Chapter 4
Four
“I love him, this side of him no one else gets to see. Gone are the days we danced between the mountains and trees. But I
love him, and his heart belongs with me.”
—“The Melody of Achilles and Patroclus,” The Wooden Horse, Act One
A sparkling curtain of warm orange light shone through the window to the back of the yoga studio as the sun stretched into
the early evening. Jonah watched as it danced across the beech wood floorboards and ran its fingertips across the various
yoga mats dotted about the room. The moments before the class started, when the students picked their space and lined up their
water bottles while talking quietly among themselves, were when he felt most relaxed.
Monday nights were the time he reserved each week to clear his head, to allow the swirling thoughts and physical and mental
strain of performing every night to be placed in a neat box even if only for an hour. He never considered himself someone
who might get really into yoga and be able to find something calming about measured breaths, but Omari practically forced
him to a class and made him go until he found he couldn’t be without it. Eventually, Jonah found a studio closer to home,
removing himself from Omari and his perfect posture so he could flail about on the mat without his friend’s judgmental frown.
Jonah’s body thanked him for the relaxation during the week, when things became too much and the thought of his parents back home turned into a treacherous cliff edge.
He could mentally place himself back in the studio and force himself to breathe.
Breathe. He placed his hands flat on the yoga mat he always chose, the one nearest the wall opposite the door in the last row, where the mirrors at the front didn’t quite catch his entire body.
He’d found out early on not to sit front and center; he didn’t need an unobscured view to observe his sweaty face and ridiculous expressions as he twisted his body into pretzel-like poses and tried to hold them while looking graceful.
As the balmy rays of sun slowly burned into a shade usually found caressing the leaves in autumn, a shadow loomed over Jonah
as he sat on his mat fiddling with the lid from his water bottle. He looked up, half expecting to see the woman with bleached-blond
hair and purple money piece who usually set up beside him, only to be greeted with someone else entirely. They were still
blond, though darker, almost sandy, natural, and they focused solely on readjusting the mat then placing their own water down
before kicking off the whitest of white trainers Jonah ever laid his eyes upon. Jonah blinked as he took in the figure. Slender,
tall, ridiculously tall, with high cheekbones and fluttering lashes framing hazel eyes reminiscent of the fields back home
when they were kissed by the cooler shades of fall. Then he looked at their lips, pouting, pink, as if they’d swiped a bubble
gum lip gloss over them before stepping into the room. They were utterly sinful. And then, and without warning, Jonah’s mind
kicked back into gear and he realized who it was he was not-so-subtly checking out.
Dexter Ellis.
Jonah scrambled to his feet, his breath catching in his chest as he tried to think of something—anything—to say. Dexter’s
eyes flicked to him, and his eyebrow quirked as a small smile danced across his absolutely ludicrous lips.
“Hey!” Jonah said. Not too bad for someone in complete social free fall. “I didn’t know you liked yoga, such a small world,
huh?”
Dexter paused slightly as he bent down, his hand reaching for his water, before he grasped it and stood straight again, his
height impressive even against Jonah’s tall frame. He smiled again before taking a sip of his drink then wiped his mouth with
the back of his hand.
“Small world? Do you vet everyone who comes to this class to see if they like yoga?” he asked. His voice was deeper than Jonah expected; he’d only ever heard him sing before, his range on par with Jonah’s, though Jonah often opted up in places Dexter could only dream of.
Jonah shook his head. “No, I just . . . I come here every week and I’ve never seen you.”
“Are new students not allowed or something?”
“I mean, yeah, of course, I was just . . . I guess it’s just a surprise to see you here, like, what are the chances?” Jonah
rubbed the back of his neck as the words fell from his mouth. Rotten words. Rubbish littering the gleaming floorboards.
Dexter looked around the room, his eyes clearly searching for someone or something to remove him from the situation he’d found
himself in.
“You are Dexter Ellis, right?” Jonah pressed, suddenly fearing he’d mistaken this poor man for his theatrical nemesis. It wasn’t like
they’d ever met before, after all, but surely this guy was Dexter, unless the man had a twin. Two of him. Great. “Shit, I’m
sorry, you just look so much like him.”
