Chapter Four
Another One Bites the Schedule
I’m sitting cross-legged on the meditation deck with a pint of vegan fudge ripple, a spoon, and absolutely no inner peace.
My speech notes are spread out beside me like the aftermath of a stationery explosion. At least three are stained with melted coconut ice cream and one is literally stuck to my thigh.
So far, the speech includes the phrases:
“Your ego is not your enemy; it’s your overprotective ex.”
“Unclench your narrative.”
and “Please arrive on time so I don’t have to hex your schedule.” (Crossed out, but still spiritually true.)
The sun is setting. The domes are glowing like little sacred disco balls. The frogs have started their nightly throat-chakra opera. And for once, finally, no men are talking or flexing or breathing at me weirdly.
It’s just me, my melty ice cream, and a fantasy where I finish this speech and become a grounded, glowing goddess who definitely doesn’t want to climb Jax like a tree or whisper encouraging affirmations into Asher’s emotional trauma.
I sigh and shovel another spoonful into my mouth.
“This,” I whisper to myself, “Is stillness.”
Which is, of course, when I hear the car.
Not just any car.
A jeep.
Slow. Steady. Confident. Like it doesn’t care about your opinions on scheduled check-in windows or boundaries or the sanctity of my one goddamn quiet hour.
I stare into the trees like maybe, if I’m still enough, it’ll go away.
It doesn’t.
The jeep turns the corner and rolls to a slow stop in the gravel clearing like the beginning of a low-budget horror movie.
A man steps out.
And I swear, the air changes.
Tall. Broad. Flannel. Beard. The kind of beard that says “I have chopped wood shirtless while grieving.” The kind of face that says “I’ve fought a bear and lost but emotionally grew from it.”
He doesn’t say a word.
Just looks around slowly, taking in the domes, the wind chimes, the shrine to a quartz penis I forgot to move. His eyes land on me, sitting on the deck, spoon in hand, coconut chocolate sadness dripping down my wrist like holy failure.
We stare at each other.
I swallow my mouthful of ice cream like I’m being judged by a mountain ghost.
“Hi,” I say, finally. “You’re early.”
He nods. Just one.
I blink. “That was not rhetorical.”
“Traffic was light,” he says, voice low and deep and so serious it vibrates in my bones.
“I didn’t even give you directions yet,” I mutter.
He walks closer. Not fast. Not threatening. Just... there. Big. Quiet. Built like the forest grew him personally and sent him here to emotionally disrupt me.
I force myself to stand, sticky spoon still in hand.
“You’re... Sebastian Wolf?” I ask.
He nods again. “Seb.”
Of course it’s Seb. Of course the emotionally repressed poet who smells like cedarwood and unresolved tension is named Seb.
“I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” I say, trying to wipe fudge ripple off my robe with the dignity of a woman who totally has her life together and is not thinking about what that beard would feel like between my thighs.
“Should I come back later?” he asks, gesturing to the ice cream. “You look... in the middle of something.”
“I was meditating,” I lie. “Through dessert.”
He almost smiles. Almost.
I don’t like what that does to me.
“Well,” I say, pulling myself up straighter. “Since you’re here, I guess we can get you settled. Unless anyone else wants to appear from the woods next. Maybe a werewolf? A pirate? My last shred of sanity?”
He doesn’t laugh.
He just picks up his own bag, leather. Rugged. Probably older than me, and waits for me to lead.
I sigh and drop the spoon into the empty carton like I’m burying my last comfort.
Then I mutter under my breath, “I’m billing every single one of these beautiful disasters for an extra night.”
I lead Seb across the compound like a perfectly grounded, extremely not-distracted guide who is absolutely not imagining what his hands would look like wrapped around a mug… or a waist… or tied to one of the sacred yurt posts for educational reasons.
He walks behind me, quiet, heavy-footed, deliberate, as I gesture vaguely at things that may or may not be real parts of the retreat.
“This is the Moon Path,” I say, waving toward a dirt trail I just named five seconds ago. “It connects the sacred domes with the labyrinth. It’s for grounding. Or walking. Or... wandering dramatically when you’re feeling raw.”
No response.
I glance back. He’s just watching me, brow slightly furrowed, like I’m some rare forest bird who just asked him to pay $5,000 for enlightenment and a stress rock.
God, he’s tall. And built like he could lift a log and my emotional baggage in one arm.
I clear my throat and keep walking.
“This,” I say, motioning toward the koi pond, “Is the Reflection Pool. Guests are encouraged to sit here and journal. Or cry. But only if they can do it quietly and without disrupting the fish.”
Still no comment.
Not even a pity chuckle.
I’m sweating now. Not from nerves. From attraction. Which is so much worse.
Seb is the kind of man who could say five words and ruin your whole life. Or say nothing and still leave you writing poetry about his hands.
I glance at those hands now, calloused, big, veins prominent. Not in a “gym thirst trap” way. In a “I’ve carried firewood through a blizzard and maybe also heartbreak” way.
I need to stop looking at his hands.
I need to stop imagining those hands pulling my dress off in the Moon Dome during a particularly intense “mirror meditation.”
Focus, Bliss.
“This is Dome Three,” I say, stopping at the entrance and opening the flap. “You’ll be staying here. It’s one of our most energetically neutral spaces.”
He looks inside, and nods once.
“I cleared it personally,” I add, because I have no idea why I’m still talking but my mouth doesn’t care. “Saged it. Cleansed the grid. Swept out whatever weird vibes my great-aunt left behind.”
He turns back to me and speaks. One sentence. “You don’t believe in any of this, do you?”
