And yet Bryan hung in there with the best of them, tackling each pose with seemingly no effort. Even the moves most men struggled with, like dancer, where they had to clasp their ankle behind them and then raise it to shoulder height, he managed as if he knew exactly what he was doing.
Because he did.
“Liar,” Ana hissed at him as they transitioned into the next pose and back to the vinyasa: lowering to plank, through to cobra, and then back to down dog.
He turned his head and grinned at her. “Shh. I’m concentrating. This yoga stuff is hard.”
She stuck her tongue out. “I hate you.”
Miranda frowned at them from the front of the class.
Not only did Bryan not have any difficulty with a class that Ana was panting and sweating through, but when they moved to arm balances, the teacher actually called him out for demonstration of eight-angle pose, a particularly difficult asana that Ana had been struggling with for at least a year.
“Watch how he—what’s your name?”
“Bryan.”
“Watch how Bryan transitions into this pose. See how he positions his knee behind his right shoulder?”
Ana watched all right as he managed the pose with ease, balancing forward on his palms, legs twined to the side around his right arm as if he defied gravity, strong, fluid, graceful. He was gorgeous, in a sense of the word she usually reserved for ballet dancers and gymnasts. Why did this surprise her? After all, wasn’t climbing basically vertical yoga? She wiped her forehead, feeling silly that she’d thought she was going to show off for him, then bent forward to make her own attempt at it again.
And promptly collapsed on her shoulder.
Bryan immediately unwound himself and crouched beside her. “You okay?”
“Yeah, nothing bruised but my ego,” she muttered. And then they were moving on in the class, inversions that of course he handled with aplomb.
When they said their final namaste and bowed to their teacher, Ana just sat there, exhausted and sweating. She cracked an eye open at Bryan. “I think you’ve been holding out on me.”
He had the grace to look abashed. “In my defense, you never actually asked if I’d done yoga before.”
“You could have volunteered!”
He shrugged, but a little smile played on his lips. “I wanted to see the shocked look on your face when you found out I wasn’t a total klutz.”
“I should have known.” Ana wiped down her mat and began rolling it up into a little cylinder. Bryan stood up to retrieve the spray cleaner and a rag and wiped down his own borrowed mat.
“When did you start?”
“A couple of years ago, when I was getting injured a lot. Another climber recommended that I take up yoga to balance out my strengths and weaknesses and I kind of liked it.”
She looked at him and shook her head. “You are full of surprises.”
“So are you. Geez. Standing splits?”
Now Ana smiled. “You’re trying to make me feel better.”
“Is it working?”
She laughed. “Yeah.”
Ana excused herself to the bathroom, where she saw she looked just as sweaty, flushed, and disheveled as she feared. When she returned, Bryan was talking to the instructor and a petite blonde girl who, were it physically possible, would have had little cartoon hearts in her eyes as she gazed up at him.
“That’s so fascinating. So you don’t climb anymore?”
Bryan caught Ana’s eye. “No, not anymore. If you’ll excuse me, I need to go. Thank you for the class, Miranda.”
“Any time. Visit us again.”
Ana didn’t miss the way their gazes followed him until the very moment he pulled his shirt back on.
And then he placed a hand on her bare, sweaty waist, bent down, and kissed her lightly. “Ready to go, sweetheart?”
Warmth bloomed in her chest. He didn’t need to make the point that he was taken, but he had. “Yeah, I am.” She thanked Miranda on the way out, feeling daggers from Heart-Eyed Girl, and took a deep breath the minute they hit the cool outside air. “So that was fun.”
“It was. Or are you being sarcastic?”
“A little of both.” She paused for a second. “Are you hungry? I was thinking about getting a smoothie. We passed a juice bar on the way.”
“Of course we did.”
She frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just that it’s a very California thing to do. Especially after hot yoga.”
“Oh yeah, because Denver is so lacking in yoga and smoothies. Says the hipster.”
“Take it back.”
“If the astavakrasana fits . . .”
