Page 134 of Wells

A year ago, I watched a dream like this through a fence. Now I'm at the table inside it, and the kids come because there is a place here that is safe and warm and fun.

Lin wraps it, and the staff scatters. I pack up slowly because I still have some time before the kids get out of school.

I haven't heard from or seen Wells since the text after the grand opening party. It's probably best, but I still think about him every day. Maybe he's no longer doing yoga, or maybe out of respect for me, he found a different yoga studio than Om. He took the no and left it where I put it.

Every man I've known has treated a no as the opening line of a negotiation, a thing to wear down until it tired into yes. Wells just stepped back, and the empty space where the pushing would be is the thing I keep circling.

Downstairs, twenty minutes before the session, I roll the mats into rows and line the blocks and straps along the wall. The kids trickle in, Marcus first, claiming his back corner without asking, then Kelly barefoot with her ponytail half-loose, and by four, I've got a dozen of them spread across the floor.

We start with breath. I talk them down into it, four counts in, hold, slow out, and the room settles a minute in, the wiggling stilling, even the bouncers going quiet. Shaking it out, everyone stands into mountain, into tree, and I tell them to pick a spot on the wall and lock their eyes to it. Half of them topple and laugh and climb back up.

Moving through our normal routine, warrior first, then triangle, I walk the rows, adjusting a hip here, a shoulder there, until the breathing goes deep and the energy in the room drops into something soft. Then I bring them down to their backs, feet falling open, palms up.

"Close your eyes. You don't have to do anything right now. Just be here."

I sit at the front and close mine, too, and breathe with them. With a smaller class today, a dozen kids breathe in time. When I open my eyes, Wells is in the doorway.

He's leaning against the frame at the back, arms crossed, still as the room. He doesn't wave or smile. He watches, and he doesn't break the quiet, just settles into it, calm like the old Wells never managed.

I bring the kids up slowly and thank them for showing up. They wipe down their mats with the sanitary wet wipes and make sure their space is as they found it. It took a couple of weeks for them to get used to our protocol, but now they do it without me asking.

After I finish stacking the blocks at the back of the studio, I walk toward him rather than hunt up another chore to hide behind.

He straightens off the frame. "Meant to make the staff meeting earlier, but got held up at the office. I had to drop something off with Lin and saw you teaching. I hope you don't mind that I watched the end of your practice."

"No, of course not."

"Everything going well here for you?"

"It's really been better than I could have imagined. How are things at Stone?"

"Good. We finally hired someone for the graphics work you used to do." He lets a beat go. "She's not as good as you were, but she keeps the board happy enough."

The compliment lands with nothing hooked to it. I'm smiling before I decide to.

"I'm actually leaving early today. I have a dentist appointment."

"I'll walk out with you. I've already talked to Lin."

We come out into the afternoon together, and I cross to the rack where I locked my bike this morning. Wells waits while I work the lock. I get my hands on the bars, and the question is out before the fear can catch it.

"You want to walk down to that juice place we went to? The citrus cure must have done the trick."

He smiles, unguarded, before he folds it back into the restraint that's always been his. "Sure, that'd be great. Do you have time before your appointment?"

"Yeah, I've got a little time."

I wheel the bike off the rack and angle it between us as we start down the block. The tires tick against the concrete in time with our steps, and the frame gives my hands something to do.

For the first stretch, neither of us fills the quiet. He's off my left, matching my pace without crowding it. He's so easy, which unsettles me more than talking would. We took this same walk in the spring, him and me, and a juice and a whole open afternoon.

"They're good with you," he says. "The kids. You were born to do this."

It's the first thing either of us has said since the bike rack, and it's true enough to loosen the knot under my ribs. "We're good for each other."

His mouth does the thing that isn't quite a smile but wants to be. We keep walking, and the quiet squeezes back in.

The green awning comes up three blocks down, the red hand-painted sign coming into view. I lean the bike on the wall. He holds the door for me to walk in.