Fire in Our Hearts and Ice in Our Veins

Patrick hesitated before pushing open the door. He was standing outside Harley's dance studio, paper bag in hand and he wondered whether or not this was really a good idea. Harley had made it pretty clear to him last night that she didn't want to see him, but for some reason he could not get her out of his head. He had been up all night thinking about her. It was weird for Patrick, a guy who normally could not hold interest in one girl for more than a night, and then would kick her our after.

Gathering up his courage, Patrick pushed through the door and heard the familiar ringing of the bell. He smiled when he saw how focused she was on teaching, her blue green eyes narrowed as she explained the drill, but swiftly looking up at the sound of the bell. Patrick waved enthusiastically, giving her a goofy smile. She walked forcefully over in order to get him to leave, but someone else was quicker. Patrick looked down to see a little girl whose brunette hair was haphazardly splayed across her face.

"Bonjour Patrick!" Catherine said excitedly.

"Hey Cat!" Patrick replied, picking up the little girl and putting her on his shoulders. She giggled happily.

"What are you doing here?" Harley demanded, her eyes now looking angry, like a storm at sea.

"I brought lunch," he grinned.

But before she could respond, Catherine cut in. "Harley, pouvez-vous dire à Patrick vous remercie de me ramener chez eux la nuit dernière?"

"She wants to tell you thank you for bringing her home last night."

"Tell her I said, anything for you," Patrick laughed and brought her down from his shoulders, pulling her into a hug.

Harley rolled her eyes but repeated the message anyways. "Il dit, rien pour vous." This made Catherine giggle uncontrollably, especially since she noticed some of the other dancers had come to see what was going on.

"Voulez-vous me regarder danser?" Catherine's baby blue eyes suddenly faced Patrick.

"She wants to know if you'll watch her dance." Patrick noticed the change in tone of Harley's voice. It was no longer coarse and demanding. And it was true, something inside Harley had changed when she saw how much Catherine liked Patrick. She knew it must be upsetting for Catherine when she didn't have anyone to come to her recitals or pick her up after class.

"Only if you promise to have lunch with me afterwards," Patrick told the girl, even though she couldn't understand what he was saying.

"Il dit, que si tu me promets de prendre le déjeuner avec moi par la suite," Harley told the girl, who instantly broke out into a smile.

"Puis-je Harley? (Can I Harley?)" Catherine pleaded.

"Je suppose. (I suppose.)" She then turned to Patrick. "You will sit over there at my desk and keep quiet for the entire lesson and you must promise not to distract and of the girls."

"I promise."

But he didn't. For the next 45 minutes Patrick acted like a crazy hockey fan anytime Catherine did much of anything at all. He would clap, whistle, give her the thumbs up and even call out to her saying "Great job, Catherine!" and "You're amazing, Catherine!" But when Harley saw how happy it made the little girl, she just didn't have the heart to stop it.

When the class finally ended Patrick took the two girls to a park near by. Catherine helped him spread out a picnic blanket and they happily ate the enormous amount of food Patrick had picked out. When they were finished Catherine went to try and climb a tree.

"Soyez prudent, Catherine! (Be careful, Catherine!)" Harley called out.

"So if you don't mind me asking, what's with you and Catherine?" Patrick asked.

"Catherine's an orphan. I had offered free dance lessons to her orphanage to any orphan who wanted them a few days before the first time they dropped her off at my studio. That day they didn't come to pick her up until four hours after the dance lesson had ended and we just sort of hit it off I guess," Harley looked affectionately at the little girl struggling to climb the tree, "she's like my daughter. I love her to death. I would have adopted her by now I just," Harley gulped, "I just don't have the money."

Patrick looked at Harley with sorry eyes, but he didn't speak, he just allowed her to continue.

"I appreciate what you've done for her today. I think she really needs it. Hell, I need it. We're all each other's got."

"You don't have any other friends?" He didn't mean to say it, it had just slipped out.

"Not really," she sighed, "I moved here from New York City two years ago from the Julliard School. Some programs in Paris had expressed interest in getting me to dance with them and at the time I wanted to be anywhere but New York," when Harley said that, Patrick noticed the pain flash across her eyes, "So I packed my things up and left. I spent a week living at one school, but everybody hated me since I was pretty much the only American, so I opted to leave dance school for good and just dance with companies. For money I opened up my own studio and that's pretty much how it's been ever since."

"Wow," Patrick breathed, "why did you leave the city?"

He saw the pain come back to her eyes again. "That's a story for another time."

"Well, I'm only here for the next two weeks but if you want, I would love to be both of your friends." He blushed at how stupid that had sounded. He couldn't believe what was coming out of his mouth, was he actually offering to just be friends with a girl? He had never done this before. Did he really like her enough to take things slow? Baby steps, he thought to himself. A warm smile broke across her face that seemed to light up the whole park and he breathed a sigh of relief.

"I'd like that."