My dad had been married four times, my mom three now. To say things hadn’t been very stable when I’d been growing up was an understatement. But since they had lots of money, no one thought that anything could possibly be wrong.
“Fuck,” I said, shutting my laptop. This wasn’t the kind of thing I wanted to be ruminating on while I answered emails and deleted annoying comments from my social pages.
I needed a mental escape and usually for me that was found in a book. I grabbed my trusty ereader and scrolled through my choices. Since I was in-between books, I hadn’t started anything new yet. My reading was pretty regimented. Ebooks were categorized and organized and I always read series in order, no matter what. Sometimes I got whims to read something new, but I almost always stuck to my existing list.
Hmmmm. I had three options for what was next. A young adult book filled with magic and a love triangle, a sapphic vampire book that was first in a series, or an Achillean alien book that was a standalone. I guess I wasn’t into contemporary books lately.
Picking up a rainbow die from my coffee table, I tossed it and it came up with two, so I selected the vampire book.
Just as I was finishing the first page, my phone went off and I glanced down at it.
James.
Do you want to come to a barbecue this weekend? It’s at Stace’s parents house, but everyone is going.
When I’d become friends with James, she’d sort of pulled me into her friend group as well. A few of the people I’d already been aware of from seeing them at the gym, including Stace. She was a firefighter, so the gym was a second home to her, and she’d always given me a bright smile when she saw me. More than once she’d been in my Pilates classes as well, sometimes with her girlfriend, Hunter, who happened to live in my building and who also taught yoga at the gym. Hunter and I had similar upbringings and our parents moved in the same circles, but I’d tried to steer clear of her thus far. Seeing her made me think about growing up and it was just…too much sometimes. It wasn’t her fault and made me feel like a bitch, but I couldn’t stop the instant reaction when I saw her to clam up and look for the fastest escape route.
She knew who I was, and I knew she knew who I was, so the fact that she hadn’t pushed was nice. Maybe there was a chance that we could be friends.
Let me check my schedule and I’ll let you know.
There. That was a somewhat diplomatic answer. When James and I had become friends, I’d told her that I’d been searching for community and belonging and she’d brought me into hers, but I was still a little wary. A little awkward. If there had ever been a day in school where they taught us how to do friendship, I must have missed it.
The barbecue would be a little out of my comfort zone, but I knew I needed to push myself. You had to put yourself out there if you wanted to have friends. You had to be one too.
* * *
The restof my week was uneventful, which was just the way I liked it. Doing my work, no drama, teaching my classes and having people thank me afterward. It was comfortable and it was safe, and it was mine.
Everything was going well, and I was gearing myself up for the barbecue on Sunday afternoon when I walked in to teach my Saturday morning Pilates mat class.
There were a few people already there, mostly regulars that I said hello to as I got the room set up, loaded my playlist, and mentally went over the class I’d designed. Even though I’d been teaching for more than a year now, I still wrote everything down because it helped me focus.
They were going to hate me today. I couldn’t wait to see the shaking legs and hear my students cursing me out under their breath. Not that I loved causing people pain, but I wanted to give them their money’s worth. If they wanted a class that would leave them wrung out and exhausted, then I was going to deliver. And if they wanted to just kind of flop on their mat and then take a nap with their time, they could do that too. Didn’t bother me. When I’d first started teaching, I’d taken it personally, but I’d had to get over that fast if I wanted to keep doing this job.
More and more people filed into the room with their mats and towels and those ludicrously large water bottles that always sounded like a gunshot when they inevitably tipped over. I wished I could ban them from my classes, but I’d probably have a riot on my hands, and I didn’t need the aggravation.
I smiled and said hello and checked in with anyone new. My memory for faces came in handy, so when I saw someone who looked a little scared and I didn’t recognize them, I made the first move to ensure they were comfortable.
My class was mostly women, but I did love seeing men who weren’t afraid to show up. Especially the ones who looked like they ate dumbbells for breakfast and were shaking and crying ten minutes in. I made it my mission to break them.
Stace’s brother, Tor and his boyfriend, Micah were two of my regulars and I waved as they made heart eyes at each other and laughed while setting up their mats.
I was just about to start when another new face caught my attention. Well. Not a new face. A face I hadn’t seen in at least nine years.
“Vail?” Her name came out of my mouth at full volume and everyone stopped what they were doing to stare at me. Shit.
Vail didn’t seem as shocked to see me, which told me that this wasn’t an accident. What the fuck was she doing here? Too many questions spun in my brain, but now was not the time.
I had to shake this off and start class. Be a professional, no matter what.
Focus. Pilates. Warm-up. Good thing I’d written out my class plan. I was going to need it.
Chapter Two
Vail
Maybe I shouldn’t have surprisedher like this. But I’d never been one for subtlety. If I’d gotten her number or reached out to her on social media, she might have ignored me. But now that I was in her class, she knew I was here, and she’d have to face me. And then I could convince her that I needed her.
