Of course he does.
“No talking!” Zoe yells, finally aware that we’ve been chatting during her class. “Take in the serenity of the moment, people!”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Thorn shaking with silent laughter.
Stop it, I mouth at him, trying hard not to burst into a fit of giggles myself—but this only makes him laugh harder, and it’s totally contagious.
Zoe gives us a look, but she’s in the middle of correcting Trey, who can’t keep his back flat to save his life.
Only a handful of us showed up this morning—Trey, Brittany, Emma, Thorn, and me. We’re spread out in a single line on a flat, wide rock down by the water, close to the kayaks and where the tennis girls set up camp last night. The session hasn’t been entirely bad: the view is amazing, and it feels better than I thought to stretch my body. Zoeknows what she’s doing, yoga-wise, so the class would actually be pretty good if she weren’t in such a bad mood.
She leads us through some sun salutations and on into some poses requiring a bit more balance. I absolutely nail tree pose, if I do say so myself.
Thorn, alas, struggles.
“You don’t have to get your foot all the way up to your inner thigh,” Zoe tells him, her hands on his shoulders to reinforce his balance. “You can just rest it lightly against your calf if that’s better. Imagine you’re a tree, and that your roots go deep into this rock.”
Thorn’s eyes light up, and I know he wants to crack the same joke I do—that trees don’t make a habit of growing their roots into rocks—but we somehow both manage to keep our composure.
When we finally get to Savasana, also known as corpse pose, I’m surprised at how much better I feel. The things that ached before we started are feeling warm and loose, and best of all, Zoe seemed to mellow out a bit toward the end of class.
“The challenge of this pose is to get every single part of your body to relax,” she says. “Close your eyes, listen to the sounds of nature. Let yourselves just be present in the moment.”
It goes well enough until the smell of coffee finds its way over to me—Silas and Hunter and their usual morning routine, no doubt.
“How much longer are we supposed to lie here?” I say under my breath, opening my eyes just long enough to make sure Zoe’s not close enough to notice.
“Until we’re dead,” Thorn replies, and that’s it—I can’t—
I burst out laughing, so loudly I’ve probably woken up any birds that, like me, had a late night.
On my other side, Trey starts to laugh, too, and it’s all over from there.
“Thanks for showing up, everyone,” Zoe says, sounding more irritated than grateful. “Same place, same time tomorrow.”
It sounds more like an expectation than an invitation, but I know better than to point that out.
“Coffee time,” Trey says, leaping up. “Let’sgooooo. Thanks, Zoe! That was awesome.”
Did he have coffeebeforeclass, too? Or has he just had so much coffee in his lifetime that it flows through his veins now, making him perpetually energetic?
Brittany and Emma hang back to ask Zoe some questions, while Thorn and I follow Trey up to the campfire. Hunter and Silas are seated on one log; Matteo and Joshua are on another. The only person unaccounted for, at the moment, is Parker—she must have slept in. (If this can even be calledsleeping in, since it’s still pretty early.)
“You weren’t wrong,” I say to Thorn as we walk. “Youarethe most inflexible person on the planet.”
“Oh, you noticed?”
“It was hard to miss.”
“That’s an interesting way to admit you couldn’t take your eyes off me,” he says with a smirk.
“And that’s a confident thing to say for someone who had, like,maybe-we’re-in-an-earthquakebalance issues—I couldn’t help but be distracted every time you almost fell over!”
“Well, I can’t help it if my hips are tight,” he says, not even bothering to defend himself on the subject of his balance.
“Actually, you probably could if you stretched more.”
“And what’s your excuse?” he says with a wicked grin. “You couldn’t touch your toes, either.”
