Chapter Fourteen
Leah
Despite Mags being up my ass about things with GJ, it was impossible to stay away from GJ. When she texted me after my run, and I saw her name pop up on my phone, my heart legitimately fluttered. There was no way in hell I was going to call things off with her for the sake of my sister’s feelings.
As I opened GJ’s message, I turned on the shower in my bathroom, a smile already on my face.
GJ
I think our cover is blown
Even though that text should’ve been enough to send me into a full-blown panic, I was surprisingly calm.
Mags had already bitched me out, so it wasn’t exactly surprising she’d also gone after GJ.
And since my phone wasn’t blowing up, I could only assume GJ had done an equally good job at downplaying what was going on between us.
Leah
Did she talk to you too?
GJ
More like picked a fight with me.
Leah
I’m sure talking to her this morning didn’t help. She left in a bad mood.
I felt bad that GJ was caught up in the middle of what should’ve been a feud between sisters, but I also kind of liked the thrill. It felt good to finally be doing something for myself—and there was something kind of hot about sneaking around.
And Mags being so insistent that all of this was because of her and just a way of getting revenge made me all the more determined to see it through. It was hard to bring myself to care about her feelings when she very clearly didn’t care about mine.
GJ
Does it seem like she knows everything? She didn’t give me much.
Leah
I don’t think we’d be talking to each other if that were the case. She’d somehow have blocked us from each other’s phones or something.
Or convinced my parents to transfer me to a different school in a different country.
GJ
And the sex is good enough to risk that happening?
Leah
The sex is more than good enough
I bit back a smile just thinking about it.
I was having by far the best sex of my life, to the point where I understood why people literally craved being with their partner.
I was practically crawling out of my skin when I went too long without seeing her—and that was going to have to be the case because of the away games coming up.
When GJ and I had first started hooking up, I hadn’t realized that the biggest problem I’d run into was not being able to get enough of her.
If anything, I would’ve assumed that, by now, things would’ve fizzled.
With everyone else, it was so obvious what there was to not like, and I’d just ignore it.
But with GJ, I couldn’t find anything to get icked out by, or any real reason to end things.
Even with everything about her laid out so clearly—her dating history and her ego, the way she could barely be around for most of the school year because of basketball—I still wanted her.
I still couldn’t find anything that I didn’t like.
Leah
You really have to go to this game?
GJ
Unfortunately my team would fall apart and not know what to do without my shit talking
But I will be counting down the minutes until you’re back in my bed
As I put down my phone, I allowed myself one small squeal before forcing myself to be cool again.
As much as I appreciated having a quiet house while Mags was away for basketball, I really wished I could have GJ over to keep me company.
In all of my years of quietly fantasizing about what it would be like to date one of Mags’s teammates, I’d never considered how annoying it was that they were on the same exact schedule.
It also didn’t help that I was prone to getting restless when I was left alone for too long. Soph was busy working on a group project for class, Mags wasn’t around to bicker with, and GJ wasn’t around to sneak off to, so it was just me for most of the weekend.
I leaned against the kitchen island, scrolling through my phone to see what I could do to pass the time on a Saturday.
A party invite was getting passed around in the group chat, with some of the girls planning on going out early and staying out through the night.
A few other girls talked about potentially hitting up The 151 or Stephen’s—which I was still avoiding like the plague after everything that happened with Kai.
I looked at the digital party flyer for a day party at a nearby frat. It wouldn’t exactly be my favorite scene in the world, but my friends would be there, and it was never a bad time with them.
But as much as I liked going out and drinking, I think I liked getting picked up and walked home more. And GJ wasn’t here to do that.
I nearly rolled my eyes at myself. What kind of person had I turned into? Potentially skipping out on parties all because the person I wanted to kiss couldn’t pick me up at the end of it?
The sex really was that good, so I couldn’t entirely blame myself. But that was obviously the only reason. It wasn’t like I was genuinely looking forward to seeing GJ and talking to her and maybe even coming up with some kind of weak excuse to sleep next to her again.
Not at all.
My phone vibrated and part of me—stupidly—hoped that maybe GJ was texting. But it was the group chat again instead.
Reese
Teaching a class today, sorry guys. I’ll catch you next time
After reading her message, I nearly locked my phone and put it to the side, not thinking twice about it. But in the middle of doing so, I paused.
It had been amazing to meet GJ’s family—they were warm and kind, and I could see where GJ’s sense of humor and bold personality came from. They were everything I wished my family could be.
But beyond that, it had been so nice to meet her niece and nephew and remember what it felt like to just dance again.
I’d taught them some basic cheer moves, but I’d mostly fallen back on the things that I’d learned in my dance classes around their age.
There were so many cute basics that I hadn’t thought about in so long because I hadn’t really needed to.
I used a different skillset for cheer than I did for dancing, and I was over a decade and a half out from my first-ever dance class; it was easy to forget how fun it had been at the beginning.
I smiled, thinking about their little giggles as they practiced a mix of jazz and ballet and random moves I only vaguely remembered.
