“And my graduation certificate from Juilliard?”

“Elisa pulled some strings and got me a copy. I had it framed. It’s hanging on the wall in our apartment.”

Tears flooded her eyes.

“She helped me get the audition tape, too,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I wanted to experience what you had over the years, to walk through your fire together, and I wanted you to see exactly how remarkable you are.”

As she pushed to her feet, confusion rose in his eyes, but as she lowered herself to his lap and put her arms around him, his confusion turned to understanding. She hugged him tight, feeling truly seen for the first time in years. Quincy saw her insecurities, her strengths, and her flaws, and she was so in love with him, she wanted to let him know she saw all of him, too, especially his loving, supportive soul.

She lifted her tear-streaked face, meeting his smiling eyes, and said, “You’re the remarkable one. You have not only wowed me, but you’ve become the very air that I breathe. I’m going to dance in that showcase, Quincy, and I’m going to do it for you. So if I can’t finish, I expect you to lead the early applause.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

“HEY, QUIN?” RONI called out from the bathroom late Sunday morning. “Did you find the shoes?”

He loved when she called him that. They’d been packing Roni’s apartment and bringing boxes over since Thursday night. They’d unpacked most of it, and after he visited with Simone this afternoon, he was meeting Truman and some of the guys at Roni’s place to move the rest of her furniture while she was at Josie’s party. He looked at the boxes he’d already opened, and the stack he hadn’t, wishing they’d remembered to label them. But labeling got lost in the excitement of moving in together.

“Not yet, babe,” he called out to her, his eyes drifting to the Christmas tree, which had accumulated several small gifts under it from each of them over the last few weeks. He loved picking out gifts for her and seeing how excited she was when she snuck his out there.

He tore open another box, finding leotards and other dance paraphernalia. Two boxes later, he found her shoes and dug through them looking for the tan ankle boots she wanted to wear to the party. He found her ankle boots, but more interestingly, he found a pair of black stilettoes and imagined her in them.

He carried them into the bathroom and found her bending over, fishing the hair dryer out from under the sink, giving him an eyeful of her gorgeous ass peeking out from beneath a towel. This was just one of the reasons they’d started keeping condoms in the medicine cabinet. He brushed against her, running his hand beneath the towel and up her thigh.

“Quincy,” she said softly as she rose, eyeing him through their reflection in the mirror.

“I found the box of shoes.” He dangled the stilettoes from his fingers. “What do I have to do to get you to wear these?”