It Takes Two (8 page)

“Now see, if I have to watch someone bending and stretching in front of me, I’d rather it be Emma,” Dooley commented.

She blew him a kiss. “Thanks. But I think I need to hang out over here by Officer Kelley.”

“You are going to help me?” Shane asked.

“With yoga
and
with Isabelle.”

“Okay.
Why
does she knit?”

Emma grinned. “Shh…Ryan’s starting the class.”

“Tonight we’re going to introduce you to the basics. Deep breathing, focus and a few beginning poses,” Ryan said.

He was seated at the front facing the group, his knees bent and the soles of his feet together in what Shane thought of as a traditional meditation pose. Shane was impressed that he was flexible enough to not only get his feet together like that, but that his knees fell out and nearly touched the floor.

Shane was still struggling to get his left knee bent far enough to even start.

But Mac and Kevin were having just as much trouble. Mac swore when his knees only went a third of the way out. Kevin grunted as he tried to sit tall while having his legs pulled up.

“Yoga has many health benefits,” Ryan went on. “But most important to all of you is relaxation, getting in touch with your body and working to reduce your stress.” He gave Mac and Kevin pointed looks. “It’s not about being perfect. It will all get easier with time as your strength and flexibility improve. Follow along as best you can but don’t stress out.”

“Ten bucks says Kevin’s the first one to fall over from the Triangle Pose,” Dooley said to Sam.

“What’s the Triangle Pose?” Sam asked.

“You bend and touch one foot and put your hand up toward the ceiling,” Dooley told him. He stood and started to move into the position. He was okay until he reached up. Then he lost his balance and fell, bracing himself with his hand before he hit the floor.

“Nice,” Sam said with a grin.

“We’ll start slow,” Ryan said from the front. “But it does require quiet concentration. So if everyone can kind of chill and listen, that’d be great. We’re going to hold each pose for five to ten seconds, depending on how you’re doing. Remember, nice deep breaths, in and out.”

Yeah, quiet concentration and deep breathing was so not Shane’s thing.

“How do you even know that pose?” Sam whispered to Dooley as Ryan led them into the first pose.

“Morgan’s sister got her into it,” Dooley told him. “I highly encourage endurance and flexibility.”

“
Why
does she knit?” Shane whispered to Emma now that everyone was engaged in activity.

“Downward-Facing Dog, big guy,” she told him.

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“Get on your hands and knees,” Emma instructed. “Then push back, raising your hips and straightening your legs.” She demonstrated, making it seem easy. Of course.

Shane looked over to Ryan who was on his feet, his hands on the floor in front of him, ass in the air.

It looked ridiculous, but not difficult. Shane sighed and moved into position.

Once he was set, Emma said, “She decided that she needed more downtime in her life. She figured she could knit or watch TV and eat ice cream to unwind. With the knitting, she ends up with scarves. With TV and ice cream she ends up with bigger hips. The knitting won. She does other crafty stuff too.”

They all breathed and Shane noticed the soft instrumental music drifting around them for the first time since he’d stepped into the room. He knew it. He knew there would be relaxing music.

He tried to get some Green Day or even Train playing in his head, but it was strange—every time he thought of a song, the harp from the stereo system would distract him again.

Dammit.

Ryan moved them into the next pose, the extended side something. They had to step out toward one hand, then turn and extend their other arm.

He looked over at Emma. She was totally cheating. “You too, chick.”

She shook her head. “Can’t quite get there with my hip. Getting close though.”

Emma had been in the car accident with Isabelle and had come out in much worse shape. Iz had been bumped and bruised, but Emma had suffered a broken pelvis.

He knew from Nate that she’d worked hard in rehab. And Emma was her usual spunky self, back to flirting and teasing. It was hard to believe she wasn’t one hundred percent physically.

“I guess I haven’t seen you dancing in high heels lately, have I?” he said, realizing it just now.

“I’ll be back at it—and everything else—soon,” she said with a little wink.

“You haven’t been able to do ‘everything else’?” he asked, moving into the next pose as Ryan demonstrated how to squat to the floor, elbows between the knees.

He hadn’t been paying attention to the other guys, but this one had Sam swearing and Mac stood frowning, not even trying it. Ryan opened his mouth to say something to Mac, but then apparently thought better of it and moved them back into the Downward-Facing Dog.

“A sore hip that has reduced range of motion makes it hard to do ‘everything else’,” Emma said, posing.

“Ah. Sorry to hear that,” Shane said.

She laughed. “I’m surviving. I’m missing the advanced yoga poses the most.”

“But you’re getting better.”

“Definitely. I’ll be damned if I’m going to show up in Nate’s office without making progress. He’ll assume it’s because I’m lazy or don’t understand how important it is.” She was frowning intensely now.

Nate Sullivan seemed to have that effect on her.

“Hey, I thought this was supposed to be relaxing,” he teased.

The frown eased as she looked at him sheepishly. “Yeah. It is. As long as I don’t think about Nate, my blood pressure stays fine.”

“Okay, then let’s go back to talking about Isabelle.”

Ryan moved them into the Warrior Pose, one foot forward and both arms extended to the ceiling.

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Isabelle is making a big deal out of nothing, right? I mean, so she likes to knit. That isn’t a commentary on our relationship or anything.”

Emma looked over. “It isn’t?”

“Is it?” he asked. Shit. Maybe it was. It was certainly a commentary on the fact that Isabelle didn’t tell him everything.

They moved into the Warrior Two Pose. “It’s a big deal to her,” Emma said.

Shane liked these standing positions. He extended his right arm in front of him, his left behind him. He straightened his back leg, keeping his front knee bent. Then he sucked in his stomach and focused on breathing. This wasn’t so bad.

