her down to the stadium. We have to get in as much practicing as we can.”

“Yeah, I’ll do that right now. Do you know how long you’ll be there?”

“The rest of the night probably.”

“Alright. Call when you’re on your way back to the hotel.”

“Sure. Bye.”

“Bye.” Eric smiled at Justin. “So up for some more practice?”

Justin sighed and sunk into his chair a little further. “I have a feeling that I really don’t have a choice.”

* * *

It was close to six o’clock when Eva walked into the stadium. She had received a phone call from Eric an hour before asking her to come back to the stadium and she had taken a cab from the hotel. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on since none of the other dancers had to come.

As she walked down the aisle, she could see that Eric was sitting in the first row and Justin was sitting on the very edge of the stage. Other than them, the stadium was empty.

When Eric spotted her, he jumped up and his eyes traveled down her body.

“Oh good, you’re in dancing clothes.”

“Um, what’s going on?” she asked, glancing briefly at Justin.

“Tammy broke her ankle and can’t dance. We need you as her replacement.”

Eva let the bag drop from her shoulder to one of the seats. “But-but the first concert’s in two days.”

“And that’s why we need to start practicing tonight. You’re a quick learner, Eva. You’ll be fine. Okay, so we’re going to start with the opening number and just work our way through the whole concert.”

Eva blinked a few times, still trying to process what exactly was going on. “Okay, wait…how did she break her leg?”

“Slipped on some water on the stage,” Eric answered.

“But it’s only two days until the concert and who’s going to dance with Chad?”

“Until Larissa Montgomery gets here, he’s going to sit out. We’ll figure everything out completely tomorrow when we practice with everyone together. But right now I really need you to learn these dances as best you can.”

She could hear the note of desperation in his voice and finally nodded. “Okay.” She leaned down to retie her running shoes and then went to the stairs leading onstage. Justin stood up as she went over to him.

“Do you think you can learn it?” he asked.

“I can try.”

“Good thing you came in dancing clothes, huh?”

She looked down at herself. “Yeah, I never changed from practice this afternoon.”

“Alright,” Eric said, coming onstage. “Let’s start with the opening number.”

The next two hours were spent slowly going through each song. Although some of the choreography was the same as what she learned, a lot was different. She had been watching Tammy do it for two months though so that made it a bit easier. She tried as hard as she could to learn it as fast as she could because she could tell Justin was tired. He had been there a lot longer than she had and now he had to waste his time helping her learn everything so she felt bad for him.

Around eight thirty, Eric let them take a break so he could call Michelle and see how Tammy was doing. Eva went backstage to find a water fountain. Once she spotted one, she turned it on and stood there as she filled up her water bottle. It was almost full when she heard footsteps and looked up to see Justin approaching her.

“Tired yet?”

She nodded and pulled her water bottle away from the fountain. “Yeah.”

“So now that we’re partners you can’t ignore me anymore.”

She looked over at him. “What?”

He laughed. “I’m just kidding. No, but I’ve like never talked to you at all. Not even at rehearsals and stuff.”

“Oh.”

He moved to the water fountain and filled up his own bottle. “So?”

She looked at him, confused. “So what?”

He laughed again. “Tell me about yourself.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You’re from LA?”

“Yeah.”

“Live alone?”

“Yeah. In an apartment.”

“Family?”

“My whole family lives in LA. My younger brother lives at home still and my older brother is married.”

“Cool.” He put the lid back on his water bottle. “So you do ballet, right?”

“I used to. How did you know that?”

“It was in your resume. I read all the dancers’ resumes when we were picking you guys.” He began to walk down the hallway and she went with him.

“So how do you like tour life so far? Even though we haven’t actually started touring.”

“It’s okay.”

“Do you like the other dancers?”

“They’re all nice. I haven’t really talked to them a lot.”

He gave her a long sideways glance only looking away when she looked over at him. “Well now that you guys are in the hotels together and going to be on tour buses all the time you’ll get to know them pretty well.”

“I guess,” she said softly.

They walked in silence for a bit until the reached the stage.

“So what does your fiancé do?”

She looked over at him. “My fiancé?”

He gestured to her hand. “You have an engagement ring on.”

She looked down at the diamond ring on her fourth finger. “This was my grandmother’s ring. I’m not engaged.”

“So why do you wear it on your engagement finger?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. Because I can.”

He smiled and sat down on the edge of the stage. She sat down beside him, letting her legs hang off the edge. They had barely gotten settled when Eric appeared and wanted them to start practicing again.

Michelle came by around ten o’clock while they were in the middle of a song. When the music ended, she whistled.

“That was amazing, Eva!” she called. “Have you guys learned all the songs?”

“Yeah, we’ve gone through them all,” Justin said. “Now can we PLEASE stop for the day?”

Michelle and Eric exchanged a look and Eric nodded.

“Yeah, we’ve tortured you enough for today,” he said. “You guys can go back to the hotel. Remember we have to start at seven thirty tomorrow morning.”

Eva shut her eyes briefly at the thought. She opened her eyes when she felt Justin nudge her with his elbow.

“Don’t fall asleep here.”

She nodded and yawned. She took Justin up on his offer for a ride to the hotel, not wanting to take anymore time than necessary to get to her hotel room and be able to go to bed.