“All right,” I say, wiping sweat from my forehead with the hem of my shirt. I let it drop and then look at Gus, jumping when I see that he’s already watching me. “That was my last class. Am I good to go?”
“You’re good to go,” he confirms. He’s still smiling, of course.
I get everything back in my bag, rolling up my yoga mat and slinging it over my shoulder. Then I refill my water bottle. You can never be too hydrated.
I stand there at the drinking fountain, staring aimlessly around the small studio while my bottle fills up. The music playing in the background is soft and nondescript, but I like it; I sway along as I listen.
My entire body freezes, though, when my eyes catch on one of the photos on the wall.
It’s a picture I’ve seen every day since I started working here—a group photo taken here in the studio and featuring about fifteen smiling faces, all crammed into this little space. Gus is kneeling in front, but he’s still as tall as some of the other people surrounding him. Everyone is sweaty and pink-cheeked, much like me at the moment.
It’s none of these things that catch my attention,though. What catches my attention is the smiling blonde on the far right. She’s as sweaty as the rest of them, and she looks just as happy, too.
“Hey,” I call, my eyes never leaving the photo. “Gus. Come here for a minute.”
Despite Gus’s colossal size, he actually moves quietly; he’s very light on his feet. So I don’t hear him approach; I just jump when he answers me a few seconds later, his voice coming from right behind me.
“Yeah?”
“This girl,” I say, pointing at the blonde. “You know her?”
He leans forward, his head craning over my shoulder just a bit. “Yes,” he says after a second. “That’s Sandy.”
“Sandy,” I repeat. There’s an uptick in my pulse at the sound of her name, a flurry of motion from that muscle in my chest cavity. “Did—” I break off, correcting myself quickly. “Does she come here a lot?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Gus nod. “She was a regular. I haven’t seen her in a week or two, though.”
A red flag begins waving in my mind, subtle but unmistakable, though I can’t quite put my finger on why. It flutters just out of my grasp, taunting, leaving a sour taste in my mouth.
I clear my throat and try to sound normal as I ask another question. “Were you guys close?”
“Uh,” he says uncomfortably. “We weren’t…notclose, I guess?”
I blink, frowning. What kind of answer is that? It was a yes/no question. I turn around, intending to clarify, but my words die when I see Gus.
He’s not smiling.
I repeat: he’snot smiling.
“Gus?” I say, my voice hesitant.
This is brand new territory. Nothing I learned when I gotcertified to teach yoga prepared me for a non-smiling Augustus Flanders. And I get it now—I get why he’s constantly smiling.
Because he’sterrifyingwhen he’s not.
This mountain of a man—I’d put him at probably six-six, honestly, with muscles in places I didn’t know muscles existed—is staring at me, his brow furrowed, his mouth set in a tight line.
“Gus?” I say again. My voice squeaks a little, but I’m past the point of caring. I just want to get out of here and come back tomorrow when hopefully Gus’s smile has returned.
“Sorry,” he says gruffly. He rubs one massive hand over the top of his head. “There was just a bit of an incident. And I would have brought it up with you if Sandy had returned, but…well, she never did.”
“What kind of incident?” I say as my heart continues to thunder along. We’ve entered a bit of a Twilight Zone area, where I’m not sure which way is up and which way is down or what’s even going on. Gus knew Sandy? He isn’t smiling? There was an incident? It’s too many things for my brain to make sense of at one time.
“She—it wasn’t—I never—” he stutters, and strangely it makes me feel better; stumbling over his words makes him feel more human and less like an iceberg-sized muscle monster. Then he sighs. “Frankly, it’s not relevant to your job here. If it comes up again, I’ll inform you of anything you need to know,” he says.
What? That’s it? That’s all I’m getting?
“Because maybe I could help—” I say tentatively.
