Page 64 of After Midnight

Her lips form such a pretty smile that I almost kiss it right from her mouth. “No.” Her hands slide down my chest, and one finds my hand, our fingers intertwining. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

She grabs her phone, then leads me down the hallway to the second bedroom. As we step through the doorway, I swallow hard.

The evening sun shines through the windows, casting her pole studio in shades of deep gold and yellow, making her chrome dance pole shine.

“Sit.” She points to the couch, and I dutifully obey, sinking onto it, then resting my arms along the back. The pink throw rug underfoot is deep and plush, and I wiggle my toes into it.

The music in the living room stops, and then the speaker system in the pole studio lights up with a soft pink glow, and a new song starts playing. Remi sets her phone down, then reaches up to pull her hair out of the messy bun. The tangled strands fall down around her shoulders, a swash of black against her golden-brown skin.

She turns toward the pole, flashing her blue-eyed gaze at me. My breath catches, lodged in my chest. Then she wraps her hand around the chrome and starts to dance.

It’s different from what I’ve seen her do onstage and in the private room at the club. This movement looks loose and free, like she’s not really trying—or like she’s dancing for herself rather than someone else.

And I love it. I love this so much more than what Mirage does at Caliber. This feels like Remi, like the way she expresses herself. Her movement, the slow rotation her body does around the pole, reminds me of my music; it’s a way to speak without words, to let everything out without having to think so damn much.

She grips the pole with her thighs, holding herself aloft, and runs her hands through her hair as she reclines back, twirling slowly in the golden light. I find myself leaning forward, elbows on my knees, watching her with rapt attention.

Her movements, her facial expressions, the whisper of the pole spinning—it’s mesmerizing.

The song ends, and Remi slides down from the pole, her bare toes touching the floor without a sound. She leans against it and smiles at me.

“Wanna try?” she asks.

My eyebrows shoot up. “Me?”

This makes her laugh. “Yes, you. Come on. Don’t be scared.”

Slowly, I rise to my feet, my gaze tracing up the pole to where it’s bolted into the ceiling. “I don’t know . . . I weigh a lot more than you.”

“You’ll be fine. This thing isn’t going anywhere, I promise.” She taps it with her hand. “I had it professionally installed.”

I’m not quite convinced. That pole looks like one swing from my body would send it toppling. But I approach her anyway, and she smiles up at me.

“Okay . . .” I say, still side-eyeing the pole. “What do I do?”

This leads to an hour-long session of Remi trying to teach me some basic pole moves, but she spends half that time in stitches of laughter, tears running from the corners of her eyes as I grip the pole for dear life and swing around it like a drunken monkey.

“This,” I gasp, “is so much harder than you make it look. I think I pulled a shoulder muscle.”

Pole beats the weight bench for sure. Maybe the gym should get one of these instead.

Remi wipes the tears from her eyes and reaches up to squeeze my shoulder, making me wince. “I’ll give you a massage later,” she says, blue eyes catching mine in the fading sunlight of late evening.

And that makes me instantly forget about how ridiculous I just looked for the last hour. I’d pull all my muscles if it meant she’d massage them for me.

Her phone chimes, interrupting the music, and she gives me a little smile before walking over to check it. I look up at the pole, feeling seriously impressed by pole dancers, then glance at her.

And her smile’s gone. Instead, her lips are pressed into a tight line, and there’s a furrow in her brow. It immediately makes my stomach sink.

“Everything okay?” I ask, taking a step toward her.

She continues to stare at the phone, then holds it out to me.

Nervous about what I’ll find, I reach for it.

She has her social media app, Tribe, pulled up. And the photo that stares back at me is confusing for a moment, until my brain slows down enough to process it.

It’s a photo of the two of us getting our toenails painted at the salon. The angle of the camera makes it look like someone tried to take it discreetly, and they were obviously successful, because I had no idea this shot was taken.