And they didn’t.

I’d stand up for her with my last breath. Protecting her was my job. I wouldn’t subject her to this.

When they left my office a quarter hour later, the tension was thick. I packed up my shit, heartily slamming drawers and doors as I did so. I knew the two of them were going to go somewhere and talk about how pigheaded I was.

I didn’t give a rat’s ass. I’d handle this my way. I’d steer my own ship. My own life.

 

 

Chapter 4

Mia

“Breathe in. Now exhale slowly,” Kat murmured calmly.

I stared up from where I lay on the floor, past my thigh—which was curled awkwardly above me—at Kat. This was not natural.

“Bodies were not meant to bend this way,” I muttered tightly as I inhaled like she instructed.

Her hand supported my lower back as, ass in the air, my legs were thrown over my head, feet resting on the ground somewhere behind my shoulders.

“Adam is going to love how bendy yoga will make you. It’s great for sex. Now lock your fingers together behind you. See how your arms help your stability? This pose is called the Easy Plow.”

“Jesus, it even sounds like a sex position.”

She smirked. “Why do you think I got into yoga in the first place? Show him this pose and he’ll be plowing you in minutes.”

I interrupted my calm breathing to laugh at her. “Stop it. I’m going to fall over and injure something important.”

“Keep breathing.”

I complied, feeling the stretch in my lower back, all along my hamstrings and calves. Around me, the steady rhythm of the weight machines and the relentless pounding of footsteps on the treadmill kept time. We had staked out a corner of the Draco campus gym for this private yoga lesson. I’d made the mistake of telling Kat that I wanted to start yoga, but hadn’t yet due to self-consciousness. She’d volunteered to get me started.

The girl always surprised me with her hidden skills. And typically, they were somehow tied to sex.

“Speaking of sex. When are we finding you Mr. Right Now?” I asked.

She grinned. “I don’t need Mr. Right Now. I only need Mr. Makes-Me-Come. You throw me your bouquet at the wedding and I’m kicking your ass so hard there will be no sex—easy plow or otherwise—on your honeymoon. Don’t even think about it.”

“Ugh. Don’t even mention the wedding or this yoga session is going to do the opposite of calming me.”

Kat’s brow rose. “Oh yeah? That bad?”

I inhaled and exhaled like she’d showed me before responding. “It’s just…we can’t agree on what we are doing.”

“Well, you need to have that discussion with him soon. You’re getting married on New Year’s Eve, right? That’s only months away.”

I blew out another long breath. “Again, I thought this yoga session was to decrease stress?”

“Yo, Cranberry!” someone called from the other side of the gym. “What are you doing in here?”

Kat’s head whipped up, and her eyes narrowed. With a grimace, she flipped the bird at whoever it was. “Staying in shape. Something you’re obviously not familiar with, Jedi boy. I’m shocked you even knew there was a gym in the building.”

“Have you checked the leaderboard lately?” he asked, voice fading as he walked away from us. Clearly, he’d been passing through and had taken the opportunity to taunt Kat.

Kat watched him go and then began muttering. “Jerkwad.”

“Who was that?”

“The bane of my existence.”

“Oh…Lucas from play testing again?”

Technically, he was her boss, but the hierarchy over there was kind of murky and confusing. Those gameplay testers were as competitive as test pilots. And Lucas and Kat had some kind of frenemies-intense rivalry going on that I, despite being a gamer girl myself, didn’t fully understand.

“What was the leaderboard thing all about?” I asked. “Is that something new? And can I get the hell out of this pose yet? I’m starting to feel like a human pretzel.”

Kat gently helped extricate me from the Easy Plow—seriously, I would not be showing Adam that pose anytime soon, despite Kat’s promise of great sex. Our sex life was already fantastic, thank you very much. I sat up slowly, careful not to pull any muscles. The blood rushed from my head, and I blinked, waiting for the lightheaded feeling to fade.

“Ah, he means the Twitch TV leaderboard. He’s jealous as fuck because I’ve got more subscribers than he does. Forget about him. I can help you with some meditation next.”

I cocked a brow at her. “Why don’t you two just bang and get it over with?” I asked, repeating something she’d often said about another couple we knew that had bickered like Time Lords and Daleks before they’d gotten together.

Her brow arched up at me. “I don’t shit where I eat. Never screw someone you work with.”

“Ah.” Luckily, that wasn’t an official rule, or there’d be a lot of people fired around here.

Kat led me through some meditation, and then we sat on the mat while I consumed water by the bottleful and blotted my sweaty head with a soft white towel. “Well, thanks for that. I really needed a study break. But even thirty minutes away from the books these days gets me twitchy.”

Kat unscrewed her bottle cap and threw me a long look. “Well, we should take a few more minutes, at least. I need to talk to you about Heath.”

I hadn’t seen Heath in almost a month, since our tea shop meeting with Camille. We hadn’t managed to connect much since then. I’d only started back at school a week ago, and already the second year of medical school—called M2—was promising to kick my butt. And Heath had grown quieter and more subdued, during the few months since Connor had left.

But Kat, as his roommate, had more current info. So I asked, “How’s he doing?”

“He was doing okay till we all got the news that Connor’s dad had died.”

I nodded, remembering the stoic email we’d all received from Ireland. “Poor Connor. We sent his family a basket. It’s so sad. I think they were expecting him to make a full recovery.”

Kat fiddled with her water bottle. “Yeah, well, now Connor is saying he needs to stay longer, help out his family.”