Page 45 of Merry Little Hate Notes

“I bet he’s sharing the light with a lot of those women. Carmen should be careful,” I warned.

Holly sat on her unrolled mat, pensively watching Carmen cozy up to Marco as she outlined one of the tattoos on his bare chest with her finger. “I think you’re right. This is too cringey to watch.”

I agreed, so I kept my eyes squarely focused on Holly, who was now seated on her mat and gracefully extending her arms and legs, stretching them in a fluid move as if she’d choreographed it.

I sat on my mat under one of the heat panels hovering over every space. It wasn’t as hot as watching Holly. All I had to say was,Merry Christmas to me.I hoped she would invite me back for yoga, even if I had to endure Marco’s crazed groupies.

Holly noticed me watching her and became self-conscious. “What?” She blushed.

“You’re beautiful.”

“Says the man who thinks I have a case of RGF and November face.”

“Says the woman who once called me a slut and a bull’s pizzle. Besides, I’ve always found the Grinch attractive, and November is my favorite month.”

Holly giggled. “Uh-huh.”

“It’s true. The Grinch’s yellow eyes are oddly alluring,” I teased her. “Of course, they aren’t as fine as your blue eyes.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“And you’re beautiful,” I said sincerely.

She twirled a tendril of her hair. “You’re not so bad yourself. You know, for a cloakbag of guts.”

“You and your Shakespeare,” I chuckled. It felt strange to speak about the notes so freely. I hoped it was moving us toward being more open with one another. Although I enjoyed her cleverly mean humor, perhaps someday we could even move past the hate notes.

“Shakespeare was the master of insults.” Holly stretched and lengthened to reach well beyond her feet.

I couldn’t help but stare at the elegant contours of her body and the smooth skin on her back. I held my breath and balled my fists, reminding myself this was alook, do not touchscenario. Watching her was the sweetest torture around, and always had been.

It was probably a good thing when Marco said, “Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming tonight and sharing your energy with the class.”

His groupies scattered and landed on their mats, sitting up andcrossing their legs. Holly did the same, and I followed suit. Carmen made sure she was right next to the platform in front of the mirror where she could admire herself.

“You need to ask yourself, what brings you to the mat tonight?”

That was a simple answer. I smiled over at my reason. She was grinning as if she knew I was staring at her, but she didn’t dare look my way. Holly was incredibly adorable. And sexy—so sexy, because she didn’t know it.

Marco replaced the ocean-wave sounds with some upbeat music. It’s not what I expected for a yoga class. “Everyone stand at the edge of your mat,” he instructed in that phony accent of his that made most of the women in the class fan themselves.

Holly whispered over to me with way too much glee, “Prepare to get wrecked.”

Her warning didn’t intimidate me at all. She, on the other hand, scared the living daylights out of me. Or at least the thought that she would never know how I truly felt about her scared me.

Marco did several rounds of breathing while we placed our hands together and brought them to our hearts. It looked as if we were all praying. There was nothing difficult about it at all, except we were supposed to keep our eyes closed and all I wanted to do was gaze at Holly. The breathing exercises lulled me into a false sense of security. Soon my ego got checked hard core when Marco started saying words I’d never heard likechaturangaandvinyasa. All I know is the man was running us through a series of planks to what he called a baby cobra and then downward facing dog, all in quick succession and repeated several times in a row. He called this a flow, and he did it so fluidly he made it look easy. I did my best to look like I knew what I was doing, but the way Holly’s lips kept twitching, I assumed I looked like an imbecile.

When that torture was over, Marco expected us to do standing splits and hold it indefinitely without touching the ground. I thought I had excellent balance, but the best I could do was lift one hand off the ground, and even then, I kept faltering. Meanwhile, Holly looked like a pro, both of her hands wrapped around her right ankle while her left leg stood perfectly straight in the air. She was a vision.

Holly tilted her head and caught me peering at her. She offered me a thoughtful glance that had me wishing we could skip to the part where she trusted me so we could share the light and love together. That was if I survived the class.

Marco started asking the impossible, all the way from scorpion pose to headstands. The flexibility and core strength of the people in the class had me astounded. Holly was right—I felt wrecked by the end, shaking and breathing hard. When Marco called for the corpse pose, I collapsed onto the mat, feeling as if part of me had died—mostly my ego.

Holly was good enough to keep her smirks and snickering to a minimum. Being knocked down a few notches was totally worth it, though, to see Holly move so beautifully—and watching the beads of sweat glistening and trickling down her face and body was a sight to behold.

The best part came when we stretched out our arms while we breathed deeply in and out. Marco turned the lights down, and the music became more sensual and rhythmic while he chantedOm, shanti, shanti, shantirepeatedly in the background. Holly’s and my fingertips touched, barely dancing with each other’s as if they ached to intertwine but didn’t dare. It felt like a metaphor for our entire relationship.

Holly stared wide-eyed at me while the sparks from the tips of our fingers seemed to ignite the air between us. The questions in her eyes swirled ever fiercer, begging to be acknowledged and answered. Somehow, I seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. She’d silently asked me the same question the night I’d kissed her—Is this real?

---