“Oh,” he said with a laugh, the smile returning to his face. “I mean, yes, that’s me, sorry, I forget sometimes that people
recognize me. The theatre world can feel so insular sometimes.” He rubbed his hand over his face, then blew a strand of blond
hair away from his eyes. “Do you like the theatre?”
Jonah laughed, somewhat confused, but mostly dumbfounded. “Would be weird if I didn’t, wouldn’t it?”
“I don’t know, would it? Do you work in the industry?”
Holy shit. Dexter didn’t know who he was. The dramatic and frankly outraged part of him wanted to tell him that yes he worked
in the bloody industry—not only that, he’d won an Olivier Award only a month ago and was the lead in the show Dexter was about
to perform in. But the calmer, more mature side of him that was only present because of the lavender air humidifier in the
room bit his tongue and forced the smile to remain on his face.
“Yes,” he said simply, and reminded himself to relax his eyes as he tried his hardest not to let them twitch.
“Okay, can everyone get onto their mats, please? We will begin,” the instructor, Shan, said from the front of the class.
Jonah looked over at her as she tied her braids back into a loose ponytail, a couple of them still hanging around the front of her face, elongating her slender neck in the process.
She turned on the speaker on the wall beside her spot at the front and a tranquil melody floated throughout the room, a melody Jonah couldn’t focus on because Dexter fucking Ellis stood right beside him and had the audacity to imply he didn’t know who he was.
It must have been impossible, a strange power play Jonah didn’t understand. How could Dexter not know Jonah, the guy who took
the role he originated and molded it into something else entirely in the West End? How could he not have seen his face on
the posters dotted around the Underground, or the gorgeous trailers playing on the large screens at the end of Regent Street?
Or had he gone for a toilet break during Jonah’s win at the Oliviers? More importantly, had Dexter really not been to see
the show he apparently loved so much (if his social media posts waxing lyrical about it were to be believed?). The guy had
been rehearsing in a studio somewhere for the past three weeks, and would have absolutely been shown pictures of Jonah, even
recordings of him performing, yet he had apparently erased him from his memory entirely. Jonah took position on his mat, feet
firm in the center, and turned his head slightly to see Dexter doing the same thing but staring ahead, as if Jonah didn’t
exist.
The bastard.
They all inhaled deeply and turned to face the wall with the door before leaning forward and into the downward dog position.
Jonah held his breath as Dexter bent in front of him, his arse clad in too-tight joggers as he did the most fabulous downward
dog the world ever witnessed. He couldn’t look at him, not from that angle. He couldn’t look at his bare arms bracing his
stance or his remarkably unflushed face hanging between them, eyes closed, pouty lips inhaling and exhaling visible breaths.
Jonah couldn’t decide if he wanted to kiss or punch him, but the thought of kissing him made his stomach turn and he did his
best not to gag as he tried to hold his composure.
No one could deny the sheer beauty of the man; he radiated like the sun, his skin tanned, far too tanned for London in the spring.
Seeing him in real life instead of pixels on a screen or frozen in a photograph pulled at something in Jonah’s chest; the man he’d heard about for so long painfully real, and there he stood, arse in the air, while Jonah did his best not to look at it.
His mind flitted to an image of Edward, of him standing in the living room, hands wrapped around his waist as he doubled over with laughter while Jonah tried to get him to learn yoga with him at home.
No. He couldn’t think of him, he needed to keep him stuffed away in the kitchen drawer with his key.
“Brilliant, well done everyone. We will do some partner work now. Try to work with someone who is a similar build to you,”
Shan said, straightening her posture and falling effortlessly into the mountain pose. Strong. Sturdy. “I know we haven’t done
partner poses before, and this is more to help with your stretches,” she explained as Jonah followed her lead and stood only
to find Dexter already standing as tall as Mount Everest beside him.
“Would you mind if we—” Dexter looked at him and pointed at Jonah then at himself with a smile. “Similar builds? Both work
in the theatre industry? We’re the perfect match.”
Before Jonah could protest, and protest he would, Shan took the hands of a woman from the front row and guided her to her
mat.
“Everyone, please watch me and the lovely Linda here.” She smiled at the woman as they both sat down and faced each other.
