Ripped

Tit and Olivia.

Oh, yes. They’re like ringleaders, those two. I can recognize them instantly.

Tit is the blonde, not natural blonde like Melanie is, but a salon blonde with dark eyebrows. Olivia is dark-haired, almost like me, but her face is rounder and her expression, I guess . . . softer. But the look in her eyes? Nothing soft about that.

I meet her gaze square on, because you can’t ever look away from bullies. I practiced this to perfection when my father died and my mother intimidated me, and at school, where I was laughed at until Mackenna made sure I wasn’t laughed at again.

Now a dozen twenty-year-olds look at me like I’m bound to be their entertainment for the day. The choreographer claps her hands to pull every dancer’s eye from me over to her.

“My name is Yolanda,” she tells me. “And I’m in charge of getting you to move that body as if you’ve trained professionally your whole life. Not an easy task, so I warn you, your baths? Should be ice cold after this. You will never in your life be as stiff as a two-by-four and as awkward as a newborn giraffe. You will stretch with us now, and watch, and learn!” She snaps her fingers, and the other dancers start to stretch. Olivia seems impressed I’m even trying to stretch. Can I touch my toes? No. I’m as unbending as a stick, and I almost grunt as I keep trying.

“Gently! Or you pull and break the muscle and it’s no use to us!” Yolanda chides.

She’s Latin-blooded—I can tell by the passion in her voice and her thick accent. Her body is beautiful, with perfect curves in all the right places. The other dancers’ clothes cling to their beautiful bodies. Unlike mine. I’m a bit too flat-chested, and my ass could use a little meat too. I don’t have many curves. I do have big nipples that poke out too much, calling way too much attention to themselves, which is why I’m actually glad my boobs are small.

The outfit I’m wearing, sent to my room on behalf of Lionel, doesn’t really help my small boobs and small ass.

Trying not to watch myself in the mirror too much—and therefore avoiding a reminder of just how flat-chested I am—I make my way to the center. Yolanda calls me over.

“You. You and Olivia are both choreographed differently than the others. Pretend I’m Jones. Now you walk up to me, your moves sensual. Hypnotic. Sexy. Make contact with your inner mermaids . . .”

I feel stupid. Ridiculous. But I try to walk with a little sway of my hips. I hear snorts all around and I stop and scowl, swinging my scowl across the room so every woman here gets the full blast of my displeasure.

“Ignore . . . girls!” she chides, clapping, then to me, “Now . . . sensual. Not so stiff. Like making love. You will make love to Jones with your clothes on, onstage. Everybody wants Jones. Imagine his body, moving sinuously against yours. Mackenna Jones has the best moves—Magic Mike has nothing on him. Are you prepared?” She reaches around me and grabs the small of my back, undulating her body against mine.

Our tits are pressing. She’s pretending to be Mackenna and looking at me with an expression I believe she believes is Mackenna’s. Just thinking about being like this, in front of an audience, makes me want to gag. “I can’t—”

“CAN’T! That word does not exist here. We are all doers here. Now circle your hips. Hands on waist. Side to side, front, back, side to side. Just loosen it up!” She goes to turn on the music while all the other dancers stretch and I’m humping the air like a ridiculous little shit. “Good!” she praises. “Very good! Now add your arms . . . circle them to the side . . . up above . . . loosen that stiff little body of yours.”

We’re dancing to the group’s song, and the music starts reverberating in me. The girls swing their heads, and I pull my hair loose and follow suit, going up to Yolanda and rubbing my hands up her sides.

I am suddenly skating, my feet in charge under me, and Mackenna’s hands are on my waist, and I know he’ll catch me. If I fall, it’s not embarrassing but an excuse to get him to touch me and hear his low, rumbling laugh. I like when he laughs. I like his chuckle, how he picks me up, dusts my ass with his gloves, kisses me on the cheek in case anybody recognizes us, and whispers, “Enough?”

And I say, “Never!”

And he spins me like a top with another, deeper laugh, and pulls me down the rink, skating close to him. Suddenly dancing is not that different. I’m swept by the music, following the lead of the girl in front of me, letting my legs repeat the steps I’m shown, my hands moving and tracing my imaginary man. Yolanda silences her instructions as I start rocking, losing myself, picturing the way Mackenna had been up on stage with the two women. Now the one right in front of him will be me.

