AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“That’s a rather morbid thing to be betting on. Even for my grandmother.” I didn’t understand her obsession with those freaking ducks. They were dirty, smelly, and made a bigger mess than a room full of toddlers unsupervised with finger paint.
“They were talking about a poker ring,” Dylan continued, clicking the button on the electric kettle to make it boil. “I’m not sure how they plan to pull it off. They don’t have access to the basement.”
“Why would they need access to the basement?”
“It’s an underground one they’re planning. I thought that was obvious. It’s hardly secret if it’s in the main room while they watch dodgy gameshow reruns.”
“Right.” I paused. “Why is being around them a lot like trying to herd cats into a bathtub?”
“Interesting analogy.” Dylan poured boiling water into his mug. “But it sums up our twice-weekly yoga sessions pretty accurately.”
I shuddered. I did not want to think about the residents of the senior home doing yoga in Lycra. Although watching them try to get up from either the downward or the upward dog could be interesting…
“You’re thinking about them trying to get up off the floor, aren’t you?” He peered over his shoulder at me, a smile playing on his lips.
“It just seems counterproductive,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “Surely they don’t bend that way anymore.”
“Well, the exercises are modified.” He removed the teabag from the mug and carried it to the trashcan using his teaspoon. He dumped it in, and it hit the bottom of the can with a thump. “A lot,” he added as an afterthought. “It’s not yoga the way you do it, Saylor. It’s for the elderly. And even then, you don’t always do it right, either. YouTube is not a yogi.”
“I would hope they’re not doing it the way I do it. I can’t imagine Agatha with her butt in the air doing down the downward dog.” Then I frowned. “And I take offense to your criticism of my yoga. You’re not a yogi, either. You’re a personal trainer.”
“Well, I know how to do yoga correctly. Unlike that nutso on your YouTube videos. Not that you ever really do it anyway.”
“Nutso? What’s a nutso?”
“A crazy person. Also, Agatha has tried it. The downward dog.” He sat on the sofa next to me and set his cup of tea on the coffee table. “It took three people to get her up. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I put my book next to his cup and rolled my eyes. “I don’t know why you agreed to do a senior yoga class. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. They can barely even pick up their own glasses.”
“Oh.” He winced, then shook his head. “You make it sound like they’re all on their deathbeds, sweetheart.”
I hated it when he used pet names.
Sweetheart. Darlin’. Love.
He tossed them out the way beads were tossed at Mardi Gras, and they may as well smack me in the eye like the beads did once.
His stupid British accent was like sugar—delicious, addictive, and liable to leave people high.
It’s me. I’m people.
It gave me tingles in all the wrong places, and that really wasn’t great when you considered that we shared a bedroom wall, and I was the proud owner of a prolific dirty mind.
“They might as well be on their deathbeds,” I muttered, shaking off the thoughts of my roommate’s accent—thoughts I had zero business having. “They’re gonna send me to an early one.”
Dylan laughed as he reached for his tea. “Saylor, that’s not gonna happen. You could have weathered the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.”
“I think that was a compliment.”
“It’s something along the lines of complimenting your strong will,” he said slowly.
“Thank you. I am rather proud of it.” I grinned. “What are you doing this afternoon? Are you breaking for lunch?”
He nodded slowly. “I’m with Seb all afternoon. He saw his doctor this morning for another scan on his shoulder, so we’ll hopefully be able to up his weights again today.”
I shuddered. Ugh. Weights.
“Are you considering taking me up on my offer of coming to the gym with me?”
“Can I lift wine glasses instead of weights?”
“That’ll be a no.”
“Then that’ll also be a no,” I said flatly. “I don’t need weights. Have you lifted the boxes that come off the back of the truck on delivery day at the store? They are weights.”
“Yes, I have.” He sipped his tea. “You called me two weeks ago to help you because a publisher delivered you books for that signing.”
Right. The Elouise Wilson signing two nights ago. We’d made a fuck ton of money thanks to bookworms who couldn’t resist bookish merch—who could?—and those books had weighed a ton.
Move over, George Martin. Game of Thrones was a paperweight compared to the doorstop that was Elouise Wilson’s epic fantasy novels.
