“You need to sleep.” Trace sits on the edge of the bed.
“I will.” I pull in a breath and slowly release it. “Cole, you said you want a family.”
“Yes.”
I peer at Trace. “What about you?”
He considers the question, staring at his hands before meeting my eyes. “I find that my love for you is ever-expanding. If you give me children, I’ll love them and protect them with my life. If you don’t, I’ll still be the happiest man in the world. As long as I have you.”
A shiver sweeps over me. From his words. And the fever.
“Motherhood has never been an aspiration for me.” I close my eyes and speak into the silence. “Maybe I’ll change my mind as I get older, but right now, I’m not in a place where I even want to think about it. So if that’s a deal breaker for either of you, I understand.”
I open my eyes and lock onto Cole’s.
His eyebrows gather, and he chews on his lip. Then he slides into a casual recline and rests a foot on his other knee. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Trace leans his arms on his thighs, bending toward me. “You know where I stand.”
Right here. That’s where they both stand. Stubborn till the end.
I have the stomach flu. Trace called in a doctor—an elderly man with a grumpy disposition—who helpfully advised, “It’s utterly miserable, and there’s no cure.”
Oh, and avoid coffee. Fuck me.
The flu persists for the next forty-eight hours, rendering me nonfunctional and completely useless. Trace and Cole force fluids like drill sergeants and restrict my menu to bananas, applesauce, toast, and sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.
Trace spends the days at my house, but I make him leave when Cole gets home from work. He’s gracious enough to not argue that point, but I see the hurt in his eyes when he kisses me goodbye on my forehead.
Maybe it’s selfish on my part, but I hear his heated whispers with Cole in the other room and feel the constant tension vibrating between them. I need to recover, and I can’t do that with all the damn negativity in the house.
Cole carries his own share of disappointment, since I won’t let him sleep in my bed. They’ve both been exposed to my cooties, but letting him roll around in my sickly, sweaty sheets? That’s just gross.
By the third day, I feel well enough to putter around the house, disinfecting and doing laundry. But I hold off on going to work.
The morning of the fourth day, I’m back to one-hundred-percent health. The severe aches and muscle pain that plagued me for almost a week are gone. Energy buzzes through my blood as I shower and drink coffee and ponder how I’m going to spend the day.
Oddly, neither Trace nor Cole are here. The motorcycle’s gone, and Trace hasn’t stopped by to check on me.
I have the house to myself.
With a grin, I head to the spare room that serves as my closet and change into a black beaded bra and bikini dance bottoms. Then I run through a stretch routine in the dance studio.
Bouncing on my toes, I scroll through my song selection on the stereo. I should work on the ballroom dance Nikolai and I will be performing at the mayor’s Christmas party in a couple weeks. But the dance pole in the corner draws my attention.
I haven’t touched it since Cole left almost five years ago. Chewing my thumbnail, I eye it with longing.
It’s time.
I select a song, put it on repeat, and approach the pole. My freestyle moves will be rusty as hell, but I already feel the adrenaline speeding up my pulse and quickening my pace.
As the electronic pulse of Undisclosed Desires by Muse bounces through the room, I walk around the pole, grasping it lightly above my head. My feet cross, one in front of the other in an exaggerated fashion, and I let my toes drag the floor behind me while pushing out my hip.
On the next rotation, I slide my back down the pole, kicking a leg high as my butt descends to the floor. Climbing back up, I swing upside down into a chopper position with legs straight and spread above my head. My core muscles engage, my fingers clenching hard around the pole as I suspend my inverted weight.
I transition through all the standard moves, splaying my legs open, arching my back, and setting my underused muscles on fire. By the time the song restarts for the third time, I’m swinging my head, rolling my hips, and working up a delicious sweat.
When I climb the pole again, I focus on my spins, full-turns and U-turns, while flipping, leaning back, and stretching into horizontal variations of the superman and the slingshot.
Oh man, I missed this—the sensual movements, the coordination and muscular exertion, and the liberation in hanging from the ceiling by one leg.
Once my feet return to the floor, I close my eyes and swing with the hypnotic beats of the song. With a hand on the pole, I circle my hips and bend my knees, dipping down and sliding back up while flipping my hair round and round.