Chapter Twenty-Five

ANA WOKE BEFORE her alarm went off, thanks to a body clock that was set an hour ahead of local time, with a feeling in her stomach that could either be dread or anticipation. Maybe both. Dread over the forthcoming family reunion, anticipation for the yoga class that would also serve as her entertainment for the morning. She dressed quickly in her yoga clothes, then pulled on a sweatshirt and flowy pants over top, knowing the overnight temperatures had cooled just enough to be nippy when they ventured out on foot. Her hair went back into a tight ponytail, face splashed with water, teeth quickly brushed. She never wore makeup to the gym; in this case, she’d sweat it off before she even got a quarter of the way through the class.

She’d half-expected Bryan to change his mind, but he was waiting for her in the lobby when she arrived, dressed in athletic shorts, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt of his own. “Ready?” he asked, even more awake and raring to go than she was.

She chuckled. “There’s still time to back out, you know.”

“Why would I want to back out?”

“I don’t know. Just saying you don’t have to impress me.”

He put up his hands. “I’m just trying to get a workout. That’s all.”

Well, if that’s what he was after, he’d definitely get one.

They pocketed their room keys and left the hotel, Ana leading the way down the street. Fog covered the city, shrouding it in dim blue light even though the sun should already be up. She readjusted the strap that held her yoga mat on her shoulder, drawing Bryan’s attention to it for the first time.

“You travel with a yoga mat?”

“Yep. You have no idea how many mats I had to go through before I found one that would fold up compactly enough for a carry-on. I hate studio mats.”

“What about me, then?”

“Studio mat.”

“Oh, okay, I see how this is going to be.” He bumped her with his shoulder and then took her hand. She barely repressed a sigh at the warmth of his hand wrapped around hers. Who would have thought holding hands with a man would become one of her greatest, simplest pleasures? And why had it taken her so long to realize it?

Because she hadn’t been friends with any of the men she’d dated, she realized. Most of them hadn’t reached that stage for obvious reasons, but even the ones who lasted more than a handful of dates seemed to want to bypass the sweet courtship stage of holding hands in public and go straight to bed. She would never in a million years have pegged Bryan as the hand-holding type.

Despite the early hour on a Saturday, the studio was already packed, the parking lot filled with cars. Ana led the way into the small reception area, where people in various states of dress milled around. For a hot class, most people wore as little clothing as possible. As she passed a beautiful twentysomething in an outfit with barely more coverage than a bikini, she questioned the wisdom of bringing Bryan here in the first place. She wasn’t normally self-conscious about her body, but next to Yoga Barbie, she looked like Soccer Skipper.

“Drop-ins for the seven o’clock,” she told the girl behind the desk. She had blonde dreadlocks and tattoos down both arms; her own skimpy outfit made Ana think she was probably the instructor and not the receptionist.

She gave Ana a bright smile. “Drop-ins are twenty dollars. If you’ll fill out these releases, I’ll check you in.” She pushed two clipboards, each with a sheet of paper and a pen clipped to it, toward them.

Bryan took his and glanced at it, his eyebrows lifting. “Death or dismemberment? What, are we going to be juggling chain saws?”

Ana shot him a look to hush him up as curious glances came their way. “It’s just boilerplate.” She scribbled her signature at the bottom with the date, dug in her pocket for cash, and headed back to the desk. Bryan beat her to the punch and handed over two twenties before she could.

“Thanks,” the girl said. “Studio A. You can go in and warm up if you like.”

They dropped their stuff in the cubbies in the hallway, and then Ana began to strip off her outerwear. Bryan was looking at her with something of a stunned expression.

“What? They heat the room to 95 degrees. Trust me, you’re going to want to wear as little as possible.” She adjusted her top to make sure it covered everything it needed to cover and tugged down the hem of her boy shorts, suddenly feeling exposed and uncomfortable.

“Okay, then.” He pulled off his shoes and socks and then whipped off his shirt, giving her her own moment to blink in appreciation. With the hair and beard and lean body that most yogis worked years for, he’d fit right in. Until, of course, it came time to twist himself into a pretzel. Didn’t matter how strong or fit you were; yoga tended to make you feel like a hopelessly uncoordinated oaf until you got the hang of it.

“Oh, I forgot to ask for a mat. Be right back.” Bryan wove his way among the bodies back to the desk, and this time Ana didn’t miss the passing glances of appreciation from the women and more than one of the men. She looked away.

He came back with a mat —pink floral —which he held up with a rueful glance. “Am I going to have to turn over my man card if I use this?”

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to worry about,” she said without thinking and then flushed.

A slow smile spread over his face. “You ready?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

He shrugged. Poor sap didn’t know what was going to happen to him. She grabbed her mat and followed him to studio A, the whole time repeating to herself that this was an athletic endeavor and she really shouldn’t want to reach out and touch the muscles that rippled across his back with every movement.

Heat hit them the second they walked into the studio, the wooden floor of which was already littered with the yoga mats of people saving their spaces. A few students stretched or contorted into various positions, evidently taking advantage of the heat’s effect on their muscles. Ana and Bryan picked a spot in the corner with enough room for two mats, unrolled them, and settled onto the floor to stretch out.

