Genre: Humor (/Romance?)
Rating: K+
Irrational Jealousy
"Keith!" Nadja called with delight when she saw the black-clad man waiting some way away from the Troupe's car, apart from the crowd. He raised a hand to her with a grin when he saw that she had seen him.
Nadja ran around the crowd of people and made her way to Keith.
"Bravo, Nadja," he smiled and clapped when she reached him.
"That was just an introductory dance," she shook her head, smiling nonetheless. "My flamenco's always last, since Leader said it's the heart of the show."
"Introductory or not, a good dance is a good dance," Keith smiled. "Shouldn't you be getting changed into your flamenco costume now?"
Nadja hesitated.
"Yes, but…" She sent Keith a worried look.
The vagabond in Keith was still as alive as ever, and he had a tendency to come to see her without warning, only to disappear while she was looking the other way.
Keith knew what Nadja was thinking. He smiled.
"I'm here to talk to you—I'll watch your dance and wait for you here after the show. Don't worry."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
Nadja flashed him a brilliant smile, and then turned and returned to the Troupe's car. She changed quickly, and barely managed to get her hair securely pinned up in time.
She scanned the audience for Keith; she found him standing near the back. A young woman, to Nadja's horror, was attempting to talk to him. She quickly attempted to put the sight from her mind and schooled herself not to look back.
She didn't dance as well as usual, and she knew it. She still held a small bit of anxiety that Keith would depart—with the young woman, no less—while she was dancing, and that took the edge off every movement that she made and every step that she tapped.
The moment that the dance was over, and she had bowed and gracefully left the stage, she looked around the car to scan the audience for Keith. It didn't take long to find him, for he was already making his way over to her. Nadja couldn't help it when her face broke into a smile almost of its own accord.
"A walk?" suggested Keith. Nadja grinned and agreed.
"Just let me change." He was still there. He could scarcely know the elation Nadja felt at that single fact. The young lady from earlier scarcely mattered any longer.
So imagine how it felt to have that elation robbed from under her feet when she returned to find Keith speaking with the utmost politeness with a certain young lady—a different one from earlier. He was supposed to be waiting for her, Nadja fumed silently.
"Nadja," Keith said, dismissing the other girl like she was nothing. This consoled Nadja a little, though she still frowned.
"Shall we be going then?" she asked, her eyes fixed on the other girl, who was glaring back as if to say, "I saw him first!"
Fortunately for Nadja, Keith had no eyes for the girl and did not even bid her farewell.
They discussed what their lives had been like in the few months since they had last seen one another as they walked down the street, and Nadja almost forgot about the two successive young ladies that had seen fit to "throw themselves" at Keith.
As she did not voice these sentiments, there was no one to remind her that really, neither girl had thrown herself at anybody.
"Would you like to buy some flowers, sir?" asked a flower girl at the side of the street, smiling flirtatiously at Keith (or so Nadja thought, but her judgment had already proved rather faulty).
This was the last string for Nadja, and she finally snapped.
"No he would not!" she growled at the girl, and dragged Keith away from the street vendors with their horrible girls throwing Keith looks and smiles from all directions.
"Do you think we ought to move to a more secluded location, Nadja?"
"Yes," Nadja snapped, then felt her face flush as she realized the connotations that their words carried. "Purely to keep you from being distracted by those horrible girls, of course. I just can't stand the way they distract you and you never hear a word I'm saying when they're around."
"Of course," Keith replied simply.
Nadja refused to wonder why he looked so smug.
