But this morning? Hot yoga morning?
Yeah, this was the morning that would put me into an early grave.
Her bedroom door opened, and I schooled my face into something impassive—professional, even. Ready to handlewhatever ridiculous matching set she’d chosen to torment me with.
But I wasn’t ready.
I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me.
She stepped out in a tiny black sports bra and high-cut shorts that left miles of legs bare and gleaming in the soft morning light. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, neck exposed, cheeks still pink from her skincare routine.
She looked like every fantasy I wasn’t allowed to have, and she didn’t even look at me.
She moved around the kitchen with practiced indifference, grabbing her water bottle, her towel, sliding her phone into the pocket on the little bitty shorts that squeezed her in all the ways I wanted to.
Good.
Fine.
Great.
I was going to die anyway, so what did it matter?
“Ready?” I finally managed, though my voice sounded like it had been dragged through gravel.
She hummed. Another non-answer. “That outfit is…wow.”
She stopped in the doorway and whipped around, her eyes narrowing on me. She didn’t say anything, didn’t need to; I could see it in the way her cheeks reddened, and her chin lifted. She lifted a dark brow, and I knew… my grave was waiting for me in that studio.
The first time Poppy bent over the little mat on the floor, I was ready to gouge out every man’s eyeballs in the entire building.
Actually—scratch that.
I was ready to burn the entire yoga studio to the ground and salt the ashes so nothing could ever grow here again.
Because the second she folded in half with palms flat to the mat, her tiny shorts rode up in a way that should’ve been illegal… every guy in the roomnoticed.It was like an email had been sent out to bring them by. And maybe they weren’t looking at Poppy. I was trying to convince myself of that.
After all, there were six other women in that studio with Poppy, all wearing skimpy gym attire.
But none of them wereher.
None of them had that soft little exhale she made when she stretched deeper.
None of them brushed a loose wisp of hair behind their ear in a way that made my pulse jump.
None of them smelled like citrus shampoo and some light, floral perfume that had been haunting me for months.
The instructor walked past, nodded at Poppy’s form, and then glanced at me.
A knowing glance.
A smirk.
Iconsideredmurder.
Poppy rose into a standing pose and did that little bounce she did when she was trying to readjust her clothes without being obvious. She tugged the hem of her shorts down a millimeter.
Not enough.