I freeze. Blink.
Every hair on my neck stands up like I’ve been caught naked in a spell circle.
“I what?” I manage.
His gaze is steady. Not cruel. Not mocking. Just... sharp. Perceptive. Deep in that “I see things people don’t say” way that makes me want to both fight him and cry into his flannel.
“You’re selling it,” he says. “Well. But I can see it in your eyes.”
Oh. Oh no.
That’s the moment. That’s the line that wrecks me.
Not because he’s wrong, but because he isn’t. And because the way he says it feels like he’s trying to reach something in me I’ve buried under linen and Instagram wisdom and “chakra detox” marketing copy.
I force a smile. “I believe in... curated transformation,” I say, trying to make it sound breezy.
He steps past me, into the dome. “Whatever you believe in,” he says, “You built something. Doesn’t have to be perfect to be real.”
And then he’s gone inside. Just like that.
No mic drop. No smug smile. Just a casual soul uppercut on the way through the door.
I stand there for a moment, letting my melted ice cream-sticky hand slowly curl into a fist at my side.
Because I was going to finish my Day One speech tonight.
But instead, I might need to scream into a cushion and think about what those hands would feel like on my bare ass.
No.
No, no, no.
I am a sacred leader of a spiritual movement.
And I am not sexually available for men who speak in tragic metaphors and look like their beard holds dark secrets and artisanal jam recipes.
...Probably.
As soon as I hear the click of Seb’s dome zipper sealing behind him, I whip out my phone with the desperation of a woman who just got emotionally pantsed by a walking Appalachian mood board.
I slam my thumbs into the group thread like it’s an exorcism.
ME:
new one’s here
seb
the forest sent him
beard. flannel. quiet. tragedy in his eyes
i think he’s made of cedar and secrets
CALLIE:
oooooooh the reclusive novelist???
he’s the divorce one right???
did he speak???
ME:
he said one sentence and it spiritually filleted me
“you don’t believe in any of this, do you?”
bitch.
what gives him the right
CALLIE:
oh wow
oh he’s dangerous
that’s soul sniper energy
you’re gonna imprint on him like a sad duck
ME:
callie i am the cult leader i cannot imprint on anyone
but like also his hands
his hands
CALLIE:
omg tell me more
on a scale from 1 to “builds emotional sheds,” what are we talking?
ME:
like... builds them shirtless in the rain
while processing the concept of grief
and then gifts you a wooden spoon he carved by firelight and doesn’t say why
CALLIE:
dead
you’re done
pack it up
the cult is his now
ME:
i was just trying to write a speech
and eat ice cream
and not get soul-punched by a man who smells like pine and probably journaled about death today
CALLIE:
babe
you’re not running a retreat anymore
you’re running a divine masculine thirst trap
and honestly? i support it
ME:
why do they all keep showing up early
why do they all look like different categories of daddy issues
why is this happening to me personally
CALLIE:
because you manifested this with your womb power and lies
and because the universe ships you with chaos
ME:
i am charging all of them an “emotional labor tax”
and then i’m going to write my speech
and then maybe i’ll cry into a moon rock
idk
CALLIE:
love that for you
send pics if any of them fight shirtless
I light a candle.
Then a second one.
Then I accidentally set the corner of my “Welcome to the Journey of Sacred Masculine Surrender” draft on fire and spend a solid thirty seconds slapping it with a silk scarf.
So.
That’s where we’re at.
I sit back on my cushion, legs crossed, laptop open, half a chocolate bar in my mouth, and absolutely no working brain cells. I am supposed to be crafting a powerful, life-changing opening speech for tomorrow’s first ritual: The Unclenching of the Jaw, the Fist, and the Ego.
Instead, I’m writing lines like:
“Sometimes, what you’re really holding onto… is grief in your butt.”
I stare at it, backspace, and start again.
“Welcome, sacred seekers. Here, we will learn to release the need to control, to posture, to resist. To unclench, fully. In body, in breath, in…”
…hands.
Oh no. I am not thinking about Seb’s hands again.
But now I am.
His fingers, thick and calloused and deliberate. Hands that say “I can build a shelter. Or take one apart slowly, while looking into your soul.”
I type:
“To surrender is not to collapse, but to be held.”
Then immediately scream into my scarf.
Because now I’m picturing Asher. Holding me. And whispering something devastating like “I read your energy like a book I wasn’t supposed to open, but I did anyway.”
No. No.
I slam the laptop shut like I’m sealing a portal, take a breath, and try again.
Pen. Paper. Analog. That’s what I need. I write:
“Release the jaw. Release the control. Release the idea that your worth is based on performance, aggression, or emotional shutdown. Also maybe don’t show up a day early and mess up my whole schedule, you beautiful feral demons.”
I circle the last part.
“That’s staying in,” I say out loud.
I sit back, shake out my arms, and try to channel whatever half-dead spirit guides I haven’t offended today.
“You are safe here. You are seen. You are not your paycheck, your posture, or your rage.”
I pause.
“Unless your name is Jax Riot, in which case you are rage in jeans and I need you to lower your voice and possibly your motorcycle.”
I write a new heading:
Pillar One: The Sacred Unclenching
“What are you holding? What are you clenching? What are you pretending doesn’t ache?”
My uterus screams: Seb.
My brain screams: Asher.
My left boob thinks about Jax and perks up in protest.
I lean forward, forehead to the floor, and whisper into the mat, “I am going to die in this dome. And my tombstone will just say: ‘She tried to lead a retreat, but got spiritually dicked down by multiple archetypes instead.’ ”
The candle flickers like it agrees.