Chapter 4
Merritt sucked her breath in through her nose and exhaled loudly, dropping her hands and stepping her left foot back, turning her low lunge into a downward-facing dog.
The class wasn’t especially strenuous—she’d forgone her usual Vinyasa Flow to join Olivia for Prenatal an hour earlier. But she’d never had this teacher before, and something about the dramatically breathy pseudo-soothing cadence of her Yoga Instructor Voice was making Merritt’s skin crawl.
“Draaawww your body up through your heart center…ground your energy through your hands…your fingertips…down to your tippy-tippy-tippy-toes…remember to be curious in your movement…as you floooow through your vinyasa…saying hellooo to your up dog…meeting once again…in down…ward-fa…cing dog.”
Merritt pressed her palms into her mat and opened her eyes, glancing over at Olivia next to her.
What’s up dog? Merritt mouthed silently, and yes, it wasn’t her best joke ever, but she still wasn’t expecting Olivia’s face to completely drain of color in response, her eyes going glassy. She dropped to her hands and knees, then bolted out of the room, Merritt following close behind.
She reached the lobby of the studio just in time to see the bathroom door shut with a decisive click, followed by the sound of vomiting.
Merritt filled one of the communal mismatched mugs from the water cooler, then parked herself on the bench by the door and waited.
After a minute or two without any signs of life, Merritt leaned over to mutter through the door.
“Liv? Are you okay?”
“Just leave me to die in here,” Olivia moaned. Merritt glanced over at the girl at the front desk, who seemed absorbed in her phone, just out of earshot. She lowered her voice slightly.
“It was her voice that did it, wasn’t it? If you hadn’t given me an excuse to leave, I might have ended up in there first.”
She heard Olivia give a short, teary laugh. The toilet flushed and the water ran, and eventually Olivia emerged, still looking slightly green. She collapsed on the bench next to Merritt, plopping her head in her hands.
“This sucks,” she grumbled. Merritt nudged her shoulder and offered her the water, which she accepted gratefully.
Merritt put her hand on Olivia’s back as she drank, rubbing in small, comforting circles.
Once Olivia was finished, she sat up straight and sighed ruefully. “Can’t take me anywhere, huh?”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure they’ve seen it all before.
At least you made it to the bathroom.” Merritt glanced at the clock.
There were less than ten minutes left in the class.
“Do you wanna go back in?” She was relieved when Olivia shook her head.
“Why don’t we just sit here until it’s over?
Then I’ll get our mats, we’ll go next door and get some tea, and then we’ll walk back. ”
“Perfect.” Olivia sighed, resting her head on Merritt’s shoulder. “I don’t understand how this is helpful. Evolutionarily speaking. Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to be, like, superhuman when we’re pregnant? Not achy and exhausted and puking every ten minutes?”
“I think it’s supposed to protect you and the babies, like if you accidentally eat something poisonous. Your body is set to auto-eject until everything’s been baking for a little longer.”
Olivia pouted. “And I have to stop eating poison, too? Man, no one warns you about the real sacrifices of pregnancy.”
The front door opened, their gazes turning toward it in unison. Merritt’s stomach lurched as soon as she registered who it was. For a split second, she was worried she’d have to abandon Olivia and run to the bathroom herself.
She forced herself to stay perfectly still, giving no sign that she was in any way distressed by the sight of him.
Maybe distressed was the wrong word. What she felt was quieter, but the kind of quiet that came before an earth-shattering disturbance.
Staring at Niko, framed in the doorway at the opposite end of the long hall, she pictured the two of them as Old West gunslingers facing off at dawn, eyes narrowed, hands tensed on holsters, silently daring the other one to move a muscle.
Which was silly. He wasn’t a grizzled bounty hunter with a score to settle and nothing left to lose.
He was just her easygoing and good-natured contractor, friend to all, who saw her as a giant paycheck and possibly an object of curiosity and nothing more.
But in a nice way. Merritt doubted he was capable of doing anything not in a nice way, no matter what her dumb horny lizard brain tried to tell her.
It didn’t mean anything that his face lit up when he saw her. Them. When he saw the two of them. It was just the surprise and delight of running into someone he knew when he didn’t expect it. Though at this point, she’d think he would expect it by now, since he knew literally everyone in town.