Reminding him what we had.

This is what you want, remember? Make him lose it. Remind him of the girl he used to skate with. The one he used to twirl around like a top. Remind him that she’s gone to him. Gone because . . . HE left HER.

She loved him and he LEFT her.

Make him regret walking. Without a word, or a goodbye, or an “I’m sorry,” or a reason . . .

The thought only invigorates me, and I’m still shaking my little ass seconds after the song stops.

“Good job, girls!” Yolanda calls with another clap.

The dancers seem quite composed, while I, on the other hand, am gasping for breath as I follow them to the towel stack and wipe my neck. Yolanda comes over to me, approval shining in her eyes as she pats her cleavage dry. “You have something to prove. I like that.” She tips my head up with her free hand and dissects me with her eyes. “You in love with him?”

“Pfft!” I spit accidentally. “Sorry!” I laugh my evil witch laugh. “No way.”

She smiles a strangely expressionless smile. “Pandora. Hmm.” She walks away.

As if she knows something nobody else does.

♥ ♥ ♥

THE REST OF the day, I watch the band’s rehearsal from backstage, my eyes trained on you-know-who. He laughs out loud. A lot. He curses a lot too. The twins pick on him and he picks back, exchanging endearments such as “fucking jackass,” “get to work, douche,” and—my favorite—“suck my dick, asshole.” At one point, I’m pretty sure they talk about me.

“You get it on with your box of chocolates last night?”

“If I did,” says Mackenna smoothly, almost cockily, “that would be none of your goddamn business.”

Me? Box of chocolates?

“We’re being filmed, asshat. What we do from now until Madison Square Garden is everybody’s business,” Jax tells him. Is it Jax? I don’t know, I mix those two up so much. It helps when they’re bare-chested because Jax has a snake tattoo. Lex seems more talkative and is, in fact, grinning at me as I hide between the stage curtains.

I sink a little deeper into the shadows and wait for Mackenna to say more, but he doesn’t. Instead he rubs the back of his neck and rolls his shoulders, his body sweaty and moving in complete rhythm to the beat as they start up again.

The twins strike their guitars, the orchestra takes up with a frenzy, and Mackenna adds the vocals while a dozen male dancers dance in perfect synchrony behind him.

Yolanda’s right. No man should be so masculine, so muscular, and still be able to dance like that. A thrust of his hips, a swing of his body, and then he’s up on his arms, then back on his feet, singing in low tones while Bach and their rock music play in alternate tempos. It’s a perfect duet.

Up on the stage, he’s a rock god, but I can still remember when he used to give me wildflowers. I remember being so nervous that my mother would find out about us that sometimes I threw them away before I got home. What a coward I was.

He was the one. It’s the truest thing I know about me. That he was the one.

“I want to be someone one day, you know? Make a difference . . .”

“I don’t know who I want to be yet,” I said.

“I have an idea.” Kiss. “Be you.”

Relaxed as I listen to him now, I lean against the wall and close my eyes, letting his voice soothe me.

“Making friends already,” Lionel says from behind me. I spin around, and he smiles approvingly.

“Heard you did great at rehearsal.”

“I made a fool of myself, but at least some of your other dancers had a good time,” I say. I find myself smiling when he laughs, a booming laugh.

“Yolanda said you’re quite the natural. That you really brought it with you today.”

“Huh,” I say, disbelieving the compliment.

But it feels really good, actually. I’d forgotten how good. To get praised for something.

When Mackenna walks offstage, Lionel waves at him and proceeds to inform him of the same. “Your girlfriend’s apparently a natural dancer,” he says.

Mackenna is sweaty and breathing hard, eyebrows rising at the news. “Of course she is. Who’d you think you were dealing with?”

I’m blushing so hard, I can feel my toes grow red.

“She’s a great skater too,” Mackenna says softly.

When our eyes meet, my heart grows wings. Do you remember, Kenna? How you spun me, caught me, held me?

A long moment passes, and I feel like Lionel gets too uncomfortable with our silence, for he quickly excuses himself.