26. Chapter 26

Chapter twenty-six

Caleb

Crying in Dr. Liu's office did not help release any of the misplaced attraction I had to Juliette. I might not have known how to answer what love feels like, but I absolutely knew what infatuation felt like.

I made a point all week not to linger around at Juliette's because the only result was a growing attraction. My sleep paralysis Juliette, who visited again and again, was not aiding my efforts. I was fast approaching obsession now that I knew for a fact that she'd flirt back with me. That, if we could, we would. The slope wasn't slippery for me, it was a cliff.

Friday night, the group of Juliette's friends and I met up at a low-lit restaurant with an impressive bar and a feisty waitress with pink hair and a nose ring. Must be her usual night working because she joked that her tip better pay for her next semester at cosmetology school. There were six of us, five guys and one woman: Damion, Xander, Hipster Dad, Rita and The Older One. All of their wives were in the class a block over for the hour.

Whatever that meant.

I was lost.

Fortunately, they absorbed me into their group the moment I sat with them and continued their conversation as if they'd always known me. It took the edge off of the awkwardness of this all.

"Tonight's a chair night!" Xander looked up from his phone, to the group's rowdy approval.

"It's the best night of the month!" The one with the hipster vibe and impressive beard said to me. "Everyone better stop drinking the whiskey now and switch to water." I was confused, but played along, downing the round like everyone else .

"Have fun with that gentleman," Rita laughed, sipping from her beer. She and her wife had seven-year-old twins at the studio, which made her the only one without a teenager yet.

I had a feeling I was going along with an innuendo, but without context, I just followed the herd and laughed along. The conversation turned back to everyone's families and the teens they were all raising.

"Kelsey is a sweet girl. She'll come around," Hipster Dad said. Everyone agreed with variations of nods and noises. It was strange to sit at a table with people who knew my daughter longer than I did. They had been to all her recitals, granted to see their own daughters and sons, but they saw her blossom nonetheless.

They had something I could never have. Envy was a thief of joy.

"She babysat for us once. She was very shy and quiet with me and Erica, but the kids had a blast," Rita added.

It was nice to talk to unbiased parents. Juliette was invested in a way these people were not. "I feel for her because, sure my life changed, but Kelsey's entire perception of reality is upside-down," I said, not meeting anyone's gaze.

Damion, who hadn't shied away from asking me questions while also respecting some of my more opaque answers, nodded slowly as he spoke. "Juliette is a godsend with this kind of thing. She helped our girl navigate the adoption. Cora and I spent countless hours on the phone with her. She's seen us cry more times than I can count."

"Did your daughter want to live with someone else? Mine does."

Damion chewed for a moment and nodded. "She locked herself in her room and there were a lot of times the only thing she would say to us was that we weren't her parents and she hated us. The house was so tense you felt it the moment you walked in. When I heard Kelsey was living with Juliette, I thought she was adopting her. And I'm not pretending like I know everything that's going on or gone on, but I do know that Juliette is an angel. She loves the kids, and Kelsey's much older than mine was when she came to us. Teens, they need space. Juliette is a safe space. "

"She's been great. She wanted to adopt Kelsey, but I'm her father and I want to make this work."

"As you should." Xander chimed.

We split the tab and walked back to the studio, where all our cars were parked. Damion pulled out a bedazzled set of keys to unlock the door to the studio. Taking the hint, I pulled out the keys to my car and started my good-bye.

Rita cut me off, "No way. You're coming in. The girls are gonna wAna meet you."

I followed the crowd in and was beyond shocked that it was not ballet music drowning out our conversation.

"I fucking love chair night." I didn't see who said it, but everyone in the group agreed in unison. I was too distracted by what was happening beyond the viewing window.

LED strip lights, chairs, a circle of women chatting, and music so sexually vulgar I felt uneasy listening to in the presence of my new friends. Mostly, though, I was unable to string together any one coherent thought.

She was wearing stilletoes.

The dramatic cut of Juliette's calf muscle cast a shadow on her bare legs. I'd seen her in so many leotards before— but not this one. Cut to a low v, it was showcasing her whole back, the valley between her shoulder-blades peppered with freckles like the ones on her face and chest and arms. A little bit of her ass peeked out from the hem of skin-tight shorts. The crease where her ass and legs met— I shouldn't look .

I couldn't look away.

I lost the ability to breathe when she tossed her blonde hair over her shoulder and looked directly at me.

The other women didn't even register.

There was only Juliette.

The women put down their water bottles, tossing their heads back in a fit of giggles. Several of them waved and sent kisses through the glass at their husbands and wife .

Juliette broke our gaze and took a deep breath. "One more time! And put your whole fucking back into it!" Juliette yelled, spanking one of the moms on the ass. She winked at the huddle of us, sat down in one of the chairs and counted to eight over the music.

"What is this?" I asked.

The guys (and Rita) didn't pull their eyes away, but they all answered in unison, "Heels."

"My wife calls it women's empowerment," one of them murmured and they all nodded in unison, still in a trance.

Halfway through the song the women sitting stood up and switched places.

"Come on, Mistress Juliette!" her partner, Cora, called out. Juliette smirked and rewound the music on her phone. Our eyes caught in the mirror and her smile vanished.

"My wife is in love with her," Impressive Beard murmured.

"Same," Rita laughed.

Juliette turned to Cora and licked her top lip suggestively. She dropped to the ground, legs spread wide and whipped her hair, long and tousled. I looked away and Damion leaned in and whispered, "It's okay to watch. They love it. Everyone's cool."

