The video begins. The instructor talks us through mountain pose and we stand side by side. I close my eyes and breathe and the cabin is just the cabin—not a hiding place, not a safe house, just a room with good light and a ridiculous amount of folded towels on the floor.
Then the forward fold starts and Finn goes sideways almost immediately. I catch him before he goes down and we're bothlaughing, breathless, and when I look up I find Rhys watching us with that almost-smile fully in residence.
From the couch, Drake watches too. His expression is harder to read—careful and painful, the look of a man observing what he doesn't have a right to anymore.
We work through the poses. Finn is enthusiastic and terrible and improves in small increments, and every time he wobbles I steady him with a hand on his shoulder or his hip. Every time I struggle he does the same for me. His hand on my lower back. His fingers on my thigh adjusting my leg. The touches are practical but they stop feeling purely practical somewhere around warrior two.
By the time we get to the twisting pose I'm very aware of how close we're standing, and when Finn puts his hands on my hips to guide the rotation and speaks against my ear—that's it—the heat that pools low in my stomach has nothing to do with the effort of the pose.
I glance toward Rhys.
He's very still. His mug is set aside, his eyes are on Drake, not on us, and his jaw is set. I follow his gaze. Drake is watching Finn's hands on my hips with an expression I recognize because I wore it for months—that hollow look of watching someone touch a person who used to be yours.
Rhys's chest rises with a slow, deliberate breath. Not the easy kind.
I come out of the twist and cross the room to him before Finn's noticed I've moved. I sit down on the arm of the chair, then slide into his lap when he shifts to make room without being asked. His arm comes around me immediately. His chin comes down to rest against my temple and I feel the tension in him—not gone, but contained, working downward.
"Hey," I say.
He makes a low sound that's not quite words.
"He's not going to be here forever," I say, just as. "And he can't take anything from you."
Rhys is still. Then his arm tightens slightly and relaxes. His purr starts up, stuttering and uneven like it always is, and I feel it move through his chest into mine.
From the middle of the blankets, Finn watches us with an expression that's soft and a little wistful. He pushes his glasses up. "You want to keep going?" he asks, addressing us both.
Rhys tips his chin toward the makeshift yoga studio. A very clearyes, proceed.
Finn grins. "Right. Child's pose."
I untangle myself from Rhys and go back to the blankets. We resume our yoga practice without mentioning the interruption. The instructor's voice fades to background noise as we move through downward dog, cobra, warrior. Then we're in child's pose, facing each other, our breaths synchronized. Finn's glasses have slipped down his nose. When he reaches to adjust them, his hand lingers, fingers brushing my cheek with unmistakable intention. The air between us thins. His eyes ask a question my body is already answering as I lean forward. We are definitely about to kiss.
Then I remember Drake.
I pull back and stand up too fast, voice too bright, gathering blankets with excessive purpose. Finn blinks and then understands and gives me space. I thank him, grab an armful of towels, and make it halfway to the stairs before he calls my name.
I stop. Don't turn around.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Fine. Just tired."
I go upstairs before he can ask anything else.
In my room with the door closed I lean against it and breathe.
My skin is still warm where Finn touched me. My chest is doing several things at once. I wanted Drake to see—wanted him to watch someone else touch me like I watched him disappear into Marie's bedroom over and over and over. But I also didn't want it, didn't want him to have that, didn't want to hand him the satisfaction of seeing me want something.
Both things are true. I'm getting used to both things being true.
I slide down to sit on the floor, back against the door.
For a little while, doing yoga with Finn, I forgot. I forgot about Ragon and the registry and all of it and I was just Vee, laughing with someone who wanted to be there, in a body that didn't hurt, in a room that didn't feel like a battlefield.
And then I sat in Rhys's lap and felt his broken purr settle into me and I thought:this is what it's supposed to feel like. Not the forgetting exactly. Just the being okay for a minute. Just that.
Maybe that's enough for today.
