I raise my hand.
"I don't have a mat yet," I tell the woman and then glance back at Natalia with a smirk. "Or I could just stay."
Natalia’s eyes narrow. "Luka," she hissed under her breath. "Don't you dare."
A woman to my left, blonde, too much makeup for a yoga class, eyelashes fluttering like she's trying to signal a helicopter, leans over. "Here, you can have mine."
I take it, flashing her the kind of hollow smile I reserve for the press when I have to pretend I’m happy to see them. "Great. Thanks."
She heads back to the back wall to get another mat, swinging her hips as if I cared to watch. I don’t.
I glance back at Natalia as I unroll the mat next to hers. "Look at that. Meant to be."
"I swear to God," she says through clenched teeth, "if you stay—"
The instructor beams at me. "Perfect. We love to have men join. Welcome to our class."
Natalia bites the inside of her lip so hard I'm surprised she doesn't draw blood, doing everything in her power not to scream.
Now she knows how I feel when someone decides to change the plan without a conversation first. If she wanted space, fine… but couldn’t she have told me?
Why the hell infuriating her feels like foreplay is beyond me, but it does.
I lean closer, voice low. "If you come with me now so we can talk, I'll leave. Otherwise, we can have this conversation right here about how I came back from the gym, and you were gone—"
"That's extortion," she snaps, voice sharp but quiet. "And you wouldn't dare."
"Try me, Bunny Hill."
She glances around again, and I can see the exact moment she weighs her options.
But she's as stubborn as I am… maybe more, and I just backed her into a corner.
Which means she's not going to back down. I should have figured.
Class starts, and the instructor launches into some speech about intention-setting and breathing through discomfort, and I stretch out on my mat like I'm actually planning to participate.
Natalia's doing everything she can to ignore me, eyes fixed forward, shoulders rigid.
I wait until we're in the first pose—something called downward dog that feels like it's designed to make my hamstrings snap—before I start talking.
I talk just barely above a whisper. Just loud enough for her to hear.
"You know," I say casually, adjusting my hands on the mat, "I didn't expect you to be a runner."
She doesn't look at me. "I'm not a runner."
"Could've fooled me."
"Shhh… You’re going to get us kicked out—"
"I mean, you were pretty clear last night about what you wanted." I shift into the next pose. Some kind of lunge that makes my hip flexors scream. "Didn't seem like someone who'd disappear before sunrise."
Her breathing stutters, but I can’t tell if it’s this torture she’s agreed to put herself through or if it’s from what I said.
The instructor walks past, adjusting someone's alignment, oblivious.
"Stop," Natalia mutters.
