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“It’s not healthy, you’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t sleep well,” Lane tries.
“My body, my choice,” I snap, feeling cornered.
“We don’t want to see you hurt. Especially now that you’ve joined dance club. You need your rest.”
My lips part. “How did you know that?”
“I do your laundry; I found the uniform. Why didn’t you just tell us?”
I raise my hands and let them slap my thighs. “I thought you’d think it was stupid or something.”
“Why would we think that?”
“I don’t know.” I edge towards the door, feeling mildly uncomfortable. “Can I go now?”
Stanley nods. “Let me just grab my—”
“No need, Alice is coming for me.”
“Oh, that’s great,” Lane says, sounding so happy and looking it too.
Stanley looks surprisingly upset. What’s that all about? Still he manages a weak sounding, “Have fun.” Sensing his mood change too, Lane pats his arm.
I puff out my cheeks, feeling a gnawing guilt churning my inside. I’m getting attached. I can’t get attached. They’ll be rid of me soon.
I walk into the studio and throw my gym bag onto the ground under the table by the boys’ bags. The boys who are already here and warming up. They both look at my reflection in the mirror as I approach and say nothing as I take point beside them and start to stretch.
“Morning,” Hammond calls as he crosses the room. He presses play on his phone and comes to stand behind us. “Let’s get the warm-ups out of the way so we can start with the real stuff.”
The door opens again and a few other students enter, taking space against the far wall. They start doing stretches too.
“Don’t look at them, they won’t get in the way.”
“It’s Lame and Lamer,” Presley hisses at Carter who flips the two guys in the middle of the group of six his middle finger.
“No amount of practicing is going to help you get better than me, Lamer!” Carter yells.
“Shut the fuck up, Crapper,” Michael retorts, flipping him the bird. I laugh under my breath and roll my eyes playfully when he winks at me and blows me a flirtatious kiss. “Should have joined us, new kid, Carter and Presley dance like my grandma.”
“I love the fighting spirit,” Hammond encourages, smiling at his star pupil. “Okay. Warm up. Do stretches.”
I watch both Presley and Carter flex their bodies, do the splits, and stretch each other’s limbs out together without issue or embarrassment. They have such strong bodies. Both are wearing wife-beaters that cling to their athletically muscular chests, and both are wearing joggers that hang dangerously from their hips. I can’t stop looking at them, especially their arms and chests. There’s just something to be said about rounded chests, tight with strong muscle without looking bulky.
I move to the wooden railing and handle myself until Hammond joins me.
“You can’t do this yourself. If you want to stretch properly, you need a partner.”
“I’ve got it,” I say softly but he touches me anyway. Normally I’d react, but this is his way and if I’m really going to do the whole adult thing when I’m eighteen and alone, then I need future prospects. Hammond seems to think he can help with that.
He pulls on my arms, my back, my shoulders, and then makes us all do squats.
“Your face is red,” Carter tells me, smirking at my reflection in the mirror as we go up and down. “Can’t hack it?”
I contemplate kicking his leg out from under him but I remember my promise yesterday to cause their bodies no harm in this room.
Speaking of causing harm…
“How’s your jaw, Presley?”
Presley clicks his neck side to side and starts to stretch his biceps. We follow suit.
“Still better than your social life.” He runs his middle finger along the faint bruise. “You’re lucky I’m not the kind of guy who hits a girl back when she hits me.”
“Nah, you just shove them around in a circle of friends like a pussy.” I smile condescendingly. “Scared to face me alone, Presley?”
He stops, turns, and trails his fingertips up my bare bicep. “If you want me alone, Mallory, all you’ve got to do is ask.”
I shrug his hand off as he leans around me to look at my ass. “Though I might have to put a bag over your head so I can at least pretend there’s a pretty face on your tight little body.”
I really want to kick him in the dick. “Touch me and I will break your fingers, in the studio or not.”
“Please,” he grumbles and then laughs lightly. “Like I have to force myself on a girl to get her to drop her panties.”
Hammond interrupts our quiet battle of words by making us copy a new routine. I have to hand it to him, he’s a really good dancer. When I ask why he never went pro, he explains that he got a severe ankle and knee injury that flares up too often for him to make it full-time. So he lives vicariously through us.
