This was a big mistake. Huge. She was a confident duck, not a sexy swan, and leaving her rut didn’t mean climbing Striptease Mountain. Her jaw clenched. There was one person to blame for this serious overreach.
Tor Gunnar with his cold-fish, penguin-fucking comments
As if on cue, bump-and-grind jazz music began to play and the other students took their positions straddling the chairs.
She adjusted her bun, stomach queasy. If the Hellions coach hadn’t acted like the idea of being attracted to her was a joke, she’d have never pulled up the burlesque studio’s number that she’d photographed while stuck in traffic. And she’d have never been irritated enough to go out for emergency drinks with Margot and Breezy at their favorite bar.
And she certainly wouldn’t have knocked back three Jack and Diet Cokes before revealing Tor’s smart-ass comments.
After Margot and Breezy had wrapped up their gasps and “Oh, honey, no! What is he talking about? What a jerk!” comments, she’d sheepishly confessed her half-baked burlesque idea with every expectation that they’d laugh her under the table.
Instead, Margot had slammed her hand down on the table so hard that one of the empty glasses went flying halfway toward the pool tables. “Yes,” she shouted. “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She banged her hand as if in the throes of pleasure. “You need to do this. Take back the power, hold up your head and be the badass woman not afraid to shake her booty. Heck, all of us should get more bow-chicka-wow-wow. It’s good for the soul.”
“Speak for yourselves,” Breezy had sniffed, even while her eyes danced. “If I have any more bow-chicka then I’m not going to be able to sit down for a week.”
“No one likes a humble bragger,” Margot had scolded with mock severity. “Although you can’t keep secrets about Jed West’s bedroom prowess all to yourself. Throw us a bone... er.” She’d waggled her eyebrows. “Like does he talk dirty? Huh? Huh?”
“I’m not telling you that!” Breezy looked as if she’d stuck her face in a plate of ketchup. “It’s private.” She’d fallen hard for Jed West, captain of the Hellions Angels over the summer after he’d showed up for a literacy event at her library. One thing led to another and the rest of history. After concerns due to symptoms arising from a nasty concussion, he retired from the sport and took a position coaching college hockey for Denver University. Breezy had moved into his condo and cue the cheesy happy-ever-after music.
In her desire to save Breezy from more embarrassment, Neve had declared they would sign up right there. Now she wished she’d demanded her sister give Margot the gossip.
“Bonjour, bonjour.” A svelte fortysomething woman bustled into the room in a black bodysuit and fishnets. “I am Madam Monique and you are ’ere for ze beginner ’eel class,non?” She had a French accent to boot. Striking a pose, hands on her hips, she surveyed the class.
There were ten women in total, all dressed in fashionable dance wear and ready to flaunt their moneymakers. Neve caught her own dumpy reflection in the studio mirror. She looked as if she’d gotten lost on the way to FBI boot camp training.
“Alors,where are your ’eels?” Madam Monique cast a finger to Neve like a Renaissance painting of an Old Testament god.
“Uh... I don’t have any,” Neve mumbled.
Someone in the back row tittered.
Her cheeks went from warm to scalding. It was like being back in middle school again.
“But zis is a ’eel class.” Madam Monique seemed honestly confused.
That made two of them. Her mouth dried. Why had she signed up again? In trying to mentally one-up Tor Gunnar, she was only serving to humiliate herself.
“That’s what I told her,” Margot sang out.
“Stop being the teacher’s pet.” Breezy giggled.
“Next class, ’ave the ’eels and an outfit that makes you feel fabulous, okay?” Madam Monique refocused on the rest of the class. “Zee dances you master in zis class will change your life. You will ’ave power. Sex appeal. Radiate charm and confidence. Men will see you coming and ooooh... notice you going.”
One girl raised her hand. “When do we get to wear the pasties?”
“What’s a pastie?” Breezy murmured.
“No clue,” Neve shot back. “But I think it’s making me hungry.”
That set Margot to giggling, and the problem with Margot’s giggle was that it was contagious, a hiccupping snort that made the listener helpless against joining in.
Neve wheezed and Madam Monique froze. “Ah.Bien.Our first volunteer,” she purred, crooking her finger to beckon Neve forward. Her grin was like a cat who’d eaten the cream. “Mais oui, a most excellent idea.”
Neve drew forward with as much enthusiasm as a prisoner approaching the guillotine.
“Remove your shirt.”
“Come again?” Neve asked. All she had on was a sports bra, one that used to be white until it got mixed up with Breezy’s red sweater in the wash a few years ago when they were roommates. Now, not only was it old and stretched out, it was also the same hue as a slice of baloney.
