Page 10

Chapter 10

Declan

I roll to a stop outside a building at the end of a modest strip mall, with large windows that bathe the interior in natural light. I’m early, but that was intentional—I wanted to scout the place out. Rows of yoga mats line the floors with about a dozen people inside, all of them moving in synchronized motion. Hannah is at the front, bent over with her hands holding her ankles just like the rest of them.

I park and climb off my bike to watch from the parking lot as Hannah slowly starts to lift her torso, her arms spreading out to her sides and eventually linking together above her head as she straightens with fluid grace. Then she brings her hands down to her chest in a prayer position and starts to lift one foot, eventually resting it against her opposite knee.

Each movement flows into the next with a precision that speaks of years of practice, and I can’t stop myself from staring. But like she can sense my eyes on her, her gaze snaps up and she spots me through the glass.

As soon as she sees me, her balance wobbles a little, and I feel a rush of satisfaction. She can try to deny that there’s something between us all she wants, but she can’t hide the truth. Her body’s giving her away, saying all the things she won’t let herself say.

I like that I affect her the way she affects me—because ever since I ran into her in the locker room and realized who she was, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. It’s gotten so bad that I’ve even had trouble focusing on hockey lately, and that’s saying something because that’s been my north star for as long as I can remember.

Hockey has always been my constant, my clarity—it’s never been a problem for me to lose myself in the game, so I don’t know what to make of this. But as into Hannah as I am, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little worried about how much she’s getting into my head.

Part of me wonders if the slow pivots that Coach Dunaway is picking up on have less to do with my physical ability and more to do with my mind being elsewhere thanks to his daughter.

But it’s not like I can say that to him, and I wasn’t about to pass up an excuse to spend more time alone with Hannah, so here I am.

The class she’s teaching appears to be wrapping up as the people inside are rolling up their mats and filing out of the building. I wait until everyone’s gone before I step in and make my way toward Hannah.

“You’re early,” she says as she drags a towel across her forehead. A light sheen of sweat highlights the curve of her collarbone, and her already tight spandex seems to be hugging her toned frame even tighter. I force my gaze to remain on her eyes, although it takes more restraint than I’d like to admit.

I shrug. “Since you were a little on the fence about giving me lessons, I didn’t want to be late. Besides, I like watching you.” She rolls her eyes at me, and I laugh softly. “Please, you clearly like watching me too. I felt your eyes on me the entire time during the preseason game.”

Her face flushes, a soft pink blooming across her cheekbones that somehow makes her look even more gorgeous—and gives her away.

“I was watching closely enough that I saw how slow you are on direction changes,” she fires back, and I wince because I know she’s right. But there’s something endearing about her noticing these details, about the fact that her eyes were following me that closely across the ice.

“It’s always been a weak spot for me. I’ve been working on it, but I still have some room for improvement.”

“I think I can help,” she says, although she doesn’t look me in the eye when she says it, her gaze focusing somewhere just past my shoulder. “Honestly, I think all athletes should do yoga.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“Every sport is physical, obviously. And strength training and cardio and all that is great and necessary, but none of it really addresses an athlete’s flexibility. That’s arguably just as important as their strength and endurance. More so, in my opinion.”

I nod, caught off guard by the passion in her voice. This isn’t just a side job for her—it’s something she truly believes in.

“What even is yoga?” I ask her, genuinely curious to hear her perspective. “I mean, obviously it’s stretching and stuff, but what’s the actual point of it? Besides flexibility.”

“It has a lot of purposes, but it’s really up to the person practicing it what they want to get out of it. For some people, it’s about range of motion. For others, it’s about balance and core strength. And then for some people it’s just a way to get quiet and be in their bodies every now and then.”

I suppress the flirtatious comment that immediately springs to mind. “Wow. You sound passionate about this.”

Hannah looks me in the eye for the first time since I got here. “Because I am. Yoga is a huge part of my life.” She clears her throat, pointing toward the back of the studio. “You can get changed in the locker room. It’s over there.”

I give an easy nod and head in the direction she pointed, lingering a little to take in the studio’s decor on my way. I’ve never been in a yoga studio before, but it looks exactly like I’d expect it to, with pictures hanging on the walls of people standing in poses facing the sun with their palms clasped.

There are two small locker rooms, and I step into the men’s, which has enough space for a few people and a small shower stall in the far corner.

