Ellis’s eyes light up from her father’s suggestion. “Okay! I’m gonna call you Vienna now.”
“But at school, she’s still Ms. Lewis,” Rhonan adds.
Ellis turns back to her dad. “Why?”
“Because that’s how you refer to a teacher, by their last name.”
Her brows draw together and then she shrugs. “Okay, but I’m still gonna call Johnny a dingleberry because he acts like a piece of poop stuck to a dog’s butt,” she says, skipping back over to her mat.
Rhonan shakes his head, but there’s a smile on his lips as he cups the side of my face. “You sure you want to be a part of this?”
I press up on my toes and kiss him. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
***
“How are you doing over there?” I say in Rhonan’s direction, watching him shake as he holds warrior pose and a bead of sweat travels down the side of his face.
“Good. Great,” he grates out between clenched teeth.
Henley is shaking from his laughter on his mat behind Rhonan, and Elliot collapses as Rhonan nearly falls over.
“Not as easy as you thought, huh, big guy?” Henley taunts.
Rhonan flips him off over his shoulder as he struggles to regain his balance.
Meanwhile, Laney is guiding everyone to switch to downward dog, also fighting to keep her composure together.
“Is there sweat going down your ass crack yet?” Fletcher asks Rhonan from his left. “That’s how you know it’s working.”
“I second that,” Elliot says. “Just be glad you’re not wearing a one-thousand-dollar suit while you’re doing this for the first time because you came straight from work.”
“Not sure jeans are any better,” Henley mutters through a laugh. “What kind of idiot does yoga in jeans?”
“The kind that is pussy-whipped,” Elliot mutters out of the corner of his mouth.
“Will you three shut the fuck up so I can focus?” Rhonan growls.
“Daddy, you said a bad word!” Ellis shouts loud enough that it gets picked up on Laney’s microphone, making the entire courtyard laugh. “And what’s a pussy?”
Rhonan tosses his hands in the air. “That’s it, I’m done!” He turns back to the guys, who have all fallen onto their mats, clutching their stomachs with laughter.
Dilynne is also having a fit. “Holy shit, this is better than I ever could have imagined!”
Laney speaks into her microphone. “I am so sorry, everyone. It seems that my brother has forgotten his manners this evening. So, if you’d all transition into child’s pose, we’ll cool down and end a little early tonight.” She shoots a glare in Rhonan’s direction, and he rolls his eyes as he mimics the pose, making sure to glance in my direction for a beat, shaking his head in frustration.
But me? I’m having the time of my life. Not only have I never laughed this hard, but these people? They’re everything good there is in the world. Lydia would have fit in with them so well.
But that thought right there tells me that maybe that’s the reason why I feel so at home here—because they and this town remind me of her.
Maybe she led me here after all.
I just hope my past doesn’t come back to test this newfound happiness of mine.
Chapter 20
Rhonan
First Date Confessions
