Muttering a curse, he followed me to the door. “I’ll drive you back.”
“It’s only a few blocks,” I argued. “I can walk.”
“I’m driving you,” he repeated.
“Whatever,” I grumbled and grabbed my bag off the couch in the living room where I’d left it earlier.
Braxton was still in the kitchen when we passed through it to go out the back door. “Leaving already?” he asked with a frown as he lifted his huge mug of coffee.
“Yeah,” I told him with a half smile. “It’s getting late, and I have a morning class.”
He shook his head at me in disgust. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“Some of us like mornings.” I gave him a one-armed hug while Barrick glowered at us from the open door. “See you tomorrow.”
“I’ll bring coffee. Text me how you take yours.” Giving me a squeeze, he smirked at his cousin before stepping back. “Be careful out there, Mia.”
The drive to my dorm was short and tense. I didn’t even know why I was mad—or what right Barrick had to be mad in the first place.
As he pulled the Jeep up in front of my building, I grabbed the door handle, but before I could get the door open, he grasped my hand and tugged me around to face him. “I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t leave pissed at me.”
“I don’t even know what I’m pissed about, to be honest.” I stroked my fingers over his jaw, and he lowered his lashes, enjoying my touch. “Were we fighting? I don’t remember fighting.”
“We weren’t fighting. I was just being a jealous idiot.” He leaned in and brushed his lips against my forehead.
Just that light touch had the power to steal the breath from my lungs. My fingers reached out, grabbing his shirt and balling into fists around the material, needing something to hold on to because it suddenly felt like I was falling.
Chapter 7
Mia
I could teach kids to dance all day and not have a moment of anxiety, but put me in a room of adult students, and I was nervous as hell.
Friday night, I stood in front of my adults-only class and channeled my mother, knowing I would need it as the youngest chick in the room.
“I don’t know what your reasons are for taking this particular class, and to be honest, I don’t want to know. The goal is to relax, have fun, and find the confidence in yourself to unleash your inner sex goddess.” I tossed my hair over my shoulder, already annoyed with it. But for this class, it was one of the props that had to be incorporated, so I couldn’t pull it into the bun I was itching to.
Cora had started a new, adults-only class and put me in charge of it—probably to see if I had the guts to do it or not.
Because this wasn’t a typical dance class.
It was a pole dancing class.
To teach women to become more confident in their bodies while getting a workout. At least that was what the flyer said when I’d seen it posted on the board in the lobby out front where parents were allowed to wait for their kids.
For the first class, there was a staggeringly good turnout. Every pole that had been set up earlier that evening was taken by women ranging in age from early twenties to late forties. Every single one of them had a different body type, and I liked seeing the diversity in the room.
Some of the older women looked shy and embarrassed, while a group of three younger women was snickering in the back corner like the mean girls I could already tell they were.
I adjusted the Lycra shorts I was wearing and the matching sports bra, wishing I could have worn the simple black leotard I normally wore for my littles’ classes.
“I want you all to relax and enjoy yourselves in here. This is a safe place, and no one…” My gaze went to the three in the back, still giggling. Each of them was dressed like Hooker Barbie, but I wasn’t going to call them out on their G-string and Band-Aid-sized tops that barely covered their nipples. I meant it when I said this was a safe place—even for them. “No one will make you feel like you don’t belong here.”
That seemed to relax the majority of the women and got the mean girls to stop giggling. For the next thirty minutes, I went over the basics, and five minutes before class was over, they were all getting comfortable with the poles.
Excusing everyone, I grabbed my bag and pulled out the sweatshirt I’d put in there before class. My SoCal constitution wasn’t used to the cooler temperatures of the late evenings in NoVa.
As I walked out of the building, I was already pulling my hair into a knot on top of my head.