Layla

ChapterTen

Layla

One week later…

I hated exercising. Yes, it’s good for people, but, holy shit, it sucked balls. I had to psyche myself up to do it, which I’m sure wasn’t normal.

When I’d started at Delicious Divas, I’d been so excited that I’d agreed to do something I hated once a week with them all. Thankfully, I’d been so busy last week that I’d managed to get out of it, but this week I had no excuse. And didn’t that just burn a hole in me? Given that my family were pros at excuses, I should have a list of convincing and unique ones ready, but I guess the ability got watered down through genes because I sucked at it.

It'd started with us doing a stripper pole class—aka, strippercise—and had moved on to using those hanging silk panels like they used in Cirque du Soleil. Now, we were doing Zumba, and Rockie was our teacher.

I’d incorrectly assumed he’d go easy on us, seeing as how he was such a relaxed and fun loving guy. Oh, the stupidity. Gone was the loving Rockie, and in his place was a drill sergeant with perfectly arched eyebrows and eyelashes to die for.

“Okay, now we’re moving to YMCA. I want you to use your bodies and feel the song's music and beat as the Village People take us away into the land of sexy men in different costumes. Don’t just move your arms to shape the letters. Get your body, from your head down to your toes, involved.”

We all watched him, various expressions of disbelief on our faces.

“How is he not sweating?” Naomi whispered as she leaned into me. “I’m sweating in areas I didn’t know it was possible.”

Shaking out my right leg and trying to do a discreet twist to unplug the wedgie from between my butt cheeks, I swiped at the sweat running down the back of my head.

“Why’s my hair sweating?” I didn’t mean for it to come out as a whine, but these things happen.

“Because we’re getting our hearts pumping and our bodies grooving,” Rockie shouted, making me jump.

Cyn looked like she was going to collapse as she joined us. “If I die, I’m suing. You said this was fun and lured me into a false sense of security. I’ve got sweat under my boobies. Do you have any idea how gross that is?”

Both of us looked at the area in question.

“You’ve got some sort of weird superhero slogan in sweat under them,” Naomi pointed out.

“No, that’s me begging to be saved. When you speak to a superhero, you do it in ways that look like one of their signs. If I just flashed a Bat Signal, only Batman would come to save me, and what if he was indisposed?”

I snickered. “Indisposed?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know what time of day he shags Lois Lane.”

“Ladies,” Rockie bellowed, the end of it going up into a screech. “When you get to the duh, duh, duh noises before they sing the chorus, I want you to do the hip thrust we learned in the last song. Hold your arms out in front of you or pump them in the air. Either way, I want your stomach muscles working with your tushie ones.”

It was fair to say it was the most miserable version of the YMCA dance anyone had ever seen.

“Right, we’ll do that one first to warm up next week. It breaks my heart seeing a group of women not giving it their all.” Rockie clutched his chest dramatically.

“You’ve made us work our asses off to no less than sixteen songs, man,” Jacinda snapped. “Do you have any idea how much I ache and how sweaty I am?”

That was the least of my worries. I’d had a killer wedgie for fifteen of those songs, and the sweat was making the elastic rub in places I didn’t want it to chafe.

I was just doing another leg and hip twist to try and get rid of it without actually reaching back and digging it out when something did it for me. I mean, I’m almost one hundred percent sure it was a hand because I made out fingers, but without seeing it, I couldn’t give it the full certificate of certainty.

“We’ve been watching for the last thirty minutes, and it didn’t seem any closer to popping out, so I figured I’d come and help,” Mark said as he lowered his mouth next to my ear.

I had a clash of emotions in response to the situation I was in now: embarrassment, excitement, arousal, and a wee dash of fear.

Not turning around, I murmured, “How many of you are watching us?”

“Five.”

“Did they—” I stopped and licked my lips as his fingertips skimmed across my hip. “Did they see the wedgie?”