Rafael pulls back a few inches and looks right into my eyes, and I know. I know the answer. But I don't say it.

I say, "What do you mean?"

"Well, we agreed you'd take some time to think about it and I just wondered if you knew how much time you needed or if you'd decided already or..."

"I told the woman we'd both take the apartment," I say, confused. "You said we got the apartment and then I... well, I kind of assumed..."

"You jumped into my arms," he says, lips pulling into a small smile. "So you kind of assumed what, exactly? Spell it out for me."

"Well, I kind of assumed I'd told you my answer, and you didn't really seem that keen on it these last few days so I didn't want to push it and—"

"I am, though!" he interrupts. "I was giving you space to think. I want to do this. I don't see why we wouldn't."

"I can think of a couple reasons." It slips out and his face falls.

"See? That is why I don't think this is a good idea. I can't look at you making that face at me every day." He turns away from me and paces the small floor.

Oh. I'm a jerk.

"I didn't mean it like that," I follow him to the window overlooking a small courtyard adjacent to our hotel and wrap my arms around his chest from behind. "I just don't want to mess this up," I say into the back of his shirt, not letting him out of my arms.

"You can't mess this up, Piper. We've been best friends since before I could read."

"That's only because your brother refused to read you the comics section and told you it said 'Rafael is stupid'."

"And who read the comics to me?" He asks, putting his hand over both of mine. "Who marched over to my big oaf of a brother, stuck her hands on her hips, and told him if he ever lied to me again she'd punch him in the face so hard he wouldn't be able to see?"

"Me," I admit. "I forgot I threatened him, though. He must have been four times my size."

"At least. But you stood up for me. And then you convinced me to keep doing ballet when the awkward thirteen-year-old attempt to be cool happened."

"Well, you were too good to give it up."

"And you said I'd never get to see you if I stopped coming to class."

"Which was true. If you stopped coming to class,they would have kicked you out and you'd have been back home in Canada while I was all alone here in Paris."

"Which was what kept me in classes and got me here. You can't mess this up, Piper. We're best friends. We've lived together before. What's a piece of paper? I trust you."

"I trust you too," I admit in a whisper. "We're like the opposite of friends with benefits," I laugh, trying to make light. But it doesn't release the tension in my chest, it just makes it worse.

"We're best friends with legal rights and an inexpensive apartment?" he offers, twisting his head around to look at me.

"I think we're just best friends," I say. "The rest of it is only a technicality."

His head returns to the window and there's silence for a moment except for the small air conditioner cooling the room.

"Take all the time you need to think," he says finally, releasing my hands from his. "I'm okay with whatever you decide."

I don't let him go, not wanting to risk him seeing my face as I let a few tears fall. But he's stronger than me and he turns around and pulls me into a hug, rubbing gentle circles in my back and kissing the top of my hair. "Whatever you decide," he whispers again.

We stand like that for a while, I'm not sure how long. But long after my few tears have dried my heart is still racing at his closeness.

"Let's go get some ice, shall we?" he offers without letting me go.

"We shall," I answer. "Everything hurts."

"A week off pointe will do that to you. Every time."

"That's not true! So many people have no trouble at all. I think I'm cursed."

"I didn't say it would do that to anyone," he says with a shrug. "I said it will do that to you."

And then he busies himself collecting the ice bucket and slipping out the door to collect ice for my feet. And I'm reminded why I like living with this man.

I take the chance to slip into the bathroom and change into my pyjamas. The ice is all the way down the hall, so I should have plenty of time. And the bathroom door does have a perfectly functional lock. But still I rush over to my suitcase and pull out my most comfy sleepwear and race into the bathroom, barely pausing to think before slipping out of my restrictive dancewear into my breathable light cotton pyjamas.

Still, by the time I open the door, Rafael is sitting on his bed holding the ice bucket and staring right at me. "One ice run and you're already in your PJs?" he teases.

"It's after ten at night," I answer, shoving my dancewear into a corner of the room. I'll need to do my laundry before the week is out, but that's not a today problem. Today I am tired.

"That's supper time in Spain." Leave it to Rafael to bring it back to food. I swear he has a condition or something where his metabolism works in such a way that if he doesn't eat his weight in food daily, he'll fall over.

And right on cue, my stomach grumbles again. It's really getting good at betraying me. "And here too, apparently," I whine. "I forgot food on the way up."

He sets the ice bucket down and pulls a cloth out of his bag, wrapping some ice in the center.

"You can't seriously be asking me to go out wearing this!" I protest, gesturing to my very unprofessional clothing.

"I'm not," he says, shoving the little ice pack into my hands. "I'm giving you ice for your feet and the remote and I'm going to buy food. And when I come back with what I want and not what you want, you won't even be able to complain."

"I take it back! I'm coming." I shoot up off the bed and he doubles over, probably to avoid my haphazardly flailing arms when I trip over my own shoes.

"Calm down. Sew your shoes. Rest your feet. Take off your makeup. I'll be back in no time and then I'll make you watch a terrible action film as payment."

"I'll fall asleep," I warn, resting the ice against the most painful part on the ball of my foot.

"I'm counting on it," is all he says before he's gone.

~ * ~ * ~

Before he comes back, I'm cleaned up, snuggled under my covers finishing up sewing the ribbons onto my second set of pointe shoes. Which should get me through the week.

