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He smiled and patted the sand beside him. “Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll give you a meditation that’ll take that stress out of your eyes, at least for tonight.”
She must’ve had scepticism in those stressed-out eyes, because he patted the sand again. “You didn’t get what you wanted from running. Maybe you can get it from being still.”
Beguiling hermit squatter man. She took a step closer. “I was going to get it from junk food.”
He tipped his head back to look up at her. “That can work too, but it comes with unfortunate side effects.”
She sat cross-legged beside him, the sand cool on the back of her bare calves. “Now what?” Tim Tams made more sense than this.
“The idea is to be still, let all the stress, everything you’re worried about go, and just be without it for a little while.”
She snuck a look at him. “What worries you?” It wasn’t a witch of a boss, or a sad social life. But maybe it was the lack of those things most people took for granted, a job, friends, a feeling of worth.
“Nothing when I’m here doing this.”
Maybe he’d been a lawyer in his former life. “Good duck. Quack.”
He smiled and the beauty in that was part way to a meditation all by itself. They sat in the falling light looking at each other and saying nothing for longer than should’ve been comfortable, and yet Foley had no urge to get up and walk away.
“What do I do now?”
He turned his head to look at the sea. “Pick something to focus on, just one thing.”
“What do you choose?”
“The sea. My own breathing.” He turned his face around again and a heat-seeking missile locked onto her eyes. “An image of something beautiful.”
It was entirely inappropriate that she was holding her breath. She couldn’t meditate and hold her breath. She knew nothing about meditating but she was sure it didn’t work like flirting or passing out.
“Take a breath, Foley.”
It shuddered in her chest and out of her throat in an embarrassing waver.
“Take another one.”
She took it, open-mouthed and shallow.
“Close your eyes and listen to the sea.” Drum closed his and turned his face away.
She watched him, this strange, inappropriate man she was so drawn to.
“Are your eyes closed?”
She didn’t want to close them, she wanted to shuffle slightly sideways so she was closer to him, so she could see him clearer, feel the warmth coming off his skin, smell his raisin toast scent. “Yes.”
His cheek lifted. “Close your eyes, Foley.” He turned his head and caught her staring and she felt no compunction to turn away because she knew he would.
Except he didn’t.
He turned his whole body around, pushing sand aside with his knee and she breathed and breathed and no air seemed to get past her nostrils, her whole body felt light and flyaway, a lure cast out on a fishing line, and his eyes were busy, travelling all over her face in a way that made her heat from the inside. She licked her lips because she was thirsty as well as breathless and Drum made a sound she didn’t think belonged in a meditation, a throaty hmm as he reached over and put his palm over her eyes. “Close them.”
He took his hand away and she wanted to snatch it back, but she did as he’d said and closed her eyes because his voice was hypnotic and she wanted more of his instructions.
“Take a deeper breath and hold it.” She did. He waited for her exhale. “Take another one.” She did. He waited. “And another. Make them slow and deep. Make each breath fill you up from toenail to hair tip.”
She breathed and she filled with air, but her thoughts were pinging around like popping corn in the microwave, each one slamming new awareness of him into her. He was sitting so close and his hand had been so warm on her face. If she inched forward her knee could touch his. If she opened her eyes he might close them for her again. What did this mean? Why was it hard to concentrate on anything but him? She was the worst meditator in the history of sitting cross-legged with your eyes closed, and if he was still looking at her he’d know. She almost opened her eyes but he spoke again, trapping her in her fake meditative state with the jostle of unsuitable thoughts.
“Let whatever is in your head just be. All the most important thoughts will wait for you. And when your mind has rested you’ll know what to do with them.” She kept her eyes closed and tuned in to his voice, to his nearness. “For now just breathe, it’s enough, one after another, deep and full and long. No breath costs, no breath hurts, none is greater or lesser or smarter or richer, or more beautiful. None competes, none takes aw
