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7
CHASE
Shit.Shit. Shit.
I was officially that person. The one mumbling to herself as she dodged the human traffic clogging the sidewalk, and slugging the occasional person with my bag as it swung wildly on my shoulder.
It wasn’t my fault. I had set my alarm and gone to bed on time-ish. How was I supposed to know that the stupid thing was going to install an update and then randomly turn itself off? Sometimes, I really did loathe technology.
I skidded to a stop at the studio door but, just as I reached a hand towards it, my mother’s ringtone came wailing out of my bag. I should leave it, I should leave it and call her back after my class.
“Hi Mom, can I call you back?” I hitched my bag higher on my shoulder and eyed the studio door. I needed to get my butt inside.
“I won’t be long, I just need to know what you’re bringing on Thursday?”
“Thursday?” I was confident we didn’t have plans on Thursday because Thursday was Thanksgiving and we hadn’t spent a Thanksgiving together in two, maybe three years.
“Yes, darling.” The tone had a slice of irritation that hit me somewhere between my ribs and belly button. “It’s our first Thanksgiving as a new family.”
“I have Thanksgiving at Rudi, Mom, just like I have done for the last five years, you know this.”
“Yes, I do know that, but this year is different. Derrick and I want to establish some new traditions and that starts with having all of our children together.”
The sharp response burned its way up my throat. They got married a week ago, after being together maybe six months, and now we’re all expected to play happy families? I’d only met Derrick a few times and had heard next to nothing about his kids.
“And here I was thinking that would have started at your wedding. But the children weren’t required there.” I only just resisted adding that these people werenotmy family, nor did I want them to be.
Her answering silence was thick. I barely recognised her voice when she eventually said, “Chase, this is important to me.”
But I was too far gone. I wasn’t bowing to new traditions of a family I didn’t ask for. “We can be together at Christmas, I can’t do Thanksgiving. I’ve gotta go, I’ll call you later.” I hung up without waiting for a response.It’s our first Thanksgiving as a new family. I didn’t have any issues with the one I already had, small though it may be.
I hustled into the studio, tugging at the laces of my boots. Once, just once, I would like to arrive at this class on time. And yet, even after coming for over a year, every week I stumbled in, ended up shoved in the back and had to use the shitty weights because I was last to arrive. Every. Single. Time.
I blamed the fact it was Monday morning. No one was on time for anything on Monday mornings, right? Well, maybe sociopaths, of which Janine with the pixie cut was clearly one. She was front and center, like she always was, today in a pair of bubblegum pink booty shorts so tiny I could hear Aunt Peggy telling me she couldsee that girl’s religion. The familiar sadness that came with thinking of Peggy rose up like a wave. It would be twenty years next year that she’d been gone. The world lost some of its color the day she left it.
I shook the thoughts off as best I could, my eyes drawn back to Janine’s ass. I had to give it to her, she had an incredible ass. And thighs, stomach, shoulders, and arms. She was a package of finely tuned precision. I was convinced she was a former ballet dancer, lording her poise and grace over the rest of us uncoordinated mortals. No one had posture like that unless they spent an inordinate amount of time staring at themselves in a mirror.
“Sorry, excuse me, hi Katherine.” My smile was all teeth as I weaved through the other women, took the last set of weights and settled into my dark corner of the studio. Well, as dark as a corner in a barre studio could get, anyway, which—with all the overhead lights—was close to the surface of the sun. So, I guess it was more of a metaphorical dark corner.
“You are cutting it fine, girl,” Jeremy said with an amused slant to his mouth.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I replied, peeling off the last of my outer layers before I sweated through them.
“By the skin of your teeth.”
“What are you doing back here?”
He, like pixie cut Janine in the booty shorts, was long and lean and a suspected former ballet dancer (he had so far refused to confirm). We’d had a brief dalliance years ago and I’d assumed we’d never cross paths again. Then I walked into his barre class and we’d been friends ever since. He taught at a few studios but First Position was his favorite. I liked to think it was because I was his favorite student, but it probably paid the best.
His dark hair was perfectly quaffed, despite being in an exercise class, his eyes were the color of a freshly brewed cup of coffee and his full lips were always tilted in a secret smirk. He was beautiful, there was no getting around it.
“New instructor. They wanted to test her out with an experienced group,” he said, and I must have looked panicked because he added, “God you are such a creature of habit, you know that change can be a good thing sometimes, right?”
I shot him my plastic smile. The comment stung a little more than it usually would thanks to the call with Mom. Changing barre instructors was one thing. Changing my favorite Thanksgiving plans was quite another. Was it so bad to like things as they were? Was that a fucking crime?
Before I could fall too far down that rabbit hole, my attention was drawn to the front of the room as a woman walked in. She was tall and slim and graceful, and she didn’t so much walk asglide. Her honey blonde hair was secured in a loose bun, with a few well placed wisps escaping at her temples. Her lithe frame was wrapped in lavender lycra and a loose fitting white shirt that was knotted at the back. Did everyone have to rub it in my face how together they were this morning? Granted, no one else was really aware of my inner turmoil. They weren’t to know I had a downright pornographic dream about my best friend last night. Damn that fairy costume.
“Good morning, everyone, I’m Lindsay.” Even her voice was graceful. How was that possible? “Before we get started, I wanted to say thank you to Jeremy for letting me take over his class today.” He bowed with a dramatic swing of his arm, as a ripple of chatter went through the room.
