Selfish, but I’d never claimed I was altruistic.
It had been so long since I’d seen her, and she wasn’t the gawky teen girl with the wide innocent eyes and the gangly limbs anymore. No, she was lithe and gorgeous, her hair cut to her shoulders and falling in carefully arranged waves, part of it pinned back from her face. Her matching set was a dark blue that brought out her sapphire eyes. Those eyes I remembered. Sapphire eyes that had sparked with fire. The teen girl I’d known had been soft and timid.
The woman standing in front of me wasn’t either of those things.
Sure, she’d been cute when we’d been younger. I might have looked at her twice if we weren’t you know, stepsisters. Back then, I’d been too busy trying to piss my mother off for marrying her dad, though. Solidarity with my stepsister hadn’t been my goal at the time. She’d been a nuisance I just wanted to ignore.
Now we’re all grown up and she was definitely grown up and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her even if I wanted to. I was so distracted in the class I look like a flailing fish on land as I tried to keep my eyes on her while attempting to do the exercises.
If I thought she’d be sweet and take it easy on us, I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Within about ten minutes my abs were on fire, and I could tell I wasn’t alone in my pain.
The class would have been impossible even if I hadn’t been completely distracted by the beautiful instructor.
Lea walked around the room, giving corrections and help where she could in a soft voice. Her tone when she taught was different from the voice I remembered. Authoritative, but still friendly. She’d matured and that was incredibly inconvenient.
That little zing of attraction wasn’t welcome, and it didn’t make what I needed to do any easier.
Didn’t matter. I’d have to set that aside and convince her anyway.
* * *
The classfinally ended what felt like three hours later with me in a puddle of sweat and wondering how I was going to be able to get upright again.
Everyone around me started cleaning their mats, having water, chatting with each other as they packed up and left the room. I waited, knowing that Lea couldn’t leave until the last student was gone. I was going to be sure that it was me.
The music kept going as the room emptied until it was just the two of us. I finally sat up and saw her standing on the other side of the room clutching a spray bottle in one hand and a mop handle in the other.
“What the hell are you doing here?” she asked, her voice so quiet that I could barely hear her.
I’d decided ahead of time what I was going to say to her when I faced her for the first time in so long. All of those words vanished from my brain.
“You look really good,” was what came out of my mouth.
Wrong. Thing. To say.
Her eyes narrowed and I recognized that look on her face. She’d given it to me many times before.
“Vail. What are you doing here?” She repeated herself with the same tone of voice she’d used when she’d told us we were doing another round of clamshells after everyone had burned out during the first round.
“Why don’t we both go and get changed and then you let me buy you a cup of coffee. Or matcha. I bet you’re a matcha girl.” She looked like someone who would look forward to her mid-morning matcha.
I was too far away to see if her knuckles were white on the mop handle, but I would have bet they were.
Her lips pressed together in a thin line as I waited.
“Fine. But only because I’m curious. You just vanished out of my life years ago and now you’ve blown back in with no explanation.” She let out a little breathy laugh that made me wish I was closer to her. Terrible, inconvenient attraction.
“I promise you won’t be disappointed,” I said, getting up and wincing. Tomorrow was going to be rough. She’d wrung me out with that class.
I didn’t bother to clean my mat and gathered up my stuff as quickly as I could.
“I’ll meet you out front?” I asked. Briefly I considered that she might make a break for it, but Lea was the kind of person who didn’t go back on her word. Unlike me. I used to do that shit all the time. I tried to be better now.
“Yeah,” she said, not looking at me as I paused in the doorway. She angrily sprayed the floor and mopped a spot as if she was offended by it.
“See you in a few.”
If she did run away, I’d just come back again. I had a question for her.
