“Something like that,” he mumbles, turning in a full circle. “There are mirrors everywhere. This studio could be used for another purpose, if you follow me.”
I smack his arm, making him laugh. “Focus, Graham.”
“Okay, okay. What first?”
“Just sit and stretch out. Get loose.”
He sits and looks at me.
“Don’t act so excited,” I say, sitting next to him. “You’ll wear out your energy before we get started.”
“I’ll try to rein it in.”
He mimics my movements. For someone in such great shape, he’s as stiff as a board. It’s almost comical, but I don’t comment on it. I just enjoy having him near me outside the office. Besides, he’s clearly out of his comfort zone enough without my prodding.
“This is yoga?” he asks, stretching one arm overhead. “This is stupid.”
I hop to my feet and get behind him. “No,” I say, taking his sinewy arm in my hand. “This is yoga.” I turn his palm and pull his arm farther out and up.
“Fuck,” he grimaces. “Easy there, tiger.”
“See? You yoga just fine.” I take his other arm and manipulate it the other way. “How does that feel?”
“Wonderful.”
It feels wonderful to me too to have him in my hands. To be able to touch him and have a reason. “Let’s Downward Facing Dog.”
“I hope that’s a pseudonym for doggy style.”
“No,” I laugh, taking a big step away from him before I rip off my clothes and bend over in front of him. “This.” I pose in an inverted V and look at him. “Do this.”
“Nah,” he grins, sitting back. “I’ll just watch you. The view is phenomenal.”
I fall to my knees. “The deal was you do yoga. Not watch me do yoga.”
“I’m here. I yoga’d.”
“No, you stretched. Kind of.” I flash him a look. “Your body is so stiff.”
“I thought you liked me stiff?”
We grin at one another, but the longer we hold it, the heavier everything suddenly feels. A chasm has been dug between us, a crater we can’t overcome. Things aren’t as easy as they used to be.
“I’m sorry, Mallory,” he says, sitting upright. His arms over his bent knees, he looks at me.
“It’s okay.” I pop up in a plank and focus on my breathing. “We both know what it is . . .” I drop onto the floor, facing away from him. “And what it’s not.”
“I wish I could be something different.”
“No. Don’t, Graham. You’re brilliant how you are.”
He moves to the front of me so I can’t look anywhere but at him. “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure. Unless it’s something like you don’t want me to go to the wedding because Joy has already committed to letting me borrow a dress. That’s no easy feat, my friend.”
“I didn’t consider you didn’t have a dress.”
“Oh, I do,” I lie. “I just wanted hers.”
“I could get you one,” he offers.
“And I could not wear it.”
He chuckles. Taking a deep breath, he slowly looks at me. “I just, I want you to know the real reason things between us will never be anything.”
My throat burns as I force a swallow past the boulder-sized lump. “I think we already discussed that.”
“I only gave you a part of it. The easy part to admit.”
“Graham, there was nothing easy about that conversation for you.”
“True. But I don’t want you walking away from this thinking this is your fault or you did something wrong or there’s something wrong with you that would prevent us from being together.”
I frown, my heart breaking. “Do we have to do this?”
“It’s important to me,” he whispers. “If you decided you had feelings for me, then decided you didn’t, I think . . . I think that would be very difficult for me to deal with.”
I know this has something to do with Vanessa, the bitch I’d like to kick in the face for screwing up this man. Even so, I don’t know how to respond. My heart sings, yet breaks, at his admission and all I can do is watch him wrestle with his emotions.
“I dislike very much when things aren’t planned for,” he says softly. “I like numbers. Schedules. Dates. Then you walked in my office and sort of took everything I want and threw it all in the air with your water bottle and papers.”
“I’m not asking you—”
“No,” he says, reaching for my hand. “I know you’re not. You’re not asking anything of me. But I’m struggling here because . . .”
Standing, I walk behind him and take his shoulders in my hands. I work them back and forth, the quietness of the studio comforting us both.
“Promise me you’ll start doing something for you,” I say finally. “Maybe you don’t yoga, but you could get a massage. From a man,” I add with a gulp. “I could get you a standing appointment every month. I know you would go if it was on your calendar.”
Chuckling, he tilts his head and looks at me through his thick, dark lashes.
“And you need to keep some protein bars in your desk. You go too long in between meals,” I add. “I can have Hillary’s House start bringing you breakfast—”
“Mallory,” he breathes, but doesn’t continue.
“Just . . . take care of yourself, Graham.”
He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. I’m glad for it because if he did, I might cry.
Graham
“PROMISE ME YOU’LL START DOING something for you.”
It’s that line, that one little sentence, that’s fucked with me all night. It’s why I burned my salmon, why I knocked over a new bottle of Blanton’s, my favorite bourbon. It’s why I left the shower running for a good ten minutes before I realized I never got in.
I think about the small things she does for me. The way she goes out of her way to take care of things, the way she worries about me. As much as I love being with her physically, the way she feels against me, this part of her is what hits me in a way I haven’t felt before. It’s what I can’t shake, what I fear will leave a hole when she leaves.
When she leaves.
“Shit,” I groan, pressing my hands against the glass door to the patio. I’m all tied up, a complete fucking wreck, and I really don’t even have the energy to try to straighten it out.
Shoving off the glass and turning towards my briefcase on the kitchen table, I pull out a few files I need to work on. I glance at them and realize—I don’t care. Not like I should. Something is off and it’s not Landry Security or Lincoln’s contracts. It’s something else.
I slam the files on the table and they hit it with a smack. Something rolls out of my briefcase and drops to the floor. A wide grin tickles my lips.
Laughing, I scoop it up and hold it in the air. A roller bottle with a label for “Stress Relief” catches the light.
“Mallory,” I whisper. “Damn you.”
I could call up a woman and try to distract myself. I could . . . try to replace her. My brothers’ words rip through my mind, leaving a trail of awareness behind.
I can’t replace her. I don’t want to. Hell, I couldn’t.
There’s no way to switch her out for another woman. It would take two, three, maybe even four to amount to all the things she’s becoming to me.
Before I can contemplate that too much, my phone rings. I don’t even look at it. I just answer it, my brain too fogged up by my realization to think straight.
“Hello?” I ask, preoccupied.