“I think yoga is mainstream enough that it proves I am, in fact, not a hipster.”
“Yeah, except you did it before it was cool.”
He pretended to think. “You may be right. Should I keep growing my hair? How would I look with a man bun?”
“You’ll never know because I’m going to sneak in and cut your hair while you sleep.”
“Okay, no man bun, then?”
Ana laughed. “Please don’t.”
He let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulder so she had to walk closer to him. “Have I ever told you that I think you’re amazing?”
“Um, where is this coming from exactly? Because I won’t let you wear a bad hairstyle?”
“No, because there’s pretty much nothing you can’t do. You’re beautiful, smart, athletic, beautiful . . .”
“You said beautiful twice.”
“I know. I would have said smart twice if you hadn’t interrupted me.”
Ana giggled, and the giggle kept going until it turned into a full-fledged laugh. Maybe it was tiredness or maybe it was just him, but nothing ever seemed so bad with Bryan around. When was the last time she’d just laughed for no reason?
“You’re punchy.”
“And you’re really good at this yoga thing.”
“Thank you.”
“I can only imagine what you’re like climbing. I mean, I saw the video, but I bet you’re amazing.”
Apparently, the workout and the admiration had left him in a good mood, because rather than immediately shutting her down, he shrugged. “Just because you’re good at something and you used to do it doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.” He paused, his expression mock-thoughtful. “Maybe I’ll become a yoga instructor.”
“Teach shirtless and you’ll pack out every class.” Ana flushed furiously as soon as the words left her mouth. She’d obviously sweated out her filter.
“Is that a fact?”
“It is a fact and you know it. But back to the climbing . . . if you have no intention of going back, why do you keep this up?”
“So I can impress girls, of course.” She narrowed her eyes at him, and he chuckled. “Maybe I like it for its own sake. And maybe I just like having something for myself that I don’t tell anyone about.”
“Not even Alex?”
“Not even Alex, though he probably suspects because he’s seen my yoga mat in the car.”
“What else don’t we know about you?”
“Hmm. I don’t eat seafood unless Rachel cooks it.”
She blinked up at him. “What?”
“Got sick in Mexico once, won’t eat it at restaurants anymore. I trust Rachel, though, so I’ll eat it when she makes it.”
Ana thought. “That just seems like plain good sense to me. I don’t eat a lot of things unless Rachel cooks them.”
“You’re saying I have to do better? Then . . . I like foreign films.”
Now she pulled away and stared up at him. “No.”
“Yes, seriously. An old date was trying to make me more ‘cultured’ and introduced me to all these great Italian and French films. They’re weird, but I like them. The Spanish stuff is the best because I don’t have to read the subtitles.”
“So let me get this straight. You own a coffee farm and roast your own beans. You do yoga. An
d you watch foreign films.”
“When you put it that way . . .”
“Sorry. Gotta say it. Hipster.”
Bryan swiped at her, but she dodged out of his way and darted down the empty sidewalk, running as fast as she could toward the strip mall ahead. It didn’t take long for him to outpace her, given the difference in their strides, and he caught her around the waist. She didn’t put up a struggle, just let him turn her around toward him. He didn’t kiss her, though, just looked seriously into her eyes. “I love you, Ana.”
She blinked. “Why?” The word spilled out before she could think of a better response.
“Because you’re exactly who you want to be. You say what you want, do what you want, regardless of what anyone else thinks. I admire that sort of honesty. I kind of thought I was the only person who went through life that way. It’s not easy, but it’s freeing.”
He couldn’t have said anything that would have made her feel worse. She swallowed hard and disentangled herself from his embrace. “I think you probably have the wrong impression of me, Bryan. I am the last person you should be calling honest. Look what I do for a living.”
He shrugged. “You think half of what’s been written about me in interviews is true? I mean, it’s kind of true, but people tend to draw their own conclusions. But there’s a big difference between public life and private life. This . . .” He waved a hand up and down to indicate, she imagined, her disheveled, out-of-breath, sweaty appearance. “This is the real you. Who falls out of eight-angle pose and tries again. Who almost sprains her eyeballs trying not to ogle the hot specimen of manhood right next to her in class.”