Bryan looked completely unperturbed, but Ana was now feeling a little shaky and insecure. About what, she couldn’t say. Letting him watch her contort into difficult positions while scantily clothed? That was part of it. But more than anything, she was letting him into her private world. She’d counted on doing this alone, as she always did, and now he was here beside her.

The dreadlocked girl —she’d been right —glided into the room and attached her cell phone to the speaker in the corner. “Welcome to hot vinyasa,” she said smoothly, smiling at all of them with that glowing sort of friendliness all yoga teachers seemed to have. “I’m your instructor, Miranda. Welcome to our members and guests this morning. I’ll be giving modifications for the more difficult asanas, so please feel free to work to your level.”

Ana glanced at Bryan, but he was just sitting cross-legged, placidly watching Miranda talk.

“Now we’re going to begin with a little meditation . . .”

Normally Ana used this time to breathe and pray, but she was too aware of Bryan sitting next to her to focus her attention on anything but him. She’d thought that maybe he was just going along with this to be with her, but he seemed to be taking it seriously, breathing in and out with calm concentration. And then Miranda started them into the flow, the first simple sequence moving through forward bends and plank position, then back to downward-facing dog.

Now we’ll see, Ana thought, watching Bryan from the corner of her eye.

He flowed through the sequence as naturally as if he’d done it hundreds of times, perfectly in control.

Well, he was a climber, so he had strength and flexibility. And this was just the first vinyasa. She knew from experience that newcomers dropped like flies at the quarter mark of the class.

And yet Bryan hung in there with the best of them, tackling each pose with seemingly no effort. Even the moves most men struggled with, like dancer, where they had to clasp their ankle behind them and then raise it to shoulder height, he managed as if he knew exactly what he was doing.

Because he did.

“Liar,” Ana hissed at him as they transitioned into the next pose and back to the vinyasa: lowering to plank, through to cobra, and then back to down dog.

He turned his head and grinned at her. “Shh. I’m concentrating. This yoga stuff is hard.”

She stuck her tongue out. “I hate you.”

Miranda frowned at them from the front of the class.

Not only did Bryan not have any difficulty with a class that Ana was panting and sweating through, but when they moved to arm balances, the teacher actually called him out for demonstration of eight-angle pose, a particularly difficult asana that Ana had been struggling with for at least a year.

“Watch how he —what’s your name?”

“Bryan.”

“Watch how Bryan transitions into this pose. See how he positions his knee behind his right shoulder?”

Ana watched all right as he managed the pose with ease, balancing forward on his palms, legs twined to the side around his right arm as if he defied gravity, strong, fluid, graceful. He was gorgeous, in a sense of the word she usually reserved for ballet dancers and gymnasts. Why did this surprise her? After all, wasn’t climbing basically vertical yoga? She wiped her forehead, feeling silly that she’d thought she was going to show off for him, then bent forward to make her own attempt at it again.

And promptly collapsed on her shoulder.

Bryan immediately unwound himself and crouched beside her. “You okay?”

“Yeah, nothing bruised but my ego,” she muttered. And then they were moving on in the class, inversions that of course he handled with aplomb.

When they said their final namaste and bowed to their teacher, Ana just sat there, exhausted and sweating. She cracked an eye open at Bryan. “I think you’ve been holding out on me.”

He had the grace to look abashed. “In my defense, you never actually asked if I’d done yoga before.”

“You could have volunteered!”

He shrugged, but a little smile played on his lips. “I wanted to see the shocked look on your face when you found out I wasn’t a total klutz.”

“I should have known.” Ana wiped down her mat and began rolling it up into a little cylinder. Bryan stood up to retrieve the spray cleaner and a rag and wiped down his own borrowed mat.

“When did you start?”

“A couple of years ago, when I was getting injured a lot. Another climber recommended that I take up yoga to balance out my strengths and weaknesses and I kind of liked it.”

She looked at him and shook her head. “You are full of surprises.”

“So are you. Geez. Standing splits?”

Now Ana smiled. “You’re trying to make me feel better.”

“Is it working?”

She laughed. “Yeah.”

Ana excused herself to the bathroom, where she saw she looked just as sweaty, flushed, and disheveled as she feared. When she returned, Bryan was talking to the instructor and a petite blonde girl who, were it physically possible, would have had little cartoon hearts in her eyes as she gazed up at him.

“That’s so fascinating. So you don’t climb anymore?”

Bryan caught Ana’s eye. “No, not anymore. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. Thank you for the class, Miranda.”

“Any time. Visit us again.”

Ana didn’t miss the way their gazes followed him until the very moment he pulled his shirt back on.

And then he placed a hand on her bare, sweaty waist, bent down, and kissed her lightly. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”

Warmth bloomed in her chest. He didn’t need to make the point that he was taken, but he had. “Yeah, I am.” She thanked Miranda on the way out, feeling daggers from Heart-Eyed Girl, and took a deep breath the minute they hit the cool outside air. “So that was fun.”

“It was. Or are you being sarcastic?”