He raised his hand in greeting and began to approach them, but the girl at the front desk waved him over first. Merritt cast her eyes to the bulletin board, glazing over as she read the ads for retreats and energy work, allowing her gaze to settle back on him only once he was standing right in front of them.
“Are you guys here for the twelve-thirty? Skylar just told me it’s canceled today; I guess I missed the message.”
Merritt shook her head. “We just did Prenatal.”
“Most of it, anyway,” Olivia added wryly. Now that she was reaching the end of her first trimester, Olivia’s pregnancy was common knowledge—and, to Merritt’s relief, it seemed like Niko hadn’t shared that she’d spilled the beans prematurely.
Niko glanced at Merritt, almost like it was a reflex.
“They weren’t testing at the door this time, so luckily I was able to sneak in,” she deadpanned.
The half smile that played across his lips in response sent something warm and unwelcome spreading beneath her skin. He looked away first, casting his eyes toward the door of the classroom, now darkened for Savasana.
“You left early?”
“Morning sickness is kicking my ass,” said Olivia.
His brow creased even deeper. “Even in the afternoon?”
“Even in the afternoon.”
“Wow. That sucks.”
“That’s what I said.”
Niko adjusted the strap of his yoga mat against his shoulder. “Did you walk here? You need a ride home?”
Olivia and Merritt glanced at each other. Merritt called on every available shred of latent twin ESP to mentally beg Olivia to decline.
“That would be amazing, actually.” Olivia’s slightly apologetic tone told Merritt that she understood her message but was going rogue.
“Don’t you want to get some tea first? Settle your stomach?” Merritt asked pointedly.
Olivia shook her head. “Let’s make it at home. I want to lie down.”
At that, the door to the studio opened and the rest of the class started filing out. Merritt plastered on a smile.
“Great. Let me go grab our mats.”
“I’ll help,” Niko offered quickly, following her in.
By the time she was done returning their props to the closet, the room had mostly emptied. Merritt shut the closet door and turned around to find Niko standing a little too close, their rolled-up mats tucked under one arm.
“Jesus,” she gasped, nearly jumping out of her skin. The jumping didn’t stop there, though; her skin tingled at his proximity like an aftershock. She reached her hand out to take one of the mats from him, but he just stood there, studying her.
She shifted uncomfortably. “What?”
“Did I do something wrong?”
She wasn’t expecting that. Especially not the troubled, vulnerable way in which he said it. Merritt opened and closed her mouth a few times before managing a muted “What do you mean?”
“I mean…I dunno. I’ve been working on the house for a couple weeks now and you haven’t come by once.”
Merritt felt her neck flush. “I’ve just been busy.”
“Busy,” he repeated, with more than a trace of skepticism. She looked down at the ground and crossed her arms, then uncrossed them when she realized how suspicious her body language was.
“I’m not avoiding you,” she lied. “I swear.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
Neither of them moved. Merritt knew what he was waiting for, but she was reluctant to give it to him.
She had been avoiding him, obviously, ever since their trip to Silverton.
Spending that much quality time with him had kind of knocked her sideways, and not in a way she’d expected or could even articulate.
In a way that she couldn’t blame on a well-balanced face or disproportionately broad shoulders or even overpowering pheromones.
She’d hoped that getting to know him better might kill her physical attraction to him, which was what usually happened within five minutes of conversation with anyone who was too hot for their own good.
Instead, she’d just learned that he loved painting and disco and his grandmother and that he smelled so good it made her a little lightheaded, which had only made things worse.
It certainly wouldn’t help to put herself in a position to learn anything else.
She’d needed some time to regroup before she was ready to face him again, and, as was usually the case, days had turned to weeks before she knew it.
She met his eyes, which looked black and bottomless in the low light of the studio. “So…I’ll come by this weekend, then? You can show me…whatever you want to show me?”
He cocked his head and smiled a little. “You’re not doing me a favor here. It’s your house.”
Shame coiled through her. She was being a brat, all because she had a stupid crush on him and didn’t know how to handle it. But acting like a hormonal teenager was no longer cute halfway through her thirties.
“You’re right. Sorry.” She gave up trying to take the other mat from him and started toward the door. He fell into step beside her. “All the pictures you’ve been sending me have been great. I know I’m in good hands.”
Do NOT think about being in his hands.
He grinned. “Thanks. It’s been fun so far. It’s a really incredible space.”