I change into my workout clothes—I don’t own any yoga pants yet, but hopefully what I brought will work—and throw the rest of my stuff in one of the little lockers. There aren’t built-in locks, but no one else is here, so I’m not worried about my stuff going missing.

“This place is really nice,” I tell Hannah when I emerge from the locker room and join her back in the main area.

She glances around the room with a critical eye and nods. “There are a few things I’d change if it was my studio,” she says but doesn’t elaborate, her face taking on a distant expression as if picturing those changes. Then she turns to face me with her arms crossed over her chest and raises her brows at me. “Are you ready to get started?”

I shrug. “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. But how does this work? Do I just imitate you or something?”

“You’ve never done yoga before, have you?”

“I mean, I’ve stretched my body into some crazy positions before, but not like this,” I say, and although she glares at me, I don’t miss the hint of blush that appears on her cheeks. I’d give anything to know what memories are playing through her mind right now, but I bite my tongue. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“Let’s just start with some demonstrations of basic poses,” she says, her tone turning professional. “I’ll show you a few of them, then have you try them out. Think you can handle that?”

“I’ll do my best.”

“We’ll start super basic with mountain pose,” she says, as though it should mean something to me. She spreads her feet apart a bit and rolls her shoulders in circles, letting her hands dangle at her sides.

“That’s it?”

“I told you we were starting super basic.”

“I can handle this,” I say and mimic what she’s doing. She stops to evaluate me, walking in a circle around me, and I feel like I’m under a microscope. Facing down opposing teams and coaches has never made me nervous, but something about Hannah’s appraising gaze makes my skin prickle with awareness.

“Not bad, but spread your feet a little more,” she says, pushing my feet apart with one of hers before she steps around to my back. “And stand straight.”

She grabs my waist gently as she speaks, rolling my hips into alignment. Every point of contact between her delicate hands and my body feels electric. I focus on my breathing, trying to keep my shit together despite the rush of memories her touch evokes.

“Good,” she says. “Now roll your shoulders.”

I do as I’m told, and Hannah nods approvingly.

“That feels good, honestly,” I admit. “I should do this more often.”

“I’m not surprised. A lot of people carry tension in their shoulders,” she says, moving her hands up to my tense muscles in that area and squeezing them to make her point. “And with the sport you play, that tracks. Try to breathe into it while you roll your shoulders, nice and deep.” She sucks in a deep breath beside me, so I do the same. “Now exhale slowly.”

Our breaths hiss out together as Hannah steps in front of me and gets back into the pose herself. “Good. From here, we’ll move into a forward fold. Watch me first, then I’ll break it down.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” I say, the corner of my mouth lifting, but Hannah pretends not to notice.

She spreads her feet apart evenly and stands straight, then throws her arms out to either side and swings them up and above her head.

She bends over until her hands find the floor, then moves them up to her knees and uses that grip to hold herself at a ninety-degree angle. She arches her back slightly in a stretch, and for a moment, I’m transported back to our night together, to her body arched beneath mine, to her breathless sighs in my ear?—

I drag myself back to the present as she slowly stands back up and smiles at the look of bewilderment on my face.

“Think you can handle that, hotshot?” she teases, and for a second, I’m speechless both because of the incredible way her body moves with such control and precision, and because I don’t think I have a prayer of doing the pose half as gracefully as she did.

“I can handle way more than you think.” I smirk at the way the redness on her cheeks intensifies, but she smirks right back at me.

“Then let’s see what you’ve got,” she says and waves at the air in front of me with a challenging glint in her eyes.

I clear my throat and stand up as straight as I can, roll my shoulders a few times, then lift my arms up over my head in the best imitation I can manage.

Hannah’s smiling and nodding at me, so I must be doing alright. I keep going, bending forward as far as I can, but my hands don’t find the ground the way hers did, and my feet don’t stay flat on the floor either.

“That could’ve been better,” she says as I start to lift my head up toward her with my hands on my knees.

“That’s not what you were saying six months ago,” I murmur, my eyes locked right on hers, and heat flashes through me when I see goosebumps prickling across her bare arms. But she catches me off guard when she reaches out and puts her hand on my lower back and applies a little bit of pressure to get me to straighten out more.

But bent over like this with my face inches away from her, her hands on my body, and all of this sexual tension absolutely fucking sizzling between us, I feel like I’m going to combust.