Page 62 of Flirting with 40

“I’m good,” he says. “Carry on.”

And she does. She moves us through the mountain pose, forward bend, cobra pose, and downward dog, all of which I know by name now because she repeats them so many times. It’s as if she’s trying to convince us that she really knows her stuff. And with each repeat of the pose, I can see Slade not only struggling with his balance like I am but also fighting back his amusement over how damn serious she’s taking this.

Or maybe I’m just distracted by him.

I know I’m supposed to have my head down for the current pose, but I look up to take in everyone around me. They all look so serious and are trying so hard that it makes me think I’m the one being a judgmental bitch.

Or maybe they are all just better at faking it.

I hear a snickering to my left and look beneath my raised arms to Slade, who is failing horribly to succeed at the pose. Our eyes meet, and the snicker he has turns into a laugh.

“Can we please try to focus?” she asks, becoming irritated.

But Slade’s laugh is contagious.

So much so, that I start giggling.

Then, of course, he laughs harder and loses his balance, which wasn’t that great to begin with. I break my pose, unable to hold my laughter in anymore, and just as I do, Slade loses his struggle to stay on his board. Rather than falling innocently into the water, he shifts his weight to the side I’m near so that when he hits the water, his body hits the edge of my board, taking me down with him.

When I resurface, I’m giggling so hard I can barely breathe. Slade’s beside me, helping to push me toward my upside-down board, coughing through his own laughter.

Conveniently, his hand finds my ass and squeezes. I yelp and splash water in his face, both of us going under water again before surfacing in another fit of laughter.

For a minute, I forget that everyone is around us. I’m lost in the moment of our laughter and the water and not caring, which is the best feeling ever.

I float on my back until my giggles subside and my feet hit another paddleboard. I look up to see Buff Becky biting back her own smile as she flicks her eyes over my shoulder to where Heather no doubt is shooting daggers at me.

“Can we get going? We are on a schedule as you know,” Heather says, her irritation clear.

“Sorry,” I say like a scolded child who doesn’t care as I swim over to my paddleboard, which Slade has flipped back over for me.

Of course, I have to figure out how to get onto it without making more of a scene, but Slade beats me to it. He hoists himself onto my board and locks his hand around my wrist to help pull me up.

On the third try, he finally has me out of the water, and as I finally get my knee up on the board, Slade loses his balance again.

His yelp is loud and loaded with amusement as he falls in what feels like slow motion. He flops on his back right next to Heather’s board, and in her overreactive attempt not to get hit by the huge splash that is about to hit her, she jerks her body to the right and promptly loses her own balance.

I stare in shock as she falls face-first into the water.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Blakely

“Did you really have to say that?” I ask, my cheeks and my sides aching from smiling and laughing so hard despite his comment to Heather when she resurfaced, sputtering mad.

He pulls on both ends of the towel wrapped around his neck. “It was all I could think of in the moment.”

“Tag, you’re it?” I shake my head, reliving how I choked on my next breath after he tossed those words at Heather when she resurfaced.

“Everyone else thought it was funny. They laughed,” he says unapologetically.

“Funny or not, you just put the biggest target on my back.”

“Hate to break it to you, but based on the look she was leveling your way, she already has one there. Now she’s just readjusting her aim.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

“No, but something has to push this to a head between the two of you sooner rather than later so”—he bends into a deep bow and flourishes a hand—“glad to be of service.”