Page 22 of Defect
“Yeah. Sure.” I shrugged my shoulders and she smiled. I wanted to keep making her do that. I didn’t like how sad she looked. I didn’t like that I made her look that way.
“Okay. Let’s keep going with our session. I’m going to show you how to do the sun salutation. We’ll take a tea break after that. Sound good?”
“Do I get to keep hanging out with you?” I asked her, shoving my hands in my pockets. A deep crimson—deeper than the ocean—rose to the surface of her brown cheeks.
“Yeah. You do,” she nodded her head, her long hair moving with the motion.
“Then I’m down.”
“Okay. Cool.”
After that brief moment, she went into instructor mode and talked me through every pose in the sun salutation. I had no idea it was so involved. Probably because my knowledge of yoga didn’t go beyond the gym teacher trying to show us something new in school. Solana was better than the burly gym teacher though. I could watch her move all day.
She was like water, like rain. Her body moved and flexed without any effort. I’d never been in the presence of someone who was living in their purpose before. That was Solana. I could tell that yoga was her calling. She was fucking amazing. Even the way she pushed her breath in and out sounded like a song. She was a work of art.
“You’re doing so good, Ezra,” she beamed after we went through all the moves for the sun salutation.
“That’s because I’m watching you.”
“No, that’s because you’re letting go. Yoga works so much better when you let go of inhibitions and the fear of looking stupid.”
“So you’re saying I look stupid?” I quizzed with a smirk. She bared her perfect white teeth in a gorgeous smile. She shook her head and walked over to me. The top of her head didn’t even come up to my chin. She was so tiny that I was afraid of hugging her. What if I broke her?
“Look at you cracking jokes.” She bumped me with her slender hips and walked over to a corner where she had a table set up with an electric kettle and small containers with dried flowers and herbs inside. “Do you drink tea, Ezra?”
“No, but I’ll try it if you make it for me.” I sat down on a stool at the table and Solana looked at me. Her eyes lingered on my face then they slipped down to my neck. Then my chest.
“How tall are you?” She finally asked. “You make me feel like a toddler even when you’re sitting down.” She turned away from me but I could still see the apples of her cheeks sitting high from how hard she was smiling.
“Six-foot-six.”
“Holy shit, Ezra. You’re a mountain.” She spun around and her wide-eyed expression made me laugh. She was fucking adorable.
“Thanks?” I chuckled.
“I mean…good lord. I’m only five-two. You’re more than a foot taller than me. I just…it doesn’t compute.”
“Damn, youaretiny.” I looked at her slender waist and inched up to her full tits. They were in perfect proportion to the rest of her body. Everything on her was perfect.
“Tiny but mighty,” she said defiantly.
“Absolutely.” I couldn’t argue with that. Her vibe was bigger than the guys on the football team that Everett used to play with.
“So…tell me about yourself. What’s your last name? Where are you from?”
“Fredericks. Inglewood.”
“Ezra Fredericks?” She tapped her finger against her cheek like she was trying to place my name. I cringed inside wondering if she watched the news and heard about the car accident. “Why does that sound so familiar?” She asked aloud.
“You watch the news at all in the past month or so?”
“Yeah. I have an unhealthy obsession with the news,” she frowned. “Have you been on the news?”
“Not exactly. You heard about the Mack truck that rear-ended the SUV?”
“Yes!” She snapped her fingers then looked at me with utter confusion splashed across her delicate features. “Wait…the kid in the crash died, right? Everett Fredericks.”
“Yeah. My twin brother. He was in the backseat. I was in the front.” The storm raged in my head and I wished I could silence it the way I did when I was breathing with Solana.
