Chapter Thirteen
MARC
Delaney called everyone to attention, and the session began.
“Let’s start with mountain pose,” Delaney said, moving through the room with unhurried authority.
She wasn’t even slightly rattled by the fact that a beagle had just claimed the center mat as his own.
“Feet together, arms at your sides, weight evenly distributed. This is about grounding yourself. Being present.”
I stood, followed the movements, and forced myself to be present.
Which was becoming far more difficult as Chaos chewed on my mat.
Not playfully or because he was hungry.
My gaze flicked down to him again. Ignoring the tiny terror didn't seem to deter him in the least. He continued taking small, methodical, deliberate bites, and made sure to stare at me while he did it.
“Chaos,” I whisper-yelled, wobbling while still trying to keep my yoga pose.
He paused and lifted his head. Looked directly at me. Took one more bite. Then walked away.
I was being managed by a fucking goat.
“Now inhale and bring your arms up into Upward Salute—reach up, press your palms together, and gently arch your back,” Cheryl instructed from the front as Delaney moved through the room.
Everyone lifted their arms, and disaster struck in the form of a dog barking at absolutely nothing.
The golden retriever let out one sharp, declarative bark at something only he could see. It could’ve been a ghost or dust bunny, or maybe he was sharing a grievance he’d been holding in since this began.
And that one bark was all it took.
Gladys jolted at the sound and lurched sideways.
Her foot slammed down on the beagle’s wagging tail with shocking precision.
The beagle yipped—the sound like a squeaky toy being stepped on by someone with heels—and Gladys shrieked, which was at the exact same pitch and volume needed to trigger the cats from their nearby mats.
The two cats, who had been surveying the room with cool detachment, suddenly decided, simultaneously, that now was the time to act as though the room was on fire.
They bolted. One went low—a streak of fur under the nearest mat with the unerring accuracy of a furry torpedo. The other went directly up. Specifically, Wyatt’s leg.
Wyatt’s response had the necessary speed, but was completely catastrophic in its execution.
He grabbed the cat with both hands, and as the cat squirmed, Wyatt lost his center of gravity.
Without completely letting go of the cat, he scrambled to grab ahold of the nearest stable object, which was Logan.
“Fuck,” Wyatt grunted. His momentum carried him to the ground with a thud, the cat tucked safely against his chest.
“What the hell?” Logan wobbled, his arms windmilling, until he grabbed onto Adam.
“Assholes.” Adam pitched backwards to get away from Logan and slammed into the water station.
The table squealed in protest as it screeched across the floor.
Poor Adam completely lost the fight with gravity; his arms swept out in a valiant effort to stabilize himself, but instead knocked into the water cooler, set too close to the edge of the table.
The water cooler tipped in what felt like slow motion, and then fully committed to the fall. The top sprang free, and a wave of cold water sheeted across the floor and under the nearest yoga mats.
Note to self: Find a safer place for the water station.
For approximately one second, everyone froze.
Goldie, closest to the table, shrieked as the water reached her, and then burst into laughter.
“We’re sliding!” Mom yelled, with more excitement than the situation perhaps required.
“It’s like surfing!” Martha added with a whoop and stuck her arms straight out like she was catching a wave.
The golden retriever, thrilled that humans were now also closer to the floor and therefore the right height for socializing, began to make his rounds.
Goldie bent down to pet him and didn’t come back up. She wobbled and fell to the floor when he enthusiastically licked her face and jumped onto her.
“Goldie,” I said carefully. “Are you okay?” The classes were already going sideways. My mind darted between lawsuits and injury reports, and I wondered if we needed to hire a paramedic for each session moving forward.
Delaney darted in between participants and animals to help Goldie, and I began drafting an incident report in my head.
“I live here now,” Goldie replied in between doggie kisses. “I’m fine.”
“I’m okay, too. Thanks for asking,” Adam grumbled sarcastically as he picked himself up from the floor.
Realizing she wasn’t needed, Delaney stopped short.
The second she did, I knew something had gone wrong.
Delaney sucked in a quick, surprised breath as her right foot didn’t stop along with the rest of her body.
Time did that thing where it almost doesn’t exist. She shifted her body to find her equilibrium, and her arms swung erratically.
Her eyes went wide. Her mouth dropped open in a quiet scream.