Ana’s mouth dropped open and she smacked him in the arm. “I did not!”
“You were totally checking out my chaturanga.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Okay, I was. Come on. I’m hungry.” She pulled him into the smoothie shop, which turned out to be more of a healthy café, though the buzz of high-speed blenders spoke to the accuracy of its name.
Fifteen minutes later, they both walked out with small Styrofoam cups of smoothies—orange-mango for her and coffee-cacao for him—and egg-white wraps. The foot traffic had begun to pick up along the street now, and they had to dodge people walking dogs as they ate silently side by side. Deep down, though, his words had left a niggling sense of disquiet. He thought she was so honest and transparent, even after discounting what she did for a living.
He had no idea she’d been lying to them all.
Chapter Twenty-Six
BRYAN COULDN’T HELP BUT be nervous as he showered and changed to get ready to go to Ana’s family’s home. This morning had been fun, if for no other reason than to show off a little and get in a workout, but he could tell that Ana was seeing him in a new light. Just not a different-enough light to say that she loved him.
Maybe she didn’t. He’d said it twice now, once in her apartment when he’d volunteered to come with her and once this morning, and she’d gotten uncomfortable both times. She should know him well enough by now to know he wasn’t saying it to ramp up the physical intimacy of their relationship, and she should know equally well that he wasn’t a sappy guy by nature. Which left only one possibility—she didn’t feel the same way.
And yet sometimes, he’d catch her looking at him with an expression that made him sure she was in love with him too.
He shook his head and tried to push out the thoughts. It was so much easier when there weren’t any real feelings involved. Vivian had taught him that. But the three years between bookended heartbreaks had also taught him that avoiding feelings just made him . . . less. Shallow. Maybe even untrustworthy. He never wanted to be that guy again. Every day he got up trying to prove he was that person no longer.
Ana, on the other hand . . . there had been something in her eyes when he told her how much he admired her honesty that reminded of him of an animal, frightened and trapped. Was that him projecting based on her instant demurral, or was she really hiding something?
He dismissed the thought. This was Ana he was talking about. She was the most together and up-front of any person he’d ever met, not to mention straitlaced. Anything she was hiding had to be the equivalent of stealing a candy bar from a convenience store when she was nine.
Best that he focus on proving himself to her parents so they approved of their relationship. He combed his hair neatly and trimmed his facial hair, which was somewhere between “forgot to shave” and full beard, but Ana had specifically told him not to change it, so he wouldn’t. He slipped on slim-cut dark jeans and a crisp blue button-down shirt, just formal enough to say he took the occasion seriously, casual enough for what he understood to be the Southern California dress code. He considered showing up downstairs in his flip-flops as a joke, but instead, he pulled out the suede Oxfords and a pair of funky socks, this time cats on surfboards.
Oh man. He really was turning into a hipster.
He pushed off that unfortunate realization, snapped on his single nice watch, and shoved his wallet in his pocket. Ready. For anything. He hoped.
Ana was already waiting in the lobby, tapping away on the keyboard of her cell phone. She looked up when she saw him, her mouth rounding into an O. “You look great.”
“So do you.” The white floral sundress displayed her tanned shoulders and arms, the deep V and tight waist accentuating her beautiful figure. A pair of low-heeled strappy sandals showed off a robin’s-egg-blue pedicure that he’d missed during the yoga class. Her hair was caught back in a long fishtail braid, making her look casual and relaxed and much younger than her age. He wanted desperately to kiss her, but she’d already applied some glossy pink lipstick, so instead he took her hand. “Are we walking or Ubering it?”
“Neither.” She held up her phone. “My sister Marisol is coming to pick us up.”
“Marisol.” Bryan racked his brain, but he couldn’t remember if she’d actually told him all her siblings’ names. “Which one is she?”