“A little of both.” She paused for a second. “Are you hungry? I was thinking about getting a smoothie. We passed a juice bar on the way.”

“Of course we did.”

She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that it’s a very California thing to do. Especially after hot yoga.”

“Oh yeah, because Denver is so lacking in yoga and smoothies. Says the hipster.”

“Take it back.”

“If the astavakrasana fits . . .”

“I think yoga is mainstream enough that it proves I am, in fact, not a hipster.”

“Yeah, except you did it before it was cool.”

He pretended to think. “You may be right. Should I keep growing my hair? How would I look with a man bun?”

“You’ll never know because I’m going to sneak in and cut your hair while you sleep.”

“Okay, no man bun, then?”

Ana laughed. “Please don’t.”

He let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulder so she had to walk closer to him. “Have I ever told you that I think you’re amazing?”

“Um, where is this coming from exactly? Because I won’t let you wear a bad hairstyle?”

“No, because there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do. You’re beautiful, smart, athletic, beautiful . . .”

“You said beautiful twice.”

“I know. I would have said smart twice if you hadn’t interrupted me.”

Ana giggled, and the giggle kept going until it turned into a full-fledged laugh. Maybe it was tiredness or maybe it was just him, but nothing ever seemed so bad with Bryan around. When was the last time she’d just laughed for no reason?

“You’re punchy.”

“And you’re really good at this yoga thing.”

“Thank you.”

“I can only imagine what you’re like climbing. I mean, I saw the video, but I bet you’re amazing.”

Apparently, the workout and the admiration had left him in a good mood, because rather than immediately shutting her down, he shrugged. “Just because you’re good at something and you used to do it doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.” He paused, his expression mock-thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll become a yoga instructor.”

“Teach shirtless and you’ll pack out every class.” Ana flushed furiously as soon as the words left her mouth. She’d obviously sweated out her filter.

“Is that a fact?”

“It is a fact and you know it. But back to the climbing . . . if you have no intention of going back, why do you keep this up?”

“So I can impress girls, of course.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he chuckled. “Maybe I like it for its own sake. And maybe I just like having something for myself that I don’t tell anyone about.”

“Not even Alex?”

“Not even Alex, though he probably suspects because he’s seen my yoga mat in the car.”

“What else don’t we know about you?”

“Hmm. I don’t eat seafood unless Rachel cooks it.”

She blinked up at him. “What?”

“Got sick in Mexico once, won’t eat it at restaurants anymore. I trust Rachel, though, so I’ll eat it when she makes it.”

Ana thought. “That just seems like plain good sense to me. I don’t eat a lot of things unless Rachel cooks them.”

“You’re saying I have to do better? Then . . . I like foreign films.”

Now she pulled away and stared up at him. “No.”

“Yes, seriously. An old date was trying to make me more ‘cultured’ and introduced me to all these great Italian and French films. They’re weird, but I like them. The Spanish stuff is the best because I don’t have to read the subtitles.”

“So let me get this straight. You own a coffee farm and roast your own beans. You do yoga. And you watch foreign films.”

“When you put it that way . . .”

“Sorry. Gotta say it. Hipster.”

Bryan swiped at her, but she dodged out of his way and darted down the empty sidewalk, running as fast as she could toward the strip mall ahead. It didn’t take long for him to outpace her, given the difference in their strides, and he caught her around the waist. She didn’t put up a struggle, just let him turn her around toward him. He didn’t kiss her, though, just looked seriously into her eyes. “I love you, Ana.”

She blinked. “Why?” The word spilled out before she could think of a better response.

“Because you’re exactly who you want to be. You say what you want, do what you want, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I admire that sort of honesty. I kind of thought I was the only person who went through life that way. It’s not easy, but it’s freeing.”

He couldn’t have said anything that would have made her feel worse. She swallowed hard and disentangled herself from his embrace. “I think you probably have the wrong impression of me, Bryan. I am the last person you should be calling honest. Look what I do for a living.”

He shrugged. “You think half of what’s been written about me in interviews is true? I mean, it’s kind of true, but people tend to draw their own conclusions. But there’s a big difference between public life and private life. This . . .” He waved a hand up and down to indicate, she imagined, her disheveled, out-of-breath, sweaty appearance. “This is the real you. Who falls out of eight-angle pose and tries again. Who almost sprains her eyeballs trying not to ogle the hot specimen of manhood right next to her in class.”

Ana’s mouth dropped open and she smacked him in the arm. “I did not!”

“You were totally checking out my chaturanga.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Okay, I was. Come on. I’m hungry.” She pulled him into the smoothie shop, which turned out to be more of a healthy café, though the buzz of high-speed blenders spoke to the accuracy of its name.

Fifteen minutes later, they both walked out with small Styrofoam cups of smoothies —orange-mango for her and coffee-cacao for him —and egg-white wraps. The foot traffic had begun to pick up along the street now, and they had to dodge people walking dogs as they ate silently side by side. Deep down, though, his words had left a niggling sense of disquiet. He thought she was so honest and transparent, even after discounting what she did for a living.

He had no idea she’d been lying to them all.