Page 28 of Wild Card

He shrugs. “Turns out I like yoga.”

Bash groans and rolls his eyes so dramatically that his head practically follows their motion. I can’t help but wonder what he’s doing here—especially since he can barely look at me.

But me? I beam because I knew yesterday’s stretching would make Clyde feel better. “I’m thrilled to hear that. Maybe we can make a more regular appointment?”

“Sure. I’ll make it for right now.”

Bash glares at Clyde. “Whatever you do, you can’t just drive down the mountain yourself like you did yesterday. Your legs don’t bend well enough after dialysis to push the pedals. You know this. I’ll slash the fucking tires on your car if you do that again. First responders don’t need to deal with the aftermath of your stubborn bullshit.”

My eyes bounce between them as Clyde scoffs and waves a dismissive hand in his direction. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Are you two related?” I blurt, entertained by the grumpy-man face-off.

“Fuck no,” Bash mutters, but Clyde lets out a high-pitched giggle, like he’s amused by the other man.

“Sometimes it feels like we are, though, doesn’t it, Bash?”

“In the sense that I wish I could get rid of you, but I can’t? Yes. Yes, it does.”

My lips twitch.

“How long will he be? I’ll come pick him up,” Bash says to me, but he directs his gaze to the clock on the wall.

“An hour.”

Bash nods, but his eyes don’t move.

It kills me that he won’t make eye contact. I feel like I’m silently begging him to justlookat me. To see the way I look at him. To talk.

God, what I’d give to talk the way we did that night. Honest and open and unexpected.

But I also know there’s now an ocean between us.

Two little numbers.

One man.

And not just any man—his son.

Had I known…

I shake the thought away, not wanting to feel guilty over things I couldn’t have predicted. What’s done is done. We’re both grown-ups. I desperately want to bridge the gap, but based on the way Bash addresses the wall, I’m thinking I might be the only one.

It taps straight into every hurt I carry with me. I grew up feeling like I had to bend over backward not to anger my father.Seen but not heardis what he requested of me.

And I was.

It can be my default now when I’m feeling off-kilter. It’s a hard habit to shake. So when Bash starts in with, “Okay, I’ll be back to get you—” I cut him off.

“It’s okay. I can drive Clyde home.”

He looks at me now, but the glance is so fleeting that it’s almost dismissive. Further proof that I don’t need him back here, sullying my good mood with his immaturity. Or this grudge he’s holding. Or whatever this awkwardness is between us.

“He’s way up the mountain. The road’s rough. Not well tended. You probably can’t even?—”

“Cool,” I bite out evenly, more irritated by the second as he stands there acting like I’m some incorporeal voice.

Can’t. That word fires me up. It’s the word that had me walking out of my parents’ house at seventeen and never looking back. My dad told me Ican’tlive a “proper” life as a yoga teacher, and if I wasn’t going to university or getting married, I wasn’t living under his roof.