“The nurse. The next oldest. She’s also the least likely to give you the third degree. She’s married to a white guy, so she’s been through the whole routine herself.”
Bryan paused. That was an aspect of the trip he hadn’t even considered. “Is that likely to be a problem?”
“Oh no. I just mean that you’ll have another ‘outsider’ to talk to at the party. Her husband has picked up a few words of Tagalog but not enough to figure out what’s going on when the older folks get going.” She nudged his arm. “Wait, are you getting nervous?”
“Since you just called me an outsider? A little.”
“Don’t worry, it’s not a bad thing.” Before he could ask her how being an outsider could not be a bad thing, she perked up, pointing through the hotel’s glass doors at a white Toyota Camry that had stopped out front. “There she is. Come on.”
They were approaching the car when the driver stepped out. Bryan blinked for a moment. She wouldn’t have had to tell him they were sisters: Marisol had the same long, thick black hair, the same nose, the same high cheekbones as Ana. But she was several inches taller and clothed in green scrubs.
“Ana!” she squealed, rushing to the curb and throwing her arms around her sister. “You’re here!”
They did the little hoppy-happy thing that long-separated girls tended to do upon reunions, looking each other over and commenting on new hairstyles, weight loss, and manicures. Then finally Ana turned his direction. “Mari, this is my boyfriend, Bryan.”
The word boyfriend gave his insides a jolt like an electric charge. They’d danced around the whole relationship-definition thing, but this was the first time she’d ever introduced him as such. He liked it. A lot.
“Hi, Marisol.” Bryan held out his hand, but she went in straight for the hug.
“It’s so good to meet you, Bryan.” She stepped back and looked him up and down, then shot a grin at Ana that clearly conveyed approval.
“It’s nice to meet you, too. Here, I’ll sit in the back so you
can talk.” He ignored their objections and climbed into the backseat of the sedan.
“I can’t believe you actually came,” Marisol said when she pulled out of the hotel parking lot onto the street. “We were taking bets on whether or not you’d be able to get away from work.”
“Miss Daddy’s sixty-fifth? Never.”
“Well, you missed Mom’s sixtieth, because of . . . what? Some tire emergency.”
“It wasn’t a tire emergency; it was a product liability issue . . .” Ana broke off. “Yeah, it was a tire emergency.”
“Well, you should know that Mom has been praying loudly for you to rethink your career choices. She wants me to tell you it’s not too late to go into nursing.”
Ana rolled her eyes. “Last time it was web design like Helena. Her company still doing well? Last time I talked to her, she had just gotten that big studio contract.”
“Oh yeah. We barely see her. She’s almost as busy as you.”
Bryan kept waiting for Ana to say something about her leave of absence, but when she fell silent, he took it as an opportunity to insert a question. “Marisol, where do you work?”
“Providence St. Joseph. Oncology.” She flipped a look over her shoulder at him. “I switched shifts today so I could come pick you guys up. And please, call me Mari. Everyone else does.”
“Okay, Mari. Are all the siblings going to be here?”
“Oh, you bet. I just picked Bettina up at the airport. She’s a senior at UVA, but we flew her in for the weekend. Helena and Jacqueline live in the area, so they’re driving up this afternoon.”
“Married?” Bryan asked. Now that he was here, he realized how little Ana actually talked about her family.
“Jackie and I are. Helena and Ana are still the holdouts, which of course you’re going to hear all about. Brace yourself.” But the way she said it was playful and not ominous.
“Don’t worry, I don’t scare easily. I’m an only child, so my mom has been hinting hard for grandchildren for about ten years.”
“But you resisted?”
“Took me a while to find the right woman, I guess.”
Mari caught his eye in the rearview mirror, looking pleased by the statement, but he saw how Ana just turned to look out the window. Flattered, embarrassed, or something else? Well, he certainly wasn’t going to pretend that his feelings were casual, especially not around her family. They should know that she was important to him.
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