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“Chris,” she whispers, and I grind down a little harder. With just her yoga leggings and my cotton lounge pants between us, I find just the right spot and am rewarded by a gasp.
A squeaking noise comes from the doorway, and I pause and look up. One of her friends—Emma, I think, though I only see a flash of a person in the dark room—disappears from the doorway and calls out behind her, “Sorry!”
When I look back down at Sara, she’s looking up, and when our eyes meet, she gives me a slow smile.
The moment’s broken, though, and when Sara moves to sit up, I get out of the way. She gathers up my bowl and pushes off the couch, walking into the kitchen. I follow her.
“Thank you for being so great with my friends,” she says as she rinses my bowl and puts it in the dishwasher.
“They’re fun. A lot different from my friends.” I pull out one of the stools and take a seat.
“Your bandmates or other friends?”
“The band.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Ah, well. I met Alwin when I was playing in a ska band, and he kept showing up to my concerts and nagging me to join his band.”
“What finally got you to do it?” she asks.
“You’ve met him. He’s got a presence about him. Natural charm. The ska band never got off the ground. Ska bands rarely make it big, and while we were musically sound, we had no idea how to market ourselves.”
Sara puts the last dish in the drying rack and dries her hands. “Kind of like teaching yoga. You have to be a skilled teacher, and if you want to make it a business for yourself, you have to do like fifty other things.” She comes around the island to stand in front of me, and I spread my knees and pull her in closer.
“Yeah, exactly. June is an amazing bassist but also really smart with numbers and contracts. My eyes glaze over, and I automatically sign anything people tell me to, but June reads that shit and understands it. She played hardball for us before we had professionals to do it. But Alwin, he’s the marketer. He’s never met someone he couldn’t sweet talk into giving the band something.”
Sara softly exhales a laugh. “I know some people like that. Back home, we call them FMFs—friendly motherfuckers.”
I laugh and squeeze her a little closer. “That’s exactly Alwin. Between the two of them, they’re a force to be reckoned with.”
“And the drummer?”
“Ram. He was the last to join. He’s a strong musician and a lot of fun—too much fun.”
Sara’s hum is thoughtful. “I would imagine that a lot has changed for the music industry in the last decade. It’s the same with yoga—more online, less personal. It’s hard to reconcile the tenets of yoga with the way the world is changing. I’m not sure how I feel about it sometimes.”
“Very true.”
“By the way,” Sara brings her hand up to my mouth and traces my bottom lip. “did you quit smoking?”
I turn my head, nuzzling into her hand. “Yeah, I did.”
“Why?” She cups my jaw.
I look up at her. “You know why.”
A smile flits across her face before disappearing. “You should get checked out by a doctor too. Just in case.”
Just in case of cancer. Her husband’s and my mother’s death hang over us.
“I will. I promise.”
“Good,” she says. She squeezes me tightly and then yawns.
“All right, it’s time for bed.” I push her gently away. “You’ve had a long day, and you need to hang with your friends tomorrow.”
Sara pouts. “I don’t want them to leave.”