On top of that, I finally know what I'm going to do.

When he comes back through the door, I'm going to make fun of him for whatever food he bought, eat it while we watch whatever terrible film he's selected, and tell him I will marry him.

He's right. It's no big deal.

We'll get married and move into our apartment and follow the rules. We'll be friends who happen to be legally married.

I'm ready.

But he still isn't back. My mind runs a mile a minute and my fingers work to sew the last ribbon onto my shoe.

~ * ~ * ~

I wake up to the darkness and the sound of a shower running. Once my eyes adjust to the dim light I notice my pointe shoes on the windowsill and, from the slim sliver of light laying across my bed, I can see a paper bag of take out sitting...

Where is the sliver of light coming from? I can't move. Because I know where it's coming from. What I don't know is why or how. Or what I'll see if I turn around.

I shouldn't turn around, right?

He did leave the door open.

But he thought I was sleeping.

I sit up in bed and pull the covers back neatly into place, staring straight ahead at the television while I wait for the water to stop running.

All I can hear is the sound of water hitting skin and tile, until Rafa starts belting out some David Bisbal song as usual. Half way through, he turns off the water and clambers out of the shower with all the lightness of an elephant.

Which is very unlike Rafa.

"You okay?" I call.

"Sorry to wake you," he replies, not bothering to close the door. I give him a few seconds and when he still hasn't closed it, I allow my eyes to trail to the bottom of the crack. I can't see anything I shouldn't, so I stare at the handle for the rest of the conversation.

"You didn't wake me," I answer, despite the fact that he might have. "I think my rumbling empty stomach woke me."

"Before you get too mad, I did end up with Italian."

"We are in literal France," I cry. "And still you cannot avoid the Italian restaurant?"

"It was close, open, and didn't have a wait out the front door. Desperate times."

"We're really going to need to keep food in the house," I sigh, sinking further into my soft pillows.

In no time at all he's standing at the foot of my bed, dressed in nothing but sweat pants and wet hair. Displaying that chest should be illegal.

He stares at me, comb halfway through his hair.

I stare at him, folding under the intensity of his gaze.

"What?" I finally ask, pulling the blankets up under my chin.

"Did you just—?"

"You're making me nervous," I answer. "I feel like I need to hide from the intense stare you're giving me."

"Yeah, no. Did you just say 'we' are going to need to keep food in the house?"

That's not exactly how I planned to have this conversation, but why the heck not? "It makes the most sense, right? I mean, we could maybe fight her on it, we could maybe keep looking for a place we can afford, we could definitely tuck tail and head back home, but I don't want to do that. I don't want to give anything up, especially when all it takes to get what we've always dreamed of is a little piece of paper saying we'll care about each other and keep each other's shit if we die."

"Well, when you put it like that," he laughs.

"I'm sleepy," I whine dramatically.

"Then I guess I'll keep this carbonara for myself."

He's brought me my favourite dish. And when he hands it to me, it's a half order, with a delicious salad on the side.

"What do you want?" I say immediately suspicious. "There isn't even a little bit of the worst food in the world in here."

"Leave mushrooms out of this," he warns, pointing a finger at me.

"That's all I'm asking you to do," I tease, ducking under the blankets.

Nothing happens, so I cautiously peek out only to get walloped across the face with a pillow.

Oh, it's on.

I wrench my own pillow out from under my head and hit him square in the jaw, catching him off guard and launching him backwards onto his own bed.

"I yield," he sighs, sitting up and launching the throw pillow at the chair in the corner. "But only if you eat."

"I will eat, as long as there are no mushrooms. Mushrooms are a deal breaker for me."

"Mushrooms are what really get you, eh?" He pulls my food out and puts it on the little table that separates the beds from each other.

I open the lid and the most delicious scent reaches my nose. "Oh, my goodness. It's heavenly. I might forgive you for getting Italian after all."

"I thought you'd like it," he says, pulling his own dinner into his lap and flipping the television on to some French game show.

"What happened to your terrible movie?" I say with a mouth full of pasta.

"You were sleeping when I got in. You are definitely not getting through a movie."

I want to protest, but I can't. I just watch the men try to walk in heels across a narrow balance beam over a pool of jelly.

"I bet you could do that," I say, turning to see Rafa already looking at me.

"I probably could."

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"I was just thinking how I went out to get this food and convince you I'd be an okay housemate and technically-legal-husband and I came back here to you already having decided to do it. I could have ordered the food I wanted."

"You're lucky this food is good or I might have thrown it at you for that comment."

"No, you wouldn't have."

Of course, I wouldn't have. But he's not supposed to know that. 

~ * ~ Author's Note ~ * ~ 

Hello friends and readers! As some of you already know, this story didn't make it through round one of the open novella contest. I'm a little sad about it, because who wouldn't be? But I'm taking this as an opportunity to say that this novella is ... not a novella, in fact, but the first novel in a literal series of romances between members of this fictional ballet/opera/etc. company in Paris. I'm going to be spending a little bit of time figuring that out (I've already fixed Rafa's nickname), and eventually probably re-writing the opening of this story to better match the series feel instead of the novella feel. 

I'll keep you posted on what's going on but I do plan to continue weekly updates for the next few weeks until I get a bit more time to figure all of that out. Thank you so much for reading and I hope you continue to enjoy Piper and Rafa's love story. There's so much more to come 💕