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“Who’s that?” Stace said and I jumped. She stood close to me and had leaned down to speak in my ear. Completely unnecessarily close. Like we were sharing a secret.

“That’s Micah. He’s one of my regulars who came from my old studio.” More than a few people had, which made me feel too many emotions at the same time so I had to stop thinking about it.

“Is he a model?”

She wasn’t the first person to ask that question.

“You’d think so, but no. He’s a phys ed teacher and he coaches. Why so interested?” I turned and looked up at her, wanting to take a step back. Did she have to crowd me like that?

“Not for me, obviously. But he’s Torrin’s type. Do you know if he’s queer?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t talked to Micah enough to make that determination.

“Okay, well, I wouldn’t be a good sister if I didn’t do my due diligence,” she said, gathering up her stuff.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Going to make a friend,” she said, flashing a smile that would have made me stumble if I’d been walking. Even still, my knees became less solid for a moment and I had to catch myself.

Like it was nothing, she took a spot right by Micah and introduced herself. He was a little shy, but with a few words, she had him smiling and talking to her. A few of the other women in the class were watching with a mix of shock and envy. Stace even got him to laugh.

I was so busy watching them together that I forgot I had an actual job to do, so I rushed to start my playlist and remember the sequence I’d planned to go with it.

Everything was going fine until I let myself check in with Stace as I walked around the room. She was doing the poses, but her form was off. So off. Her back was rounded way too much in her downward dog and she was going to wrench her neck if she kept doing upward dog like that. I called for everyone to keep going through their opening sun salutation and stopped next to her mat.

“Can I give you an adjustment?” I asked in a low voice.

“Uh, sure?” she said, looking up at me from her downward dog position.

“Back straight,” I said, gently putting my palm on her spine to get her to stop arching. “Shoulders down.” It took a few tries, but we got her into a better position and then she moved through the flow and I helped her with upward dog. It was a tricky thing, to balance teaching the whole class while giving adjustments to one person, but I really didn’t want her to hurt herself. Her body was an important part of her job and I’d feel awful if she couldn’t do what she loved and I could have stepped in and prevented it.

I couldn’t stay with her for as long as I wanted, so I had to move on, but I saved a small corner of my attention for her. If I was a newer teacher, I wouldn’t have been able to manage it, but I’d been doing this for years, so I could.

At last we made it to savasana and I was relieved and drained. More drained than I had been in a while.

“Namaste,” I said, bowing my head to everyone and then announcing that they could come to my next class. A few students said goodnight and asked a few questions before filtering out and going back to their lives.

Micah and Stace were still talking. He excused himself and came to thank me for the class.

“You’re welcome. See you next time?”

He nodded, his cheeks pink from the workout as he picked up his mat and headed for the showers.

Then it was just me and Stace.

“Well? What did you think?”

She lounged on her mat with her hands braced behind her. Sweaty and with her hair in her face and looking incredibly sexy. Those thighs were stretched out in front of her, teasing me.

“I think that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I haven’t felt that way in a while. I didn’t expect it to be so hard.” Sitting up, she rolled one of her arms in a circle and winced.

“Do you have any injuries? I should have asked,” I said, alarmed. She couldn’t get injured in my class. I wouldn’t allow it.

“No. Just regular soreness. My shoulder acts up sometimes. No big deal.”

We needed to leave the room and I needed to go home, but neither of us was moving.

Stace grinned and then held her arms out to me. “Help me up?”