Shan inhaled deeply, her chest expanding as her shoulders relaxed. “Keep your backs straight, then stretch out your legs.
Keep them wide apart,” she said as she performed the move and Linda mirrored her. “Place the soles of your feet against your
partner’s and hold hands, then one person slowly relaxes and lets the other person pull them forward.” The women moved effortlessly
together, Linda’s body slumping slightly as Shan carefully pulled her closer. “Take deep breaths then straighten and swap.
You will feel a stretch in your hamstrings.” Shan nodded at the rest of the group, and within seconds everyone took their
positions on the floor.
Jonah didn’t have an issue with feet. He didn’t have a strange fetish for them, but they didn’t repulse him either.
Touching his soles against someone else’s, however, seemed oddly intimate.
Edward had lovely feet. No, God, he needed to stop thinking of Edward with his perfectly formed toes and beautiful ankles.
He shook his head slightly as he got to the floor and did his best not to blush as Dexter spread his legs in front of him and Jonah reluctantly did the same.
Dexter held no reservations as he pressed the soles of his feet against Jonah’s, his toes poking higher, his feet bigger.
Of course. His hands reached out to him, his fingers slender, like that of a pianist, and Jonah held them in his and hoped Dexter wouldn’t notice just how sweaty his palms were.
A tension settled between their arms and Jonah could already feel the pull in his hamstrings before they’d even begun stretching.
“You go first,” Dexter said with an encouraging nod. Jonah swallowed thickly and let his body relax. Breathe in. And out.
And in again. Then he felt Dexter pulling him, his arms stretching, his legs even more so.
“How’s that?” Dexter asked. “I can do it harder, if you like.”
“No,” Jonah said far too quickly to sound even remotely normal. “It’s fine.” He sat himself back only to see Dexter with a
shit-eating grin plastered across his face. “Your turn.”
The blond folded in on himself like a flower closing its petals as the sun hid from the sky. Jonah waited a moment before
pulling him forward. As he did, Dexter’s body shifted and his right foot slipped from Jonah’s and slid rapidly down the inside
of Jonah’s leg right to his crotch. The pain took a moment to register.
Foot. Penis. Pain.
An inhuman squeak escaped Jonah’s mouth, a high-pitched thing that made Shan’s head snap over to them. Dexter moved quickly
to his knees, hands flying out to grasp Jonah’s shoulders and apologies spilling out of his stupidly pink lips.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, are you okay?”
Jonah didn’t want Dexter’s hands on him, their proximity dizzying and ridiculously painful.
He’d been kicked in the balls before, but not since primary school when girls thought it funny to run up to the boys in the playground and casually assault them.
No such attacks happened in adulthood; Jonah did a good job of not offending anyone enough to warrant an attack on his private parts.
Though Bastien once elbowed him dangerously close to his balls during the show and apologized profusely afterward.
Heck, he’d even forgive Bastien if he were the one to harm him now, but it wasn’t Bastien.
It was Dexter bloody Ellis: penis killer.
Jonah shifted from him, finding his way to his feet somehow so he could turn from the class. He hoped the corner of the room
would swallow him whole so he wouldn’t have to look at the people now worried about his dick and whether he was still capable
of fathering children.
“Oh Christ,” Shan said, coming to his side as she gestured for the others to carry on with the exercise. “Want me to get some
ice?” she murmured, her voice filled with the same lightness that danced with the lavender in the air. “Remember to breathe.”
“I am breathing,” Jonah said through gritted teeth, his world spinning, the pain mixing with an overwhelming sense of embarrassment.
“I’m just . . . I’m just gonna finish there I think.” He marveled at how well he stood, the pain should have doubled him over,
but his body pushed it aside so he could flee. He quickly bent to pick up his water and shoes and kept his head down as he
made his way out of the class, knowing the next time he went there everyone would think about his dick, if only for a split
second, but they would absolutely think about it. Dexter somehow ridiculed him by squashing his penis with his stupidly enormous
foot all while remaining oblivious to their rivalry; he didn’t know Jonah from a stranger on the street. The nemesis who not
only bruised his ego but also his balls in the space of an hour.
He hated him.