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Clover had never been so intimidated by a room full of little kids before.
He’d gotten to the ballet studio to pick up his goddaughter right as the children’s class had let out, and the space that he’d stepped into was nothing less than complete pandemonium.
He imagined that, under normal circumstances, the little room in the dancing studio would be lovely—smaller than some of the others he’d passed on the way here, since it was just for the tots, with three high walls painted a pale yellow that made the whole space feel sunny and cheerful. One of the walls was occupied by a series of large windows, through which the setting sun sent its dying light into the room, and they were all three home to a long, multi-level barre that meandered its way across their accommodating surfaces. The fourth wall in the room, on the other hand, was dominated entirely by a massive floor-to-ceiling mirror, shined to perfection. The flooring was some sort of highly polished wood laminate. The entire space smelled of bright citrus so strong he could practically taste wisps of it on the back of his tongue.
A pile of sneakers had been built up in one of the room’s corners, and it was currently swarmed by little, leotard-bedecked bodies all seeking the particular pair that belonged to them.
Like sharks in a feeding-frenzy.
Other children, aged four to five, were standing with adults whom Clover presumed to be their parents, and still others ran about doing enthusiastic (if not entirely stable or straight-legged) cartwheels across the shining floors. In one corner, a little redhead with bright eyes was blabbering loudly at a much quieter boy with long, dark hair pulled back into a braid. In another, a particularly diminutive girl with neatly plaited white hair stood quietly by herself, avoiding drawing attention as she waited for her guardian.
Even as he observed all of this, Clover was almost immediately forced to stumble right back out of the studio when a tiny body darted past him at top-speed to get to the cubbies that sat just outside the entrance. An exasperated voice, likely belonging to the child’s parent, called an admonishment after the retreating form. Seconds later, two more children followed the first, and Clover resigned himself to just squishing his body into the nearest corner away from the door.
From this new vantage point, he looked about the room a little dumbly, wide-eyed. He considered himself to be someone who liked, and was generally good with, kids, but this was chaos. Not for the first time, he thanked his lucky stars that he’d swerved around the education major he’d considered in college to instead shoot for sports medicine—not that he’d really used that, either, seeing as how he’d somehow ended up in the military, a position from which he was now (happily) retired.
He blinked hard as a hand waved itself in front of his face.
He scanned the room one more time, still unable to locate the head of bright, firehouse-red hair he was searching for, then turned to face the person who’d interrupted his musings.
Not the right shade of red, but… red.
The man who’d caught his attention was about an inch or two shorter than him, with pretty vermillion eyes that sparkled with a certain inscrutable sort of fire. He was thin, long limbs wrapped in lithe muscle just barely discernable underneath the skin-tight, long-sleeved black shirt and leggings he was wearing. His hair was an off-pitch shade that was streaked with light shots of gray, an indicator of his age, and faint stubble lined his jaw. And he was smiling teasingly at Clover as he snapped his fingers in front of his face again.
Clover realized he hadn’t responded to the man yet. His cheeks warmed, both from embarrassment at his current predicament and from how attractive the man standing before him was.
“Hello,” he plastered an uncomfortable grin on his face, “My name is Clover. Sorry, I’m a little lost, I think. Could you point me to the, uh? Ballet… teacher?” he trailed off a little when he realized that the other guy seemed to be laughing at him under his breath.
He was about two seconds away from becoming annoyed—it had been an unfairly long day—when the man finally shook his head, mirth still twinkling in his red eyes, and gestured bodily to himself. “That would be me. Hey.”
And now Clover was embarrassed again. Admittedly, he’d been expecting a woman, possibly wearing a big, puffy tutu or something, but now he realized that had been kind-of silly of him. “Oh.” He was sure that there was some noticeable pinkness to his cheeks by now, and the way that the other man’s smirk widened seemed to confirm it. He cleared his throat. “I apologize, I shouldn’t have assumed….” He cleared his throat a second time, attempting to dislodge the heavy lump that sat there. “I’m Clover Ebi,” he said again, needlessly, and stuck his hand out to shake, “I’m here to pick up Pyrrha Nikos?”
“Oh?” The man raised a fine-plucked eyebrow at him. “Where’s Deida?”
He didn’t take his hand, and after a too-long moment, Clover let it drop awkwardly back to his side.
“She’s working late. Sorry, I’m Pyrrha’s godfather. I suppose I should have led with that.” He rubbed the back of his neck, scooting a little further into the corner as another kid sprinted past and out the door, long blond hair streaming behind her.
“Yang! Stop running like that, you’re gonna kill someone!” the man in front of him yelled after her, but she kept on like she hadn’t heard a word. He sighed heavily, dragging a hand over his face. “Sorry. My niece.” He waved a hand vaguely. “She doesn’t often have her listening ears on.”
“It’s fine,” Clover hurried to reassure the other. “So… am I able to pick up Pyrrha?”
“You got a note? It’s policy.”
