23 – Partners Yoga Was an Excellent Idea
Casey
“It’s not that bad.”
“It’s partners Yoga, Casey. It’s not that great.” I struggle to hold my chuckle in as I watch Jessie shift on his feet. We are currently in the lobby. Elle’s hot Yoga class is running over time, probably because everyone in there is exhausted, but I’m not worried. The extra time to make Jessie overthink this whole thing is hilarious.
Am I nervous about being in close and suggestive positions with the guy I have been trying super hard not to crush really hard on? Yes.
Am I enjoying tormenting him and looking forward to watching him try not to be attracted to me? Also yes.
I mean, how could I not? Just look at that frown and sweaty upper lip.
Finally, losing the battle to withhold my laugh, I lean forward and rest my hands on my knees in a cackle. He looks down at me, unimpressed.
“It’s really not that bad. If you didn’t want to do this, you could have said no.” I smile up at him and he crosses his arms. I hadn’t really explained to him just how much it meant to me that he came with me. It was the one thing Grace, and I did together. It’s a great workout for strength, flow, and flexibility, and was a way for us to have our own time without taking away too much from our own teaching. But of course… I couldn’t exactly come with her now.
Asking Jessie, though, felt easy. I hadn’t even thought about it, really, just knew he’d come through and that it’d be comfortable with him, like everything else is.
A tight frown forms and he makes some noise that is a mix between a scoff and a grunt.
“So you could press up against and bend over in front of some other guy?” he grumbles, and I just innocently shrug, biting my bottom lip, knowing it’ll make him insane.
“Over my dead body.” His response is quiet, almost growled, but I catch it. I love it and hate it. Because who is he to get jealous of someone else? It’s confusing as all heck and yet I’m still not complaining.
“It’s going to be fun, you’ll see.” I watch him roll his eyes and shift again when the hot yoga class starts filing out of the room.
After a couple of minutes, letting the room cool down and air out, the couples file in. There are twelve of us, being six couples, and we each find the mats and take a seat. Elle takes this one, too, with her husband, who is also an instructor but doesn’t work at our studio. He just comes in to assist this class, but otherwise works as a PT for one of those flashy gyms that trains celebrities.
Jessie and I take the front. I do this as a courtesy, as I am obviously comfortable in a yoga class and can assist in demonstrations.
Jessie is still shifty, though he has tamed it down now that we’re in class. He is probably also shifty because we haven’t spoken about last week. The counter, the dinner, the kiss. We’ve seen each other sporadically. I’ve popped into the café for a new coffee blend, and each time he’s refused my payment. Sometimes he’d drop a coffee off to me here at the studio, he’d invite me over for dinner and ask me to make him something from my mom’s cookbook again. We’d sit in silence in his apartment reading, almost snuggled on the couch together.
Snuggled, literally legs intertwined, a shared blanket over our laps and whispered words–snuggled.
It has been… wholesome. That appears to be the only word I can seem to come up with. There have been no other sexual interactions, but it isn’t from a lack of tension because, my god, was there tension. It feels like we’re both in a constant state of panting. But it’s comfortable, there is no awkwardness. It just feels… right. Like it’s exactly where we’re meant to be.
I know Addison and Rosie are my best friends, but we all have busy lives. It’s different with Jessie. He fills a space I hadn’t realized felt so empty. He just fits, and now I don’t remember a time before him.
Before us.
We get walked through individual warm-ups before we start moving into the pair work. The moment Elle announces the first one, my stomach sinks. The yogi box. It isn’t that it is overly intense; it is that it is close. And requires some strength and trust. I don’t know what I was thinking, doing this with Jessie.
“You done this one before?” Jessie whispered as we move into the starting position.
“Yeah, but just with the girls.” I nod back at him.
“Partner A, lie on your back, with your hands in the air, as we demonstrated, and Partner B, ready to grip the shins just above the ankles,” Elle instructs, and she walks the room to check form and assist as I focus on Jessie. Partner A requires more strength and is better for the larger of the couple, so naturally, that is Jessie. He takes the mat, lying flat on his back and lifting his arms. I swallow and take a deep breath. Centering my mind, I try to do everything I can to focus on the exercise and not on Jessie’s strong legs. On the way his exercise shorts are practically gripping his thighs and the way his T is giving away every single muscle. Every dip of his cut torso and rippled stomach.
I try to swallow again, but my mouth is suddenly dry.
“You going to start soon or just stare at me?” Jessie’s deep timbre voice pulls me from my staring competition with his body, and I try to shake myself. Focus. Focus on the movement, not the body.