"I don't think Juliette meant for me to come in." I started to back away.

He bumped my shoulder with his. "She would have stopped the music and kicked you out. She's done it before."

I trusted him and looked back through the glass separating us all from their significant others. My breathing stopped, cardiac arrest. Juliette was crawling on her hands and knees. The flexibility didn't turn me on. I'd seen her leg touching her head before in ballet. The arch in her back, the steady, wicked, playful eye contact. The way she grabbed Cora's wrists and pinned them above her head while she danced on her lap. Yeah, that was throwing me on life support. Juliette only let them go when she turned around, facing away from Cora and bent all the way over, hands on her ankles, hair spilling to the floor. Cora's smile widened as she resisted the urge to grab handfuls of Juliette's ass, and I knew for a fact I would not have had that restraint. Especially when Juliette looked over her shoulder at her and arched her ass farther back onto Cora's lap.

I would have paid three million dollars just to be in that seat for three minutes.

I knew the choreography was almost over when Juliette melted slowly into her split, laid her chest onto her thigh and smiled up at Cora. Most of the other women opted for other positions on the floor, but the flexible ones, they stayed in tandem with Juliette. The women in the chairs clapped and I took a look around me to see that not a single one of us blinked, for fear we'd miss something.

We all released a collective breath.

Xander, who had the least tact looked slyly over to me, "So what's going on with you and Juliette that she invited you in?"

"Nothing," I said way, way too quickly.

Damion gave him a glare, but that didn't stop his curiosity.

"You don't look like nothing," Xander prodded.

I felt my embarrassment painting my cheeks. "No, she just wanted me to make some friends. We're just friends. I don't think about her like that. She probably forgot I was out with you all."

"Sure."

"Uh-huh," Rita grinned.

"I'm pretty sure she hates me on a cellular level," I added.

The door to the studio opened. The chatter of women cut through our conversation.

"I brought you tuition!" someone called out.

"No business on Fridays. Pay me Monday," I heard Juliette's breathy laughter.

"Thanks, babe," one of the moms kissed her cheek. I tore my eyes away from her and met all the wives and partners.

"Behave!" I heard Juliette call out to Cora as she rushed into her husband's arms.

Cora smiled wickedly up at Damion, grabbing his hand and pulling him to the door. The look of pure devotion in the man 's face as he followed her out was almost too intimate to look at. Cora, waved back at me, her gaze locked on Damion. "See you tomorrow, Caleb!"

Everyone filtered out at record speed behind them, laughing, and murmuring in each other's ears, handing over their keys for the sober women to drive. I knew Juliette was coming when the sound of her heels got louder and the lights in the studio shut off. Her sigh echoed in the empty room. I shifted nervously, coaching myself to shut up when she saw me. Juliette jumped when she saw me in the lobby. "You scared me!" she laughed, a hand to her chest. "You didn't have to wait."

"I didn't know if I was supposed to stay."

"I forgot you were coming," she continued laughing, her skin glistening with sweat. She fanned herself and took a swig of her water. She was wearing perfume, a spicy floral concoction that mixed with the perspiration and the way some of her hair stuck to the column of her neck. I was tongue-tied.

I cleared my throat. I couldn't think this. Not about Juliette. "I thought it was a ballet class. I didn't know you could dance like that." Well, there goes the shut-up part of my plan.

She raised her brow. "What makes you say that?"

That teasing smile she used on Cora. Damn. I didn't even pretend not to stutter. I just pointed at her. She set her hands on her hips with her legs parted. I couldn't tear my eyes away.

And she knew it.

"It's just opposite of what I thought of you, is all."

"Is it?" Her broad smile faded slightly so that mischief became her, a tantalizing smirk meant as a challenge. A dare. She dared me to admit it. That she was every one of my wet dreams.

She couldn't know. Could she?

The pause was drawing out for far too long.

"Yes, because, um, not that you aren't sexual, I mean I know you're, you were married. But I didn't imagine, because we're friends, it didn't cross my mind that… because of-um… platonic boundaries…"

The chuckle started low in her throat. "That I could dance like that? Well, I can. And it helps the moms tap into their own sexuality." She turned to flick off all the lights in the corridor as she continued, "The crew let you in, so I guess you're in our little club now."

"What does that mean?"

Don't walk to me like that.

Emerging from the shadowed corridor, she went behind the desk and bent over to turn off her laptop and stuff it in her bag. I forced myself to look away. "It means the guys were all okay with you oogling their wives even though none of them belong to you," she said, pulling a pink hoodie on over her leotard. Thank God because I needed her to either strip naked or cover up entirely.

"This is weird. I feel awkward," I blurted.

She rolled her eyes. "What's weird about it? It's just dancing."

No the fuck it was not just dancing! I was struggling to keep blood running anywhere but my dick. She smelled so. fucking. good.

We hadn't talked in days and now this.

The adrenaline in her veins must be why she was so nonchalant about this. It had to be, because she was standing close to me like it was any other time we talked. "Don't be so uptight. If you sexualize it, then that's on you." She tossed her hair into a messy bun, and I thought about licking the sweat from her throat, slamming her against that glass and making her watch while I fucked her.

"No, I didn't sexualize you. You're not sexualized—" I fumbled for my keys while she strutted ahead of me. The bare skin of her ass peeking out from under her leotard had me tripping over the area rug.

She tossed me a look over her shoulder, still walking as she spoke, "I gave you permission to look when I let you into the studio, Caleb. And you're terrible at hiding it."