“Extended Side Angle,” I said, and she moved into the pose, with one elbow on her bent knee, the other arm outstretched over her head.
“Good, just roll your shoulder back and make sure you’re not dumping all your weight into that arm. Lift up and out through your core.” She did as I asked, and a bead of sweat dropped onto her mat.
“Beautiful, and reverse your Warrior,” I said, taking her into a counter balancing pose.
By the time we got to balancing poses, I was a little jealous of her ease with some that I found tricky.
Her top became spotted with sweat and she eventually pulled it over her head, preferring to practice only in her bra.
We made it through standing poses and back onto the floor for a quick core segment before having her get deep into Pigeon for hip opening and then onto her back for Savasana.
Since I wasn’t prepared to teach a class, I didn’t have any of the lotions I usually brought with me that I gave to students to smell during Savasana. If anyone was frazzled today, it was me.
Piper lay on her back, her hands out at her sides and closed her eyes as she breathed, and I let her lay in Savasana. Every now and then I would share something or help her deepen her breathing and relax, but for the most part, I liked to let my students have their own Savasana experience without too much input from me. I timed five minutes and then brought her out, having her curl up into a fetal position before coming up to sit.
“The light in me honors the light in you. And so we bow and say, namaste,” I said and she bowed, her hands at her third eye on her forehead.
Her eyes locked on me and I was hit with how beautiful they were. Dark brown at the outside and shading to a lighter brown with just a hint of green at the center. Like a plant growing from the earth.
“Thank you so much, McKenna, that was amazing,” Piper said, using her towel to blot her face and then gulping her water. I was sweaty as well, but I’d deal with that later.
“You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m so glad you liked it.”
Piper stood and sighed happily before turning to see that Natalie had joined us on the porch.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got that meeting in a few minutes,” she said, shooting me an apologetic look. I wouldn’t have suggested class if I’d known she had a packed day.
“Shit,” Piper said under her breath, checking her fitness watch. “I’m so sorry, I got absolutely carried away. I’ve got to run.”
“No problem,” I said as she folded up her mat and brought it back inside.
“Thank you so much for the class. You can just send me an invoice and then we’ll talk later about setting a weekly schedule,” Piper said as she headed up the stairs to change.
“Of course,” I said.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”
“It’s no problem at all. Good luck with your meeting.”
She gave me a rueful smile. “Trust me, I’m going to need it.” She disappeared from view and I was left with Natalie.
“I probably should have reminded her about the meeting before you started, that’s my fault,” she said.
“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “I’ll get out of your hair.”
“When do you do the beach yoga again?” Natalie asked.
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday at four forty-five a.m.,” I said, pulling a card out of my bag. I always carried around schedule cards and business cards just in case. It was one thing to tell someone to follow you on social media, but it was much easier to give them something tangible that would remind them to look you up.
“Great, maybe I’ll see you this week.”
I headed out to my car and wiped at the sweat on the back of my neck. Being sweaty most of the time was an occupational hazard, but there was something else that had me hot and it had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.
I decided I wanted to take a dip in the ocean before going back to the farmhouse, so I headed for the beach. Since summer was in full swing, the lot was nearly full, but I got a spot and grabbed the bag I kept in my trunk for emergency beach trips.
I showed my summer pass and headed to the bathroom to put my suit on before heading down the sand. It was so hot out that it almost felt like it was burning the bottoms of your feet. The water was bound to be frigid, but I preferred it over the boiling sand.
I ran for the waves and dove in, the shock of cold hitting me hard. I gasped as I surfaced and started swimming to keep my blood moving. I let the cold saltwater clear my brain and wash away my thoughts from earlier.
I was still…unsettled from the class with Piper. I’d known for a few years that my orientation wasn’t straight, but I still hadn’t figured out what it was. I’d been too busy building my business, and I wasn’t dating seriously, so it hadn’t exactly mattered. Julia was a proud lesbian and that label meant a lot to her, but whenever I thought of trying to define myself, it made my chest feel tight.
I was attracted to Piper. There was no lying to myself about that. The key was what I did with that attraction.
Right now, I had two options. I could tell her that I couldn’t provide private yoga classes to her, but she was welcome to join my group classes. I’d lose out on the money, but I’d be able to cut off any sort of ethical issues. Or, I could continue to teach her and squash the crush. It didn’t even feel like it had gotten to a crush yet, anyway. If I refused to teach yoga to anyone that I was attracted to, then I wouldn’t be teaching many people. I could put that aside and be her teacher. Not a big deal. Plus, if she had me teach twice a week, that was a huge chunk of change and I wasn’t going to give it up for a few stomach flutters.
I stopped swimming and flipped on my back, staring up at the clear blue sky as seagulls did circles overhead and called to each other.
It was settled. I was going to teach Piper yoga and I was going to be ethical about it.
I rinsed myself off at the beach, trying to get as much saltwater out as possible, even though I was going to shower back at the farmhouse. I put on a fresh set of yoga clothes and decided to grab a matcha at the Castleton Cafe to get me through the rest of the day. I also realized that I hadn’t had lunch, so I grabbed a veggie wrap with hummus. The café was packed with tourists and visitors and a few locals. Hollis would come work here a few days a week, but she wasn’t here today. Part of me wished I could come and work with her little group, but my kind of work couldn’t really be done in a café, except for some of my social media stuff and content writing for my website, so I just did that in my room at the farmhouse, or sometimes I’d go hang with Hollis in her barn if I needed a change of scenery.
I took my wrap and my latte back to the farmhouse and inhaled my wrap on the porch before going inside and heading up to take a shower. Amanda was out at an afternoon cooking class, so I had the place to myself, which was nice. I didn’t mind being in a house with others, since it was what I was used to, having grown up with six siblings. In fact, living in a house with only two other people wasn’t the norm for me, except for a few years when I’d been in high school and most of my older siblings had moved out.
My shower felt so good after swimming, but my body was a little sore, so I did a few quick stretches. Not a whole yoga flow, but just making sure my body didn’t stiffen up. I really needed to make more time for my own yoga practicing without filming. When you were a content creator, it was hard to do anything in your life without thinking about making it into content. I was naturally a private person, so my siblings had been surprised when I told them that instead of college, I wanted to do yoga teacher training and build my own traveling yoga studio.