2. Chapter 3
Mara
A room full of players stare at me like I walked in carrying something on fire.
I don't blink. I never blink first.
"Mats on the floor." I tap my clipboard against my palm. "Two rows. Now."
There's a beat of silence, the kind where someone's deciding if they want to test me, and then the shuffle starts. Chairs scrape. Bodies move. Equipment bags get shoved aside.
Good.
I've been running yoga conditioning sessions for this team for two seasons. I know exactly what this room feels like at the start. Twenty-five minutes of eye rolls and crossed arms before the aches set in and they start taking me seriously.
I scan the rows as they settle. Most of the veterans find their spots without complaint. The younger guys position themselves near the front, close enough to make jokes I'm supposed to find charming.
Evan McLeod drops his mat directly in my eyeline and grins. "Saved you a good view."
"Rotate it ninety degrees," I say, and move on.
I find Dane Kincaid in the back.
He's against the wall, arms folded over his chest, mat still rolled under his boot. He's watching me the way someone watches weather before a storm rolls in. Blue eyes, deliberate expression. He hasn't moved to unroll anything.
I hold his gaze for exactly two seconds.
"Mr. Kincaid. Mat on the floor, please."
A muscle ticks in his jaw. But he unrolls it.
I start with breath work. Simple, intentional. Half the room breathes wrong. Shallow, chest-only, held tight across the shoulders. I walk between the rows and call corrections without slowing down.
"Chest open, shoulders back."
"Breathe out longer than you breathe in."
"That's not relaxed. That's unconscious."
Someone snorts. A few guys laugh. I ignore it.
When I reach the back row, I stop.
Dane is doing the shoulder stretch, but his left arm is pulled wrong. He's compensating for something, probably an old injury he's never had properly addressed. The tension travels straight up the trapezius and into the neck. I've seen it before.
"Hold that position."
He goes still. Not surprised, exactly. More like cautious.
I step closer and place two fingers on the back of his shoulder blade. Light pressure. Repositioning.
"Drop the shoulder. Let it fall."
"It is down."
"It's not." I press gently. "There."
The shift is subtle. His shoulder drops maybe half an inch, and I watch the line of his neck change. The strain releases, and his exhale comes out slower than the ones before it.
His whole body goes quiet.
The correction requires my full palm against his shoulder blade, and my other hand braced at the front of his shoulder to check alignment. Two contact points. Professional. Necessary.
Not the problem.
The problem is he doesn't move. Doesn't shift his weight or adjust his posture or do any of the small, reflexive things people do when someone's hands are on them. He just stays exactly where I put him, like he understands that moving would end something.
His shoulder is solid under my palm. Hot through the fabric.
I step back first. I always step back first. Then I feel a sensation move in my stomach as I look at him lying there. My mind starts to go someplace it shouldn’t.
I move to the next student.
Then Evan call out two mats over.
"Hey, Mara." He sits up and rolls his neck theatrically. "I think I've got the same thing he's got. Right here." He points vaguely to his upper back. "Maybe you could."
"Lie flat." I don't look at him. "You're not in this stretch yet."
"Just saying, I'm feeling a little -."
"Flat, Evan."
He drops back with a dramatic groan and mutters something to the guy next to him. Laughter ripples down the row.
I move on.
But I feel Dane watching me as I go. I secretly hope he is.
Not loud about it. Not the way Evan watches me, like I'm a game he wants to win. This is different. Focused in a way that makes the back of my neck prickle.
I keep my face neutral.
We move through hip flexors, thoracic rotation, hamstring work. I demonstrate when I need to, cue corrections, and manage the usual chaos. Two guys talking through the holds. One who keeps checking his phone until I take it out of his hand without breaking my sentence.
By the time we hit the floor work, the energy in the room has changed. It always does. Thirty minutes in, the resistance breaks. Bodies that were rigid start to release. The jokes quiet. Breathing deepens.
This is the part I love. When the tough-guy performance finally costs too much to maintain.
I look up from a hip correction and find Dane lying on his back, one knee pulled to his chest, eyes on the ceiling.
I wonder what it would be like to lay next to him. I’ve got to stop my mind from wondering.
"Class, hold that stretch. Sixty seconds." I walk to the front of the room. "And breathe through it. Don't white-knuckle a stretch. That's not how muscles work."
"That's what my ex used to say," someone calls out.
The room erupts.
I let them have it. Thirty seconds of chaos, then: "Sixty seconds. Go."
When the timer ends, I run them through the cool-down sequence and release them with a reminder about next session. They peel off their mats, noise climbing back to normal.
Evan falls into step beside me as I collect my things.
"Good session." He's got the practiced ease of someone who's been charming since middle school. "Hey, I'm going out with some of the guys tonight. You should come."
"Thanks. I'm busy."
"You're always busy."
"Then you have consistent data." I zip my bag.
He laughs, because he thinks I'm flirting back. I'm not.
"Come on, Mara. Just ?.
"She said she's busy."
The voice comes from behind me. Low. Final.
Evan's smile goes sideways.
I turn.
Dane stands two feet away, gear bag over one shoulder. He's not looking at Evan with threat or aggression. Just that same focused attention he had in class on the ceiling earlier, redirected.
It's more effective than yelling would be.
"Team meeting," Evan says flatly, and walks off.
The room empties around us. Trainers shuffle in from the hallway. Someone bangs a locker two rooms over.
Dane doesn't move.
"I had that handled," I say.
"I know."
"Then why?"
"Because it was easier." He tilts his head, something quiet shifting in his expression. "And faster."
I hold his gaze. He holds mine right back, like it costs him nothing.
"Don't do that again," I say, low and even. "It makes things complicated."
He doesn't argue. Doesn't apologize either. He just looks at me with that deliberate, careful expression, the one that gives nothing away.
"Sure." Takes two steps toward the door.
Then he stops.
Turns just enough.
"Are you always this strict?" A beat. "Or is it just with me?"
He doesn't wait for an answer.
The door swings shut behind him, and I stand there, refusing to let my mind keep wondering any further.
Deep inside I feel a warmth being around him. The way he handles himself. The protective nature he has.
I go back to my tiny office to finish some paper work.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
Unknown number.
I open it.
Nothing but trouble.