“Right, of course!” Clover had totally forgotten about the note. At first, he’d been overwhelmed by the screaming hordes of children, and then by the handsome ballet instructor, but now he dug around in his back pocket until he found it—scrawled on pastel pink cardstock with a bright green gel pen. “Here.” He handed over the little slip of paper, which the instructor scrutinized for just long enough that Clover began to get nervous, before finally seeming to accept, slipping it into the waistband of his stretch leggings, where it stuck out just enough to be noticeable, drawing Clover’s eyes to the alluring line of his hip.
Gods, it had obviously been far too long since he’d gone out with somebody. He was practically a panting dog.
“Come with me,” the man commanded. Then he raised his voice to be heard above the din, which was finally starting to fade as parents took their toddlers (were four-year-olds still toddlers?) from the studio to the front desk, where they could sign them out for the evening, “Ruby, Yang! Be ready to go when I get back!”
Two disembodied “okay’s!” echoed back from somewhere unseen.
“Technically, Pyrrha’s class ended about an hour ago, seeing as how she’s in the intermediate group,” the ballet teacher said as they walked, causing Clover a brief moment of pure, white-out internal panic. He’d missed Pyrrha’s pick-up time by an hour?! Deida was never going to trust him with anything again! Before he could worry too much, though, the man’s raspy voice continued, “But she likes to stick around the extra time to keep the brother of one of the younger girls in my class company. Pretty sure the kid wants to join up, too, but the dad is pretty against him doing ballet. So, he just kinda sits outside the door and looks like a sad puppy for the whole session while he waits with one or the other of the parents for the sister to finish.”
He led Clover out into the hallway and just around the corner where, sure enough, Pyrrha was sitting on a low wooden bench, still dressed in her gold-colored leotard and black tights with her hair pulled up in a tidy little bun. Next to her was a slightly shorter boy, maybe a year younger, or perhaps just small for his age, with a mop of unkempt blond hair, wearing a black hoodie with what seemed to be the Pumpkin Pete’s Marshmallow Flakes mascot on it. The parent was nowhere to be seen, but Clover figured that they were probably just retrieving their daughter.
Pyrrha was merrily telling the boy about her day at school; she was in first grade, now, and was still not over the feeling of maturity that the milestone gave her, what with Patch’s elementary schools having only just started back up a few days ago. The boy responded only with short, one-to-two syllable answers, but Pyrrha didn’t seem bothered.
“Hey Jaune,” the man next to him called lightly before turning his attention to the little girl, “Pyrrha. You know this guy?” He jerked his head at Clover, who tried very hard not to be offended.
Any negative feelings melted away, though, when the small girl’s face instantly lit up with joy upon seeing him. She jumped up from the bench she’d been sitting on and rocketed into his legs, wrapping her arms around his calves and squeezing as tightly as she could. “Clover!” she cheered, and his heart felt warm enough to melt ice.
“Hey, sweetpea!” He stroked Pyrrha’s hair gently with one hand, flattening down the strands that were stubbornly trying to escape her updo. It had been quite a while since he’d been able to see her, what with how busy he’d been with settling in at his new house in Patch after being discharged from his service in Atlas—months, at least. “Your mom asked me to come get you. I thought we could go out for ice cream before heading home.”
“Really?!” she gasped, eyes practically stars shining out of her little face. “Thank you! I’ll go get my bag!” She began to race away, back toward the cubbies outside of the classroom that Clover had initially been searching for her in, but after just a few steps, she yelped and stumbled to a halt. Clover made a move to ask her what was wrong, but his worries quickly abated when she merely twirled around to shout an exuberant, “Bye, Jaune!” to the little boy, then kept running.
He sighed, “So much to keep up with.”
“Try having a whole class of ‘em,” the man next to him snorted.
Clover startled. He’d nearly forgotten that the ballet instructor was still there.
The other man had taken to leaning against the wall by the bench, arms crossed over his chest, one leg holding the majority of his weight while the other extended in a languid stretch at his side. Once again Clover’s gaze was enticed to the lines of the man’s body—his well-muscled thighs, the soft inward curve of his waistline. He flinched and met the teacher’s analyzing stare. The man tilted his head at him, questioning. “You gonna follow her?”
Clover found that he was already shaking his head before the statement had even fully left the teacher’s mouth. “This place is a maze. Wouldn’t want to get lost.” Subconsciously, he folded his own arms, and felt a little thrill of pleasure when the man’s eyes dropped to track the movement.
The corners of the instructor’s lips quirked upwards. “Get lost around the one corner we had to turn?” he murmured, teasing.
“I have a poor sense of direction,” Clover responded easily, more at-ease now with the indication that his interest may not be so one-sided as he’d initially thought.
“One would almost think that you’re just trying to hang around….”
“Jaune!”
A high voice echoing down the hallway interrupted their conversation, and both men turned to watch as the blond boy hopped off the bench and plodded, still pouting, over to the lanky woman who had called for him. Her thick, golden tresses were thrown up into a messy ponytail, frizzy flyaway strands making their get-aways in every direction, and there was a truly frazzled look upon her face. Her sky-blue scrubs were sporting a warped bleach stain across the right leg. She latched onto her son’s arm the moment he was within reach and pulled him toward the exit, exchanging little more than a nod of acknowledgement with the man still standing in front of Clover before she was off.
