Page 48 of Hale Yes
We both do our best to control our features. I feel like I’m in elementary school getting scolded by the principal for talking in the lunch line.
“Yes, we’re?—”
“Nicolette passed gas, and it made me laugh,” Shay interrupts, pointing a finger at me. “Sorry for the disturbance, Atlas.”
I’m. Going. To. Kill. Her.
“I—I didn’t,” I begin, shaking my head rapidly, but Atlas pats my sweaty shoulder with his meaty hand.
“It’s okay. Yoga farts happen to everyone sometimes with all the bending and stretching during asanas.” A smile crooks his lips. “Even beautiful women.”
Then he tips his cowboy hat and swaggers off, giving Shay and I a view of his tight backside.
My eyes shoot to Shay’s guilty face. “You’re dead to me,” I grouse, and she rolls her lips between her teeth.
“Sorry, I panicked. I didn’t want to get kicked out of this class. It’s the closest thing I get to any action.”
I flash her a smile, half forgiving and half wicked. “Next time, let me handle it. I’ll tell him you shit your pants.”
She snickers and returns her attention to the cowboys on the stage, who are now moving into downward dog. We both do the same. I focus on straightening my back and imagining there’s an invisible string pulling my butt to the ceiling. The stretch feels amazing.
And that’s when it happens. I fart for real. It’s loud in the peaceful garden, and I squinch my eyes shut, pretending it didn’t happen.
“Dammit, you jinxed me,” I hiss at my friend, whose face is the color of a tomato with her restrained laughter.
I can never show my face at Cowboy Yoga again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Foreplay… Texas style
Nicolette
That Friday Helix picks me up in his spaceship car and drives me across Houston to Carver’s Family BBQ restaurant. It’s rustic, with wood beams crisscrossing overhead and simple light fixtures hanging down from the ceiling.
I let Helix order, and he got us two Coors Lights and a two-person sampler platter. Though platter might be too generous a word.
“Here ya go, sweeties,” a woman named Opal says, plopping down a sheet of butcher paper laden with all kinds of smoked meats and sides. Then she stretches out two more lengths of butcher paper, cuts them with a pocketknife, and slaps them down in front of Helix and me. Apparently, these are our plates.
Glancing around the restaurant, I look for a side table with forks and spoons. “Where do we get silverware?”
Opal laughs like that’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard. “Guessing this is your first time at Carver’s, honey.”
“She grew up in New Jersey,” Helix explains with a playful glint in his crystal eyes.
Opal winks and produces two giant serrated knives from her apron and places one in front of each of us before sauntering away, tossing, “Have fun, Jersey,” over her shoulder.
“No forks allowed,” Helix explains. “That’s why they don’t serve potato salad or beans or anything else requiring a fork.”
“So we just…”
“Get down and dirty and eat with our hands. It’s part of the charm,” Helix replies with a grin.
“Excellent,” I say, wiggling my fingers in preparation for the feast as I survey the selection. Though I feel a little twinge in the pit of my core at thedown and dirtyline.
There are ribs, sliced pork loin, jalapeño-cheese sausage, and sliced brisket, as well as a large block of cheddar cheese, a full onion with the ends cut off, and a bowl of pickle chips. “What are those?” I ask, pointing at two piles of sides.
“Fried okra and Carver’s potatoes.”
