“What?” Sasha said, as if she hadn’t been paying attention. She absolutely had.
“Any thoughts on marriage, Sash?” Hollis said. Sasha looked at all of us.
“Oh, um, yeah. Seems great. Just not yet.” She mumbled and looked down at her lap.
“What are you not telling us?” Hollis asked.
“Nothing,” Sasha said in a sharp voice. “I actually have a ton of shit to do so…” she trailed off and put her headphones on and that was that.
Hollis’s eyes narrowed and I could tell that wasn’t going to be the last of this conversation.
Paige sighed. “Does anyone want to swap work with me? You get to write a blog post about having the ideal summer,” she said, trying to make it sound attractive.
“If you want to spend your time turning this stock image model from a blonde to a believable redhead,” Hollis said.
Paige looked at me. “What are you working on?”
“Bookkeeping, scheduling, emails, comment moderation,” I said, and she made a face.
“Okay, fine,” Paige said, rolling her eyes. “I’ll do my own work.”
With that, we all focused on our own laptops, and I barely looked up until my stomach started growling. We took a break for more food, and I had my favorite sandwich with chickpea “tuna” on sourdough and another matcha.
I stood up and stretched my arms and neck. I was stiff and needed to move around, but I needed to get my website updates done as soon as possible, and I wasn’t going to stop until I had that finished today.
A new email popped up from my contact for beach yoga and they were happy to let me do a sunset yoga class on Sunday evenings.
Now I had to make up posters and let my regular sunrise yoga students know that I had a new offering.
“What’s up? You look like you got good news,” Hollis said.
“Oh, I got approval for sunset yoga on Sunday nights, so I’m going to try and have the first one this week,” I said.
“Oh, yay!” Paige said, clapping her hands. She startled the elderly couple at the next table, and they glared, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“That sounds so awesome. I’m going to drag Esme, too,” Paige said.
“It’s short notice, but as long as at least two people show up, I’ll be happy.” The worst feeling in the world was when only one person showed up for class, and since they didn’t want to be alone, they’d leave, and I’d have no one. Second was when no one showed up, and I’d had plenty of those too.
“We’ll all come,” Hollis said.
If only my friends came, it would still be a good time, and a great way to decompress after family dinner.
“Thanks,” I said, feeling my face go red. Their support meant more to me than I wanted to say out loud. It really touched me how quickly this group had accepted me and was ready to be there for me. I guess Castleton was growing on me a little.
Monday evening River and I decided to watch a movie together on video chat. It was something we tried to do as much as we could, even if we couldn’t be together in the same place.
Everyone was out, so I had the farmhouse to myself, which was both a relief and a little eerie. At least I had company, even if she was thousands of miles away.
We always tried to watch a movie we’d both seen before so we could talk as much as we wanted during the movie and not miss anything. Tonight it was an old romantic comedy that we’d both seen a million times. A comfort movie for both of us.
“And then she said that she couldn’t date a Leo, and I was left sitting there wondering what the hell just happened,” River said, recounting her most recent disastrous date.
“Why can’t she date Leos?” I asked.
“Well, she made me give her my date and time of birth before she agreed to the first date, so I think she read my chart and made up her mind before we even sat down. Weirdly, she made this announcement after we ordered, and she’d eaten as fast as possible and I was stuck with the bill. So, she might have been full of shit,” River said with a laugh.
“See, this is why I don’t date,” I said. “In addition to the whole never staying in the same place thing.”
“Oh, but dating is fun. Sure, you get bad chemistry every now and then, but sometimes you get to have a great time and have some great food and then there can be some great sex.” She wiggled her eyebrows.
“I don’t think I could have sex with someone I’d just met.” I shuddered at the idea of getting naked in front of someone that I’d only shared dinner with. No way. Not for me.
“You don’t have to, no pressure. You’re doing your thing, and maybe you’re smarter than me. You didn’t get stuck with a massive bill for dinner,” she said, and we both laughed.
“But then the waiter felt bad for me and gave me a free dessert, and I think he was flirting with me, so it wasn’t a complete loss of an evening.”
The talk turned to my love life, even though I’d done my best to steer us away from that topic.
“Any crushes?” River asked. “Crushes are always fun.”
“No,” I said, lying through my teeth.
“Hold up, you are lying to me,” River said, leaning toward her screen and squinting at me. “I know that tone of your voice. Does my MK have a crush?”
“No,” I said, covering my red face.
“Oh, sweetie, you do. Who is it? Obviously if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. I’m just happy you have a crush. You have my full support.”
I moaned and kept my face covered.
“You’re so cute,” River said, chuckling. “Okay, okay, I’ll stop.”
She shifted things away from me and back toward the movie and I was happy about that.
I didn’t want to tell anyone about my crush, because that would speak it into reality, and I was busy smashing it at the moment.
We finished the movie and I was ready to go read.
“You have a good night and enjoy your crush,” River said, waving her fingers.
“Oh my god, goodnight,” I said, waving and ending the call, shaking my head.
Chapter Seven
“Crush the crush,” I told myself as I drove to Piper’s house the next day. Part of me had been expecting her to cancel, so that must have meant that Preston was better and was back to daycare.
“Hey, didn’t I just see you?” Natalie asked with a laugh as she opened the door. “Just so you know, I’ve convinced Em to give sunset yoga a try, so we are definitely coming on Sunday.”
“Great, yeah, it will be a different vibe from morning yoga. I always try to tailor my classes for the time of day or the mood or the weather, so we’re going to be doing a slower practice to reset for the week ahead. Lots of nice vibes so you can avoid the Sunday Scaries.”
“I think we could all use that,” Natalie said as we walked down the hall to the gym. It was a hot day and the air conditioner was on, which was a relief. Air conditioning in a Maine home was a rare treat.
“Good morning,” Piper said, and she looked worlds better than she had last Thursday. I wondered what she’d done this weekend. Had she cuddled with Preston on the couch? Had they gone to the beach and played in the sand? Had they gone on a road trip? What did she do with her nights after he was in bed?