When I look to his face, he has the audacity to hit me with a smug smirk. He knew I was checking him out.
This is the dance we’ve been doing all week. Catching each other ogling the other. Knowing that we are both a breath away from tearing clothes and lighting each other on fire. But we’ve also both been comfortable in the almost touch, content to not be the one that takes the next step.
It takes edging to a whole other extreme, and I am ready to lose my mind because of it.
I reach down and grip the space just above his ankles and lift mine one at a time and place them in his hands.
This is the moment I realize my mistake. We’re in a glorified sixty-nine-plank position, with me suspended above him, and I feel my skin heat where he grips my ankles.
“Umm…” I try to breathe through the feelings that are flooding my system, trying to shut down the screams of Little Casey as she begs me to take Jessie home and cross the final line I keep trying to draw in the imaginary sand. “So, from here, we need to jack-knife up.” My voice is a pant and from the way Jessie has his eyes scrunched closed and the grip on my ankles tightening, I’m not the only one affected.
“Okay. Great,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Are you okay?” I whisper.
His eyes snap open, and lord, if I wasn’t already a hot and sweaty mess, that look of hunger in his eyes would do me over.
“Your ass and pussy are basically in my face right now, Ace. I’m not sure okay is the way to describe anything right now.” I stumble between a pant and a laugh. Thoroughly enjoying his pain, but also, I just really want to be naked with him right now.
“Okay, let’s just get this over with. Maybe it was a bad idea,” I say between giggles, and he just shakes his head, a delicate smile gracing his handsome face.
I haven’t seen one of those devastatingly stunning smiles since that night on the counter. I keep trying to get one, but he keeps them locked up tight. I won’t give up, though. I’m determined to get another.
While I’m usually pretty quick to engage my muscles, my core is always switched and ready to go, I hadn’t counted on the fact that Jessie is six feet of muscle, and compared to my five-six gangly sack of bones, I barely have to think of a muscle because Jessie sits straight up, lifting me like I weigh nothing, and his face is level with Little Casey.
A grunt comes from deep within his chest, and I watch as his eyes trail my body and make it to my face.
“Nah, I think this was a great idea.”
I can’t even respond. Words evade me. That same look of hunger burns a path over me, and I can practically see the dirty images flying past his thoughts.
Being Jessie’s friend and not climbing him is going to be very hard after today, I think.
“Want to grab a coffee?”
“Sure.” I nod to Jessie as we file out of the yoga room.
After the surprisingly intimate pose that we had jack-knifed into, we managed to keep our eyes off of each other. If not, just out of utter desperation to make it to the end of class without tearing into each other than anything else. But this easiness we fall into immediately after the hot and heavy is something I’ve come to love. The way we can exist in each other’s space and it just be a little slice of peace.
“I can’t stay long. I promised Evan I’d pop over. I made Grace some freezer stock meals because Evan has to go interstate for a work thing, and he’s worried about her not eating properly.” Before we leave the studio, I head for the freezer in the staff break room, pulling out the bag of meals I had stored here when I arrived, knowing I would stop by Grace’s before I went home.
We make it onto the street, heading in the direction of the café on the corner. Jessie loops around me to walk on the side closest to the road.
“Do you speak to her much?” he asks gently, and I shrug.
“I’ve tried to call her. Sometimes she picks up and sometimes she doesn’t. I just want to be there for her and she won’t let me. I know it’s selfish, but—”
“It’s not selfish to want to love your sister.”
But why won’t she let me love her?
“Well, anyway, we haven’t really spoken about the fight. I’ve just passed it off for now. I think we are going to need to have a conversation in the future, and I’m dreading it.” He nods, understanding. On one of our quiet reading dates in his apartment, I told JJ all about the things Grace had said that night I went over there. He didn’t offer advice, and I didn’t ask. He just listened, and then when he vented about the shop and the nosy developers, I didn’t try to fix it. I just listened, and he talked.
“Have you seen that sales guy again? From the developer?”
“No. I don’t know if he’ll come around again. I think that was a one off. My lack of response was probably answer enough.” I nod.
“Did you ever take Ethan up on his offer?” I smile because he gives me a side eye like he knew this question was coming. “It’s okay to rely on your friends, Jessie.” A small chuckle makes it past my lips.
“Ethan is Noah’s friend, not mine. And I don’t need him to look at anything. The shop is fine.” I just nod, not pressing, because I know he isn’t ready.
His parents’ divorce is still relatively fresh. He is still somewhat overcoming his ex, and I know this guy isn’t the best with change. If he is anything like his sister, it’s likely panic-inducing. So, I just let him sit in his thoughts.