Until Ryan showed them the Tree Pose. Ryan easily stood on his right leg, his left leg bent and supported with that foot against his right knee. He put his palms together, fingers up, elbows out. Mac again stood, hands on hips, scowling at Ryan. Sam and Kevin both got into position but could only hold for a few seconds. Dooley stood perfectly balanced, grinning at them all like a dumbass.

Shane got there and balanced long enough to say, “I don’t think the knitting matters.”

Ryan sighed. “Okay, let’s try something else. Everyone on hands and knees.”

“Lots of good things happen on hands and knees,” Dooley said to Mac. “Lighten up.”

“I don’t feel more relaxed,” Mac said. “I feel annoyed.”

“Okay, lift one arm, fully extended. Then straighten the opposite leg back behind you,” Ryan said.

Mac growled.

“Get your leg up,” Emma coached Shane.

He lifted it higher and wobbled a bit.

“That’s all you’ve got?” Em asked him, critiquing his form.

“I’m on a purple foam mat in a room that smells like…”

“Lavender,” she supplied.

“It’s giving me a headache,” Mac groused.

Emma rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I’m trying here,” Shane said.

Emma acknowledged that with a nod. “At least you’re not whining and bitching like
some
people,” she said.

“You haven’t even begun to see me get grouchy,” Mac told her.

“What’s your question?” Emma asked Shane, ignoring Mac.

“How big is the knitting?”

“She has an entire plastic tub full of yarn and other craft stuff. One of the big tubs. And it’s at least three nights a week.”

He groaned.

Emma nodded. “I know.”

“How could I not know about that?” he asked, honestly confused.

“Well, since she’s been dating you, there’s a considerable lack of glue and yarn at my house,” Emma said. “But she was recently saying that she needs to get back to the…knitting.”

Shane wondered briefly about the way Emma always hesitated before saying the word
knitting
. But she went on before he could comment.

“She’s been putting it off too much since she met you,” Emma said. “But you have to understand, it’s not really the knitting or crafts. It’s the downtime. She likes the quiet, likes doing something all by herself, likes just zoning out.”

Yeah,
that
could be a problem. Where glue and yarn might be something he could get used to, the quiet alone-time thing was going to be a much bigger challenge. Shane was nearly phobic about quiet and downtime. He was aware of it, he had good reason for it, but he couldn’t get over it. If he was completely honest, he didn’t want to get over it. The people-party-public thing worked for him. He liked it, craved it even.

He lived alone, but didn’t spend any more time in his condo than he needed to. Otherwise, he liked to work out at the gym with other people around, he liked to be out with friends, he liked to be at big public events where even if the other people were strangers, there were a lot of them.

“Why hasn’t she ever told me about all of this before?” More precisely, why did she put on the act of loving the same stuff he did?

They moved into the Plank Pose. All the guys did fine with it since it was essentially the top of a push-up.

“Because she didn’t think you’d want her if you knew she was…knitting.”

Emma effortlessly moved into the Side Plank as Ryan did it. Dooley was right there with them. Once Mac got balanced on one arm, with one leg bent, one extended and his opposite arm up toward the ceiling he crowed, “Ha!”

“Well, this is a
variation
of the Side Plank,” Dooley said smugly. “Right, Ryan?”

“I think this is enough for tonight,” Ryan said.

Sam frowned. “Come on. Mac sucks but the rest of us are doing okay for our first time.”

Mac clearly didn’t care about their opinions on his yoga technique.

“I think the full Side Plank is a bit much for tonight,” Ryan said again, moving into hands and knees again.

“Dammit, I want to be as relaxed as possible,” Sam said. “Show us.”

Ryan sighed. “I think that maybe the relaxation thing is going to take a few more sessions.”

“Show us.”

Ryan moved into the position, balancing on one hand and one foot only with the other leg and arm both extended up to the ceiling.

Sam fell to the mat without even trying. Mac growled again. Kevin laughed. Even Dooley couldn’t get it. “I did it the other night at home,” Dooley told them.

“Don’t even think I’m not asking Morgan about that,” Mac said.

“You want to try another position?” Ryan asked.

“No,” they all said in unison.

“You guys are pathetic.” But Ryan slumped onto the mat, then lay back flat on the mat, arms and legs extended. “In case any of you care, this is the Resting Pose.”

“This I can totally do.” Mac rolled to his back.

“Love this,” Kevin agreed.

They all assumed the position and were, miraculously, quiet for thirty seconds.

Until Dooley said, “And I guess we can move onto the part of the night where we all give Shane relationship advice.”

“Flavored body powder,” Sam said.

“You finally tried the powder?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, it’s awesome.”

“Told you.”

“What’s flavored body powder the answer for, exactly?” Emma asked. “And where do I get some?”

“I’ll have Sara text you,” Mac said. “And it’s the answer for how to get on a woman’s good side. Works like a charm.”

Emma nodded. “Sure, relationships are just that easy.”

“That’s it?” Ryan asked, sat up and looked around. “The sum of all of your advice is flavored body powder?”

Dooley nodded. “Yep. Women are like…” He trailed off and frowned, as if thinking hard. Then he shrugged. “I got nothing. I’m too mellow after all the yoga.”

Ryan flopped back onto his mat. “Okay, how about everyone just breathe,” he said. “Quietly.”

Shane stared up at the wooden beams that crossed the ceiling for a few minutes.

Finally he said, “I love her, Em.”

Emma lay beside him and turned her head to look at him. “But?”

“I don’t love jigsaw puzzles.”

“Jigsaw puzzles?”