“I bought these forfull retail priceat ‘Douchebag Warehouse,’ thank you very much.” He lifts his eyebrows and I try to stop my lips from curving.
Calming flute music and jasmine incense float on the air as we enter the now-crowded gym and sit on the two remaining squishy black mats.
“This must be a really popular class,” I say with a giddy smile. After what I’d seen on the hotel’s Instagram, there’s double the number of people I was expecting.
Bancroft ignores my comment, instead choosing to scan the crowd with a clenched jaw and a wild panic in his eyes. I tilt my head, furrowing my brow at him, but before I can ask what the matter is a woman at the front of the class holds her hands out to everyone. She has curly silver-gray hair and is wearing a lime-green matching bra top and tight high-waisted leggings.
“Welcome. My name is Crystal and I’ll be guiding you through today’s session. Please, sit. Before we begin, please turn to the side and take your partner’s hand.”
My head whizzes around as other people in the room turn to one another; rising panic bubbles in my veins.
We stare at each other, both poker-face expressionless as we reluctantly lay alternate hands palm up and place the opposite hand on top. His palms are warmand coated in the lightest sheen of sweat. As instructed, we push our hands against each other like a New Age arm wrestling match. My entire hand almost fits in his palm, his fingers rising over the tips of mine like sea-foam waves crashing over rocks. Bancroft’s pupils dilate and he conceals a smirk as I strain and try my hardest to win the non-competition, tensing my arms. He’s barely making any effort to push against me—he probably finds it more entertaining to watch me struggle. He shifts, not pressing but holding steady as my skin pushes against his. Crystal eventually raises her hands and we stop, returning our hands to our sides on the mats. The echo of his strong palm pulses lightly against mine.
“See how much energy is wasted when we work against each other? In this session, we will focus on togetherness.”
Pure, raging panic shoots up my spine and explodes in my brain like a firework.
“Wait, is this... couples’ yoga?” I whisper, eyes wide.
His jaw ticks as he stares past me toward the exit. “It certainly wasn’t meant to be. Christoph must have booked us into the wrong class.” His cheek twitches.
I swipe a palm through my hair and huff a laugh. “Or he thinks we’re a couple, just like everyone else bloody does.”
His face goes stony as he pushes his hand on the floor. “We should go.”
“What? We just got here!” I protest.
“We can’t do this,” he snaps, shrinking pupils dartingaround the gym for the most subtle exit route. Maybe out of the window?
My eyes crease as I examine his body language: shoulders tense, jaw taut, wrinkled brow. You would think he would do whatever it takes to make sure this partnership opportunity goes off without a hitch, but he can’t stand the thought of crossing the line if it’s made out of my stretching limbs? A vision of him, feet up on my desk, telling me I’d be too uncomfortable to take on this project with him, sears its way into my mind. I’ve gone toe-to-toe with him at every opportunity when I could have been uncomfortable, and he’s trying to duck out the moment things have the potential to get too awkward. I could let him walk and take the credit for the partnership by myself, but I can’t do this class without a partner. AndI’mnot backing down.
He gets up into a crouch position so I wrap my fingers lightly around his wrist, only encircling half the width but keeping him down on the mat with me. “We just spent the past two hours learning about every lightbulb and doorknob in the building to secure this partnership.” Other people in the room start to watch our exchange, him trying to get up, me trying to pin him down. He moves again, trying to stand and assuming I will let go. When he realizes I can be just as stubborn as him, he makes a fist, tenses his arm and lifts me up to him until I’m off the floor, my body almost pressing against his.
He blinks at our closeness but starts to speak: “I don’t think I can—”
I swallow, taking in the panic in his eyes. “If we refuse to do this class, we risk offending averychatty German man into reconsidering a partnership with us and who knows who he’ll tell the story to,” I interrupt him with an angry whisper, wide eyes locked with his, pleading with him to stay. His pulse pounds under my fingers but I ignore it, too annoyed to think about why. After everything that’s happened over the past few days, he can’t leave me here now.
“First move to get us warmed up, the Bridged Butterfly,” announces Crystal, side-eyeing us as the only couple in the room not paying attention to her.
Bancroft’s face creases, undecided.
In a state of panic I change my tactic, pulling in closer and tracing my thumb lightly over his skin. “Think about it: the room offer, the restaurant, the launch party. It’s all perfect for Ditto,” I whisper seductively. “All we have to do is a little balancing and core exercise. You can do that... right, hotshot?”
He lifts his head to the ceiling as he closes his eyes for a few seconds. “Fucking hell.” Then he sighs: “You want to be the butterfly or the bridge?”
“Dealer’s choice.” I smile triumphantly, relief relaxing my muscles.
“We’ll start by choosing who is going to be the lead—just like dancing,” Crystal advises all of us and I watch the other couples subtly confer with each other. I let out a quiet huff of laughter through my nose. Dancing is what we’ve been doing this entire time. The pushand pull. To say it is anything but a dance would be an understatement. Even when we could barely stand being in the same room together, we were still dancing. Aware of each other’s presence as we swayed and dipped our bodies, attempting to avoid each other. At Crystal’s instruction, we stand up and I turn my back to Bancroft. He places a hesitant, warm palm on my waist so lightly it’s almost hovering, leaving room for the charged atoms to rest in between us. Even the shadow of his hand makes my skin heat.
Crystal pads over to us and places a hand on Bancroft’s shoulder, lips pursed. “You’re going to need a firm grip here, sweetie.” He clears his throat awkwardly as Crystal moves his hands onto my hips. “Your girlfriend is going to need the support.”
A jolt of electricity shoots up my legs to meet his splayed, twitching fingers and I am so grateful we aren’t face-to-face right now.
You are pissed off at him,I remind myself, trying to temper my fizzing blood.
Crystal directs the class to move into the next part of the position: my feet balancing on his bent knees as I lean forward into downward facing dog and immediately regret my insistence on staying for the session. Once my hands are firmly on the mat, Bancroft leans backward and places his hands on the mat behind him. My eyelids are locked closed as my body shakes for the entire sixty seconds of pose-holding. My heart pounds and my palms couldn’t be sweatier, but I can’t be sureif it’s the yoga or the yoga with Bancroft that’s causing my body to react this way.
The next position—“For bonding,” Crystal explains—involves us standing back to back, bending down as though to touch our toes but instead holding each other’s hands through our legs. We both try not to laugh as we make eye contact between our thighs, releasing the tense elastic band in my chest before it snapped.