“Poor thing,” the red-eyed man said the moment she was out of sight, disregarding the fact that the woman was obviously older than he, himself, was, “From what I hear, she’s got eight kids back home. Seven girls and the one boy.” He nodded his head in the direction of the now-unoccupied bench. “You couldn’t pay me enough.”
Clover squinted at the other. “You spend your time teaching children’s ballet classes.”
“Eh,” the man shrugged, “That’s fun, though. And it’s not exactly the full-time gig that real parenting is. Closest thing I’ve got is my nieces, and they may be a handful, but they’re not an eight kids at home handful.” Then he reached around and planted his hand between Clover’s shoulder blades and pushed, and Clover’s brain short-circuited.
In all actuality, the man was simply turning him around and guiding him back toward the classroom to find Pyrrha, but if he hadn’t been sure of his desperation before, he certainly was now. The guy had nice hands; nails painted with chipped red nail polish that matched his eyes. A few shining silver rings. And gods, Clover really had to stop staring at the poor guy, he was going to be thrown out on his ass at this rate. Any confidence he’d briefly managed to grasp onto had evaporated away into a fine mist with the touch.
“Clover!”
He snapped to attention at the sound of his goddaughter’s distressed cry, instantly pulling away from the pleasant pressure against his back to instead hurry and kneel at Pyrrha’s side. Her eyes were over-bright with building tears.
“I can’t find my skirt!” she whimpered, voice wobbling dangerously into full-on meltdown territory.
Clover’s hands fluttered uneasily, unsure whether to hug her or to start searching her dance bag for the missing garment, ultimately accomplishing neither.
“Hey, honey,” a soft voice broke in, and then the ballet instructor was also crouching down at his side, “It’ll turn up. Here, let’s go with your godfather and check the studio, okay? It might’ve gotten left behind there when your class ended.”
Pyrrha sniffled. “Okay, Mr. Branwen.”
The other man—Mr. Branwen—graced her with a gentle smile, then pulled himself to his feet, wincing when one of his knees popped along the way.
Clover caught him massaging reflexively at his thigh with the hand that wasn’t holding onto Pyrrha’s as they made their way into the studio, and leaned in as discretely as he was able to ask, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” Mr. Branwen replied, without looking at him. His hand stopped its rubbing. “Old injury. Don’t worry about it.”
They found the skirt in short order, shoved into one of the corners of the studio, though Pyrrha swore up and down that she hadn’t left it there. Clover didn’t particularly care either way—they’d found it in the end, and Pyrrha wasn’t upset anymore, so he considered it a win. Plus, it was more time he got to spend with the attractive (if a little standoffish) ballet instructor, so bonus points for that.
Finally, Pyrrha was all ready to leave. Standing in the reception area, Clover sent a quick text ahead to the girl’s mother that they’d be home a little later than expected due to the delay, then looked back up to find that the five of them—him, Pyrrha, Mr. Branwen, and Mr. Branwen’s nieces—seemed to be the last souls in the building. At some point, the sun had gone down and most of the other studios’ lights had been shut off. Mr. Branwen was shrugging into a thin jacket, a duffle bag slung carelessly to the ground at his feet as he took one last look around the place.
Abruptly, Clover realized that they’d kept the poor guy past closing. Remembering his time as restaurant waitstaff, he winced internally. So much for asking him out.
“I’m really sorry to have kept you and your nieces.” Clover rubbed at the back of his neck as the other man’s gaze darted up to him in apparent surprise. “I didn’t even realize how late it had gotten. The skirt could’ve waited.”
At the front desk, Pyrrha was signing herself out in her messy six-year-old’s scribble, uncaring of the conversation around her. The other two little girls were hanging around at the other end of the room, quietly playing one of those clapping games that were so popular with kids their age. They looked tired.
“O-Oh,” Mr. Branwen stuttered a little, “It’s really no problem. This kind of thing happens all the time.”
“Still,” Clover insisted, “I owe you an apology, Mr. Branwen.”
The ballet instructor stared at him for a long enough moment that Clover actually started to feel uncomfortable, then suddenly threw his head back and laughed. The sound was full-bodied and joyful, seeming to bounce off the walls. When he was finished, he patted a shell-shocked Clover on the chest, suddenly much closer than he remembered him being. “That’s sweet, boy-scout, but I’m not that old, yet.” He winked and Clover felt hot under the collar. “Call me Qrow.”
Then he turned smoothly on his heel and sauntered over to the door to the outside, sweeping it open with one arm for Pyrrha and Clover as he called for his nieces to “hurry [their] butts up!” in an undeniably indulgent tone.
Clover whisked his goddaughter out into the brisk evening air, thankful when the slight chill cooled his cheeks down until he was pretty sure they were no longer blazing the same color as Pyrrha’s hair.
And if he couldn’t quite pull his eyes away from the sinuous sway of the other man’s hips as he walked across the parking lot to a beat-up old pickup, following his nieces who were bouncing along ahead of him?
Well, that was neither here nor there.