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“Chores, probably and then I’m doing a yoga class in the evening.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Since when have you been into yoga?”

“I’m into all kinds of things, Stace,” he said, but I knew there was something else behind this new interest.

I sat back, crossing my arms and waiting.

“Okay, fine, I bumped into a new yoga teacher at the gym and she’s kind of cute. But that’s not the only reason!”

“Yeah, okay. I’m sure. You’re just there to balance your chakras.” My tone was laced with heavy sarcasm.

“I’m not going to hit on my yoga teacher. Besides, the only reason I met her was because another guy was being a dick and I kind of stepped in to see if she was okay. I don’t want to be like that guy.” He frowned and I felt bad for assuming.

“I know. You’re not that guy, Tor. You’re one of the best guys I know.”

He gave me a small smile, but I could see that he was still bothered. “I feel like I’ve been in a rut lately. With work, with everything, you know? I wanted to try something different and then I had this idea. I don’t know.”

For a guy who was built kind of like a Viking, he sometimes had a confidence problem.

“Hey, it sounds cool. Let me know how it is. I’ve never really done that kind of thing, but maybe I should add it to my workout?”

He seemed to perk up and nodded. “I’ll let you know.”

I got home late after hanging with Tor and crashed on the couch with Buck while I tried to convince myself I needed to get ready for bed.

Buck was a warm weight on my legs as I held my ereader and reread one of my favorite books. Some days it felt like I was going so hard that I needed a hobby like reading to really force me to slow down and stay in one place.

If I read on the couch, I was going to pass out on the couch and then have to drag myself to bed and I hated that. It took some effort to get Buck to climb off me, but I eventually did and changed into my sleep shorts and tank before brushing my teeth and doing the rest of my nightly routine.

Buck was already hogging the bed when I climbed in with my ereader again. When my eyelids started to feel like I couldn’t keep them open, I set my ereader aside to charge and let myself drop into sleep.

Since I had a bunch of things to do the next day, we of course got paged to a call. First was an elderly woman who’d fallen in her bathroom. She was fine, but we took her to the hospital to get checked out anyway. Second call an hour later was a small car accident that we had cleared up in a few hours. After that there were regular duties at the station, so I was a little grumpy when I finally got home. Buck was thrilled to see me, as usual, which helped.

I was sweaty and tired, so I showered first and pulled some leftovers out of the freezer. I didn’t have the energy for anything else. Our firehouse didn’t do meals, since it was so small. The city had a larger full-time department, but I’d wanted to keep my job at the shelter, so volunteering was my best option. That meant our station didn’t get all the shiny perks, but I wasn’t complaining. The crew was good, and I’d made some amazing friends. This weekend one of the guys was having a cookout for everyone and there were nights out and other events all the time.

Tor sent me a sweaty picture of himself smiling.

Yoga is no joke.

That’s right. He’d had his yoga class today.

How was it? I asked.

Different than I thought. Really intense. I liked it. Definitely going to keep coming. He responded.

Maybe I’d have to join him next time.

Hunter

Much to my surprise, Torrin did show up at my next class. I really hadn’t expected him to. Sometimes men got weird about yoga. They thought it wasn’t masculine enough or something. Torrin hadn’t seemed like that kind of guy, no matter if he looked like one.

He’d arrived early and found me while I was mentally going over the flow I’d planned.

“Remember me?” he asked.

I snorted. “You’re a little hard to forget.”

He smiled and it was too bad I was a lesbian, because he was incredibly good looking. I knew that objectively. He looked like he was training to play a superhero in the next franchise movie.