“Ethan is definitely your friend,” is the only response I give as I bump his shoulder and skip ahead.
Lattes in hand–chocolate banana today, perfectly boring–we stop in front of the coffee shop. I need to go left, and his apartment is off to the right. Jessie looks at me, and as he reaches a hand out to tuck an errant hair behind my ear, he steps closer and speaks. “Want to hang at my place tonight?”
It’s an intimate question from this close. I can also see the vulnerability swimming in his mixed eyes of blue and green as he searches the depths of mine. Despite the fear the closeness and intimacy gives me, it also makes me feel light and warm. Makes me feel a little like I might be burning up. But to keep from squeaking something weird, I just bite down on my smile and nod quickly. Holding onto that lightness, I take a leap of courage and press up on my toes, lightly dusting my lips to the corner of his in a delicate kiss.
When my feet are planted back on the ground and I’m stepping backward away from him, I see his stunned face watching me, his free hand fisted by his side as he white knuckles the coffee in his hand.
“I’ll text you when I’m on my way.” I give him a wink–honestly, who am I right now–and I turn and head for Grace’s.
The walk there is short. This studio is the one closest to her apartment, which is why I run the other one, but I pass a convenience store and pick up a treat for her, anyway. I knock once on Grace’s door, and she answers with a soft smile. Foregoing hello’s, she just turns and walks back into the apartment, leaving it open in invitation.
Her apartment is decorated similar to the studios, but with dark laminate flooring and greenery everywhere. I spot Evan in the kitchen and nod in hello as Grace leaves us to it. I store the meals and walk out to the living room to find her lying on the couch. I sit, grabbing her feet to lift them and place them in my lap.
“Here.” I hand her the chocolate bar. Or I try to. She looks at it like it offends her, then back to the TV.
A frown pulls at my face and I place the bar on the coffee table. The heaviness in my stomach souring. At least she is letting me hold her in some way.
“I don’t know how to make this better, Grace,” I say quietly into the tense air that surrounds us.
“It’s not your job to make it better.”
“I meant with you and me. I don’t know how to be a better sister. I’m sorry for whatever I’ve done that’s hurt you. I just want to be good with each other again. This distance hurts,” I say gently back, trying as hard as possible to be sensitive to her situation, but also aching to have a relationship with my sister.
“Stop trying to fix everyone and everything around you and we’ll be just fine, Casey,” she says in one breath. I just nod at her, but the awkward tension in the room doesn’t dissipate.
“Okay.” I rub gently on her leg, trying to give her some affection in the only way she seems to allow it. I love her. I know she is hurting, and watching her hurt like this makes me just want to cry again.
I don’t know what the heck is wrong with me, or when I became like this. I used to have a great handle on my emotions. I could bundle them all up and let them go on demand once a month as needed for an outlet.
“Well, I’ve stocked the freezer for next week. I know that Evan isn’t going to be home. I’m only a phone call away. Maybe we could have dinner together a couple nights a week?” I ask, except I must have said something wrong again because a humorless laugh makes its way out of her mouth as she pulls her legs from me and sits up. Shaking her head, she levels me with a look of hatred.
“I’m no insolent child who can’t take care of herself. I don’t need you mothering me. Did you forget I’m the older sister?” She doesn’t even wait for me to answer, she stands from the couch and storms for her room.
I’ve had just about enough of this.
“Grace, for the love of god, stop walking away from me,” I shout after her, losing my grip on my emotions.
The apartment is so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Grace has stopped, but her back is still facing me and I see her shoulders rise with her erratic breathing as she works to calm herself.
“All I want is to love you. Why won’t you let me?” I ask, blinking back the sting in my eyes and willing myself to hold it together.
She spins slowly and those same angry eyes stare coldly back at me.
“You shouldn’t be so desperate, Casey. It’s not a good look.” Her upper lip curls slightly in disgust before she continues to storm back to her room. I see movement at the corner of my eye and watch as Evan’s face drops, looking at me apologetically.
I grab my bag from the counter on my way out and angrily swipe at my eyes. Before the door to the apartment slams behind me, Evan stops it.
“Casey, I’m sorry, she… she has just been upset. Please don’t stop trying. She is pushing everyone away, and she really needs us right now.” My chest feels hollow, my heart aches, and I just want a warm blanket and a good cry, but I nod at him and try to paste on my most positive smile.
“I’d never give up on her, Ev. She’s my sister,” I whisper before I turn and leave. Heading for somewhere that feels warmer.