Page 73 of Summer with the Single Dad

“Hey,” Brooke sighed, unfurling her mat beside Jordana’s. “Jordana, this is Justine. She’s staying in one of the cabins.” Then she wrinkled her nose. “Or at least she was, but then it flooded and now she’s living with Bennett.”

Jordana’s eyes widened. “Oh!”

“It’s not like that,” Justine said quickly, unrolling her mat beside Brooke’s. Even though it was like that. It absolutely was. She was living and sleeping with Bennett McEvoy. However, she didn’t know this woman at all, and just because Brooke seemed to trust her didn’t mean Justine wanted this stranger knowing her business.

Jordana shrugged. “You could do worse. The McEvoy men are all very nice looking. And they’re good dads and just … great.” Her sigh prompted Brooke to glance at Justine and raise her brows in question. “Ignore me,” Jordana went on. “I’m a lonely, frumpy, single mom. I’ll just live vicariously through you two.”

“There are three more McEvoys, you know,” Brooke said, pointing her toes out in front of her then bending over at the hips to touch them. Jordana was in pigeon pose and Justine felt the call of the baby cobra posture for her lower back.

“That is true. Though Wyatt and Dom work so much, nobody ever sees them. And Jagger is the most mysterious man I’ve ever met. I’m not even sure he’s straight. I’ve never seen him with a woman and don’t know if he’s dated or slept with anyone on the island.” Her eyes bugged out. “Not that there is anything wrong with that, or him being gay, or bi, or pan, or whatever. Just, nobody knows. It’d be nice to know, you know?”

Brooke snorted. “Oh, I know. He’s a real enigma, that one. Love the man to death, but he’s got some real interesting energy about him.”

“Like a nerdy lumberjack bear,” Jordana added before she and Brooke erupted into giggles.

“I only know Jagger when he comes to Bennett’s house early in the morning. So Bennett and I can go running. He comes in, resembling a bear—so yeah, that’s an accurate description—then he growls and flops onto the couch and goes back to sleep.”

Jordana’s eyes twinkled. “So it is like that, then. Hmm?”

Heat infused Justine’s cheeks.

“Leave her alone,” Brooke said, giving Jordana a playful shove. She turned to Justine. “Jordana works at the Town Center Grocery Store. But what you might not know about her is that she’s also taking her yoga teacher training so she can start teaching some classes here. This is actually where we met. Bonding over our desire to master crow pose.”

Now it was Jordana’s turn to get hot cheeks and because she was so fair, they burned bright pink, but it only made her more beautiful. Like a natural rouge.

“I still have about forty more hours of the two-hundred-hour class to go, plus the exam. But Lotus is a great instructor. I’m really enjoying it.” Her gaze drifted to the door when, speak of the devil, but the great instructor herself, seemed to float in as if carried by a cloud.

“All right, everyone,” came Lotus’s breathy voice. “Please find your way into savasana. Feet pointed to the corners of your mat, arms down by your sides, and begin a deep and comforting inhale through the nose and exhale out the mouth. Moans, sighs and all other noises of practice are welcome in this safe and inviting space.”

They all slid down to their backs.

“Have a great class,” Brooke whispered to her with a wink.

“You too.”

Justine was no yoga virgin. Although she preferred running, she did enjoy yoga. She just rarely had time for it. Running, she could squeeze in whenever it worked around her chaotic schedule. But yoga was on someone else’s schedule, and sometimes she was elbow deep inside someone’s chest cavity when the class was going on.

She was stiff at first, unable to get as deep as she usually could into certain postures. But as her body warmed up and they began their sun salutation A, the pull of her hamstrings with each downward dog grew more and more pleasurable. She relished the burn of her triceps when she dropped down into chaturanga, then up into baby cobra, feeling the compression of her spine and the opening of her chest.

Lost to the hypnotic flow of Lotus’s beautiful voice and the way she so perfectly guided them through each posture, Justine was mesmerized and in an almost zombie-like state. Yet, she was also so happy.

It wasn’t until they dropped down to their bellies and into a deep frog pose to open their hips that she snapped out of her trance. But that was only because the thoughts flooded in.

Not all of them bad.

In fact, most of them were good.

But some of them were about Mr. O’Malley, and Bennett’s wife, Carla. The guilt monster wasn’t nearly as loud as he could be, but he was still there, in dragon pose, telling her she was a terrible person and didn’t deserve happiness.

There was someone else there too, though.

And he sounded a lot like Bennett. And his voice was louder, and he was telling her to find her joy, to live her life and live it well. To not drown in guilt or grief because nobody that cared about us would want that. Then she thought about Aya and Emme, and how much she’d already come to care for them. Her mind drifted to yesterday and last night with Bennett, tangled up in the bedsheets—since she invited him back to her bed—and how good it felt to fall asleep in his arms.

As Lotus instructed them to slowly move their bodies out of frog pose and back into their final savasana, tears began to stream down Justine’s face. Then she choked on a sob.

Brooke’s gaze swung to hers, confusion and worry in her green eyes.

What was happening right now?

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