Page 50 of The Romance Line

Want.

Heat.

A wish.

Or maybe I’m the one wishing for things I can’t have. “I should go,” I say, and as I unlock the door and head inside I keep wondering if I should go on that date with Lucas next week.

Which means I really need girl time. Good thing tomorrow night, I’ve planned to go to pole class.

Not going to lie—when I first walked into a pole class a year and a half ago, it was hard. For a lot of reasons. First and foremost, I was supposed to have gone with Marie. We were five blocks away from the studio she’d picked out when that car hit us. It took me eighteen months and some serious therapy to decide to try again.

But I knew I had to give it a go.

That Post-it note from my best friend was branded not just on my brain, but in my heart.

Want to take a pole dance class? Say yes.

We never reached the studio and walked in together. The first time I walked into this studio alone, I had to practice one of my grounding exercises to get through the door. What are five things I see? The door, the name of the studio, the railing along the steps, the chrome poles in the studio, and the other women. What are four things I hear? The faint beat of music from inside, the rumble of the bus down the street, the click of shoes along the sidewalk as people walked by, and the creak of the door as someone exited the studio. I worked my way through three things I felt, two things I smelled, one thing I tasted, and with my heart beating in the next county, I found the guts to make it inside, then walked around a pole.

I didn’t fall in love with pole right away. But I keptgoing, and by the time I did my first front hook spin, I had one surprising thought—this is fun.

Then a second thought—I wasn’t meant to do this alone.

So I invited Josie, knowing deep down that pole was something I was supposed to do with my friends. The women I leaned on, and who leaned on me. Josie didn’t take too much convincing. She doesn’t come as often as I do—she’s here maybe once a week to my three—but she’s become a regular.

Soon she’ll probably be able to do moves that I can’t do.

Correction:won’tdo.

The thing about pole I didn’t realize when I walked into Upside Down is that it’s not a sport for the body shy. Most of the advanced tricks require a whole lot of skin contact and, of all things, your armpit.

But I’ve always found workarounds in my life, in my job, and now in pole. There are so many tricks I can do that don’t require me to use my sides or my armpit to hold on. So many that don’t require me to show my back.

Like the stargazer. God bless this trick. It’s all core and legs and strength, and I’ve got that as I hold onto the pole with my legs and one hand while reaching the other hand behind me toward the wall as I stretch back, eyes toward the ceiling.

“Nice work,” the instructor, Kyla, says as she stops next to me. “Loved your jasmine, too, earlier.”

She already told me that when I nailed that intermediate trick—it takes the back of the knee contact, hands and core. But I love praise so as I move out of the stargazer pose, I say, “Thanks. I’ve been working on the jasmine for a while.”

“I know, and you did it, Everly,” she says, proud, like she usually is for all her students.

Still, I have this foolish worry that she’ll ask why I dress like this eighteen months in. Does she wonder why I wear a fitted tee that doesn’t move when I move, when the rest of the class wears sports bras?

Like Josie.

Like Maeve, who takes it too with us.

Like Fable, who joins us from time to time.

But I still wear a shirt, because of my scars.

Kyla’s also never asked. She lets me be. She lets me take the tricks at my own pace, like she does with all the students, of all body types. But as Kyla moves to spot another student, a woman with blue hair and strong shoulders who’s upside down in a butterfly, a pang of longing digs into my chest. I bet I could do that if I let go. Iwantto do that.

Maybe I should just get my own pole for my home. I could do it there. The only issue would be if I needed a spotter.

Best not to think about that for now. There are plenty of laybacks and spins to keep this girl busy for a while.

I hope.