Dance with Me [h.s] (Completed)

Chapter 27

Zayn's POV

The phone rings and goes to voicemail again, it's the first time in my life that I've been sick of hearing her voice. Well, that's not true, I'm sick of hearing a recorded message of it when I'm searching for the real thing. I had gone to the dance studio today hoping to catch CiCi before she left but Rosa told me I had just missed her. She said she had brought a friend to help teach with her and I knew immediately it was Harry.

I can't believe she is spending time with him outside of work and our training. That's when her and I used to see each other, usually with Niall and her brothers too. All of us spending all our free time together since we were kids. Ever since CiCi started that job at the club I only ever see her at training. I wish we could all hang out together like we used to. It makes me nervous to feel that things are changing.

She has been my best friend since kindergarten and I was constantly counting my blessings to whoever placed me in her dance class and she decided to befriend me. I was an awkward kid with an Arabic name living in a post 9/11 New York; making friends was not easy. But for whatever reason, she deemed me someone worth having around. We've been inseparable ever since and I've been forever conscious about not losing the one good thing I had in my life.

A few years after we started ballroom dancing together, my parents' fighting got worse. I was glad to escape to the studio with her and get my mind off of things. Her family always welcomed me in, allowing me to be a part of their big group. I was important to CiCi so therefore I was important to them. When my parents eventually divorced, I spent almost all my time at the studio or at CiCi's house with her or her brothers.

When our teenage years hit and and I had to watch her go on dates with the losers at school, I kept my mouth shut about my feelings for her because there was too much at risk if it didn't work out. I couldn't lose the support she and her family provided me. I couldn't lose the safe place to go to when everything else was shit. And I definitely couldn't lose her. She was everything to me.

When we came so close to winning at Worlds, I was there to hold her up when the weight of disappointment almost crushed her. When she got injured in training a month later, I was secretly grateful. She was only eighteen and it was clear her trajectory was already so beyond mine. She would have realized quickly that I was holding her back and got a new partner. But instead she started working towards her business degree as a fall-back, in case things didn't work out ; getting injured had made her realize how quickly dance could be taken away from her. Placing second had also been a setback in her confidence in dance; instead of seeing what an accomplishment it was, she saw it as a sign of not being good enough. It's taken her five years to get her confidence up to try again.

School took more focus than she had intended because if there's anything I know about CiCi is she doesn't do things half-assed. She graduated top of her class with a promising future at a consulting company lined up and future plans of completing her MBA. But something changed her mind and she decided to take one last run at the Worlds. She wanted to see if she could do it and she pulled me along for the ride.

But now it's months later and that trajectory she was on at eighteen has come back, except the curve is even steeper now that she's being coached by Harry. It's like every day she is gaining momentum and I don't know if I'll be able to keep up. But I'm trying. For her, I'm trying. Because I feel like once Worlds is done, she won't need me anymore. I'm not ready for that. That's why I kissed her. That's why I want to be her boyfriend. I have nothing to lose. I just want to stay in her orbit.

I call Niall, hoping he is with her.

"Yo!" he answers the phone.

"Hey, are you with CiCi?"

"No, I'm at her place though with Carmen."

"She's not there?"

"No, hold on," and I hear muffled talking. "Carmen says she had classes this morning and she usually comes home for a nap before work but didn't come home today."

Weird. Where could she be? Is she still with Harry?

"Okay, thanks. If you hear from her, tell her to call me."

"Yeah, no problem. Later."

"Later."

I thought about CiCi being somewhere with Harry. I saw how he looked at her, it's how every man looked at her. It's how I looked at her. But I wasn't about to let some guy swoop in and steal her from me after I waited all these years for the right time to tell her that I love her.

He's holding something back from her. I know it. Why would he volunteer his time to us? It should be costing us thousands of dollars to pay for his coaching and more for studio time and he is giving us both for free. It's the only reason we haven't used a coach since CiCi's injuries, the cost was just too high. There's no way he is doing this out of the goodness of his heart; he has to have an ulterior motive.

He's young enough to still be dancing professionally and he's not. There's got to be a reason. Even I can admit he's good. Better than me. If CiCi danced with him she would have a much better chance at winning but I'm not about to give up all this time with her, especially not when I can already feel her slipping away. No, I have to anchor her to me somehow. Show her how good her life can be with me. And I need to figure out why Harry quit dancing. There's more to him than he is showing her.

A/N: Double Update! Read this chapter and then the next one!

Hope you liked a peek into Zayn's mind.

Vote and comment if you're enjoying :)

TPWK

-Kay xx