It was a challenge to be on the teaching side of things for the first time ever, especially for kids, but they also didn’t seem to care that much.
They didn’t need to know that I was making it up as I went; all they knew was that I was having just as much as they were.
I pulled up the class schedule for the Lakeside Green gym, knowing exactly what it was that I wanted to do this weekend.
For the first time since I started as a student at Lakeside Green, I took the hallways toward the dance studios at the gym.
I hadn’t been inside a dance studio in general since I was in high school, and it was weirdly intimidating.
The entire walk over from my apartment, I was convinced that I was making a stupid mistake and I should just turn back around.
But another part of me remembered how much I used to love it, and how stupid it was for me not to just let myself enjoy it all these years.
“Leah! Do my eyes deceive me?” Reese cried out when she saw me walk in the door. She ran over and gave me a hug. “I had no idea you were coming!”
“Yeah, I saw your text in the group chat and decided it was probably time I actually came by.”
“I’m so glad you did. This class is so fun, and you’ll love the regulars. We’ve gotten a really good group going since the semester started,” Reese bragged proudly. “Are you ready to do some intermediate jazz?”
I’d been so caught up in seeing that Reese was teaching that I hadn’t even paid attention to what the actual class was.
“I guess I’ll have to be,” I said and put my bag down against the front wall under the mirrors.
I hadn’t taken a jazz class at all in so long that I wasn’t sure intermediate was the place to start, but it was too late now.
“You’re going to do great,” Reese said with a wink. She tightened her curly blonde ponytail and then looked up at the clock before turning her attention back to the room of about six people. “Okay, five more minutes and then we’ll get started.”
I stretched out my body, mostly to put my nervous energy toward something.
Even though I could tell it made Reese happy, I was nervous about having to actually dance again.
And knowing it was an intermediate class made me want to run for the hills; I might not have a beginner’s technique, but I no longer had the skills of a trained dancer.
After five minutes of me half-stretching and shyly smiling at everyone who came in, Reese clapped her hands. “Alright, let’s get moving. We’ll start with our stretches first, and then we’ll go right into what is one of my personal favorite routines.”
The class felt like it was over in a blink. I was sweating from pretty much every part of my body, and despite years of cheer practices, I had a feeling I was going to be sore in ways I hadn’t seen in a long time. Reese had me using muscles I forgot I had.
I wasn’t the only one who’d been left breathless and sweaty from the class.
Everyone around me looked visibly exhausted.
But they also looked so cheery. Pairs of friends who came together congratulated each other on surviving; the girl next to me smiled to herself as she grabbed her water bottle, probably running off a post-workout endorphin high.
It was hard for me to keep the smile off my face, too.
Despite also doing the routine with us, Reese hadn’t broken a sweat at all. “That was great, guys. Good work keeping up the energy. Alondra will be teaching a class later tonight if you didn’t get enough, or I’ll be back on Wednesday,” she said. “Have a great rest of your day.”
“That was amazing,” I said as I walked to the front of the classroom where Reese was waving goodbye to everyone.
“You think so? You’re not just saying that because you’re my friend and you have to?”
I laughed. “No, that was genuinely so much fun. And it’s obvious how much you love teaching the class.”
Reese glowed from my praise. “Not to brag but I do have the best part-time job in the entire world.” She bumped her shoulder into mine. “You looked good out there. Almost like you love dancing, and you should keep coming back to classes.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said, laughing it off. “I really liked it, but it’s…”
Reese raised her perfectly gelled eyebrow at me and crossed her arms, waiting for me to finish the sentence. “You can’t even finish the sentence,” she teased after I left my thought hanging in the air for a beat too long.
“I just, I don’t know. I don’t think I know how to dance in a way that isn’t my entire life. I’ve never danced for fun, ever.”
“You literally just did. And you’ll never learn how to fully enjoy dancing if you don’t just start dancing again.
” Reese turned away from me to gather up her things to leave.
Everyone else in the class had cleared out, leaving just us behind.
She flicked off the studio lights as we headed for the door.
“I’m just saying that you’re allowed to have fun and you’re allowed to love something.
No mean teachers and no pressure to compete. Just love of the game.”
She described it in a way that seemed so simple, but I was skeptical that it actually would be.
Untangling all of the complex feelings I had about dance was hard—it was basically a decade and a half of my life.
It had been my attempt at getting even an ounce of parental approval or support outside of Mags, so it’d been hard to ever enjoy it.
But Reese was right that I’d loved it. For the entire fifty-minute class, my brain had gone completely radio silent.
It was just me and the music and Reese guiding us through the dance routine.
It was nothing like cheerleading practice, which was mostly only fun because my friends were there.
It was so whatever, so integrated into my routine, that I just showed up like I had to and didn’t think about it, like it was a job.
But this class hadn’t felt like a job. And maybe it was time I finally learned that I could do things with no actual end goal or award at the end. I could just do them because it made life more enjoyable.