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After dinner,I bike to yoga class, a twenty-minute ride from my house. The sky will be dark by the time the class finishes, but I don’t have a choice if I want to do this. And I definitely want to give yoga a try.
“Jess?” Violet walks toward me on the sidewalk, a rolled-up yoga mat under her arm. I dismount my bike and jump the front wheel onto the curb.
“Did you bike here?” Her gaze trails over my rusty transportation.
“I don’t have a car. And…and it’s a nice night.” Heat flushes my cheeks, even though I shouldn’t be embarrassed by the state of my bike. The bike is surprisingly sturdy, and it still works.
“Where do you live?” Violet asks. I tell her the street address. “I can easily pick you up on my way here and drop you off after class if you decide to come again. I don’t live far from you.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. It’ll give me a chance to get in some adult conversation. I don’t get out much. Between yoga, grocery shopping, and seeing my neighbor when I drop Sophie off to come here, I hardly see any adults these days. I mean, other than my husband and his friends.” Her tone turns timid at the last part. It’s possible her husband’s friends intimidate her the way my husband’s friends had unintentionally intimidated me.
We walk up the path leading to the house. “What does your husband do?” I ask.
“He’s the town’s chief of police.” Violet’s voice is barely a whisper.
Prickles of fear throb up my spine, and I slip on a mask with a polite smile painted on. “That’s nice.”
Violet continues up the path to the house and waits for me at the front door. I steer my bike along a path to the shadowed side of the house, hide the bike where it can’t be easily seen from the street, and join Violet.
She knocks on the door. A woman in her late forties opens it, wearing yoga pants and a cropped top.
The woman smiles, giving off a Zen vibe. “Hi, Violet. And you must be Jessica. I’m Shania.”
Unlike the smile I gave Violet after learning about her husband’s job, the one I direct at Shania is real. “That’s right.”
“I’m so glad you could join us.” She opens the door wider to let us in.
Violet and I step into the house and remove our shoes. Shania takes us into a room just a few feet away with a hardwood floor and no furniture. Delores, Rose, Samantha, and Katelyn are sitting on their yoga mats and chatting.
Rose grins at me, her sparkling hazel eyes so much like Simone’s. “Oooh, new blood. I know we’ve met,” she says to me, “but I’m awful with names.”
“Jessica. And you’re Rose, Simone’s grandmother.”
“That’s right.” Her face brightens some more. “I heard you went hiking on Saturday with my granddaughter and her friends—including those very handsome Carson brothers.” She giggles, the sound soft and weathered at the edges.
Delores shares the giggle, her eyes glinting with mischief. “That’s not surprising. A certain hottie has been visiting her house more than once in the past week.”
“Which one?” Rose asks, seeming a little too excited at the news. “Garrett, Kellan, or Troy? All three of them are super sweet. But don’t tell them I said that. Those hard-asses probably don’t want to be known as sweet.”
Delores and Samantha giggle.
“It was Troy,” Delores helpfully points out.
Katelyn’s lips purse as if she’s sucked on an unripe lemon doused with vinegar.
“He’s just a friend,” I hurriedly tell them. “He’s helping me renovate the house.”
“For now, maybe,” Rose says. “But you just give him time, dear. I’m sure if you’re the right woman for him, he’ll feel differently.” She looks at Delores and Samantha for confirmation, and they eagerly nod at me.
“I’m not looking to have a boyfriend. We really are just friends.” Surprisingly, it doesn’t feel strange saying that. I didn’t have a lot of male friends growing up, but with Troy, it feels right.
Shania hands me a yoga mat, and I roll it out next to Violet’s.
The doorbell rings, and Shania leaves to answer it. She returns with a woman my age and introduces Amy to me.
Amy smiles, her gaze dropping for a nanosecond to the scar by my mouth. “Glad you can join us.” She goes over to Katelyn, rolls out her mat, and sits.