She grabbed at nothing, and for a solid second her body was suspended in the air.
I was already moving.
I leapt over a puppy and caught her with one hand at her back and one on her arm, taking her weight the moment before she crashed down onto the floor.
She grabbed my forearm with both hands, fingers gripped tight, and we held ourselves together, afraid to let go.
Her breathing was unsteady, so I tightened my hands reflexively around her, firmer than necessary, as my pulse roared in my ears.
“I’ve got you,” I said, my voice rough.
She looked up at me. We were close enough that I saw her cheeks flush, and noticed that small scar above her eyebrow. How her pink, plump lips parted slightly. And how the urge to lean in and kiss her almost overtook me.
The bite of Delaney’s nails was enough to keep my head on straight. Yet even when her stranglehold on my arm didn’t loosen right away, I couldn’t stop the longing that welled up in me to tell her to stay within my embrace. To promise I’d protect her. Keep her safe.
Never leave her.
“Always trying to be the hero, huh, Kingsley?” she said, barely above a whisper.
I grinned, because this time she wasn’t yelling at me while rescuing her, and that felt like progress of some kind.
Behind us, a throat cleared.
I didn’t look. I didn’t care.
“Seemed like the better option,” I said to her.
Lines appeared across her brow. “Better than what?”
“Letting you hit the floor.” See? I could pretend having her pressed up against me wasn’t a problem.
She let out a soft chuckle and shook her head. Her fingers loosened, slowly, one at a time.
I reluctantly revised my hold accordingly.
A volunteer appeared with towels, which was probably the most useful thing that had happened in the last four minutes.
Mats were moved. The water was addressed.
The cats were retrieved from their respective locations—one from inside Wyatt’s hoodie, where it had decided to take a nap, and one from the water station, where it observed the cleanup with complete disdain.
Goldie was lavishing attention on the golden retriever, who had no complaints.
Logan had planted himself in the center of his mat, spine straight, arms at his sides—ready, apparently, to take beginner yoga very seriously.
Adam grumbled his way back to his station, announcing to no one in particular that this was absolutely his last class.
Cheryl surveyed the room from the head of the class, her hands on her hips as she assessed what to do next.
Delaney gave her a curt nod. “Okay. If everyone is alright, then let’s keep going. If we get through Sun Salutation at the actual class, that’ll be a win.”
I swallowed. The actual class was next Friday. The actual class had paying customers, a wait list, and a grant site visit on the horizon.
“Okay,” Delaney called, and there was laughter in her voice even now, genuine and warm, not strained. “New plan. Let’s move to seated stretches before we attempt standing again.”
Everyone sat down on their mats and mimicked her position: back straight and legs out in front of her.
"Let's do child’s pose,” Cheryl suggested.
Delaney nodded, demonstrated the position, and then proceeded to help everyone find a comfortable way of executing it.
I finally exhaled—a full exhale—as everyone settled into child’s pose. Lower center of gravity. Smaller margin for disaster. The animals, responding to some collective relation frequency I couldn’t detect, all began to settle down.
This, I thought. This we can work with. I breathed a sigh of relief. If we could come back from the craziness of the past thirty minutes, we could find a way to make this work. Right?
Chaos, the only one on the move, shifted closer to Goldie.
He’d been eying her headband since she walked in.
I was certain of it now. The way his eyes tracked it during warm-up.
Each sparkle calling like a homing beacon to him.
The way he’d circled her mat twice during this latest pose, each pass slightly tighter than the last, like a very small, very deliberate planet establishing its orbiting pattern.
He made his move while she was deepest in her stretch.
One smooth dip. A single, surgical motion. The headband—green, enormous, rhinestones—lifted cleanly from her head without disturbing a single hair.
Goldie didn’t even break her stretch. “He has excellent taste.”
Chaos trotted away with it hanging from his mouth like a trophy. I watched him go, and decided not to intervene, knowing if I had he’d think we were playing a game of Keep Away.
Martha decided this was a good time to open up her enormous tote bag.
She produced a thermos of tea, two granola bars, a paperback novel, a neck pillow, and a small framed photo that she propped against her water bottle without explanation.
A closer look revealed a photo of her late husband Thomas, whom she had clearly decided was participating.