Page 9 of The Yoga Teacher

He was still good at this. He knew strategy. Knew people. Knew how to build a brand from nothing. But lately, it felt like knowing things wasn’t enough. Not when you weren’t the freshest voice in the room.

Not when your jokes didn’t land in the group chat.

Not when the playlist in the break room made you feel like someone’s dad.

After the meeting, he lingered at his desk, watching the TikTok clips Tristan had used. Teens lip-syncing, dancing in their kitchens. Everything ironic. Everything fast.

Daniel leaned back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his jaw.

Maybe his dad was right.

One day, you’re the guy calling the shots. The next, you’re the one being slowly phased out.

His phone buzzed. A notification from the yoga studio—he’d been moved off tonight’s waitlist. There was an opening in the 7pm class.

Sienna’s class.

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The taste of her was different.

Not familiar. Nothome.

Sienna’s fingers twisted in his hair, her thighs bracketing his head. The studio was dim, the only light coming from the flickering candles she’d lit before class, their golden light reflected in the mirrored walls.

Daniel feltalive. Hyper-aware.

Like he’d stepped outside himself, outside the version of him that belonged to Hannah—the one who went to work, kissed his wife, promised heralways.

This was proof. Proof that he still counted. That someone like him could still be wanted.

His heart was racing. He didn’t know how much was arousal, and how much was just adrenaline.

This wasn’t about his marriage or love or any of the things that had once felt so certain. This was abouthim. His body, his need.

He pulled back, rising up from his knees until he was kneeling between her splayed open legs. She handed him a condom and watched him ready himself, his cock lewdly jutting out from his workout clothes.

Then, Danieltookher.

There was no patience in it, no tenderness. Just their bodies rhythmically crashing together and the quiet, desperate sounds she made as he pushed her back onto the mat.

Sienna gasped, nails dragging against his shoulders.“God, yes—”

He could feel the press of her thighs around his waist, the dizzying heat of her.

He moved like a man trying to outrun something, like fucking her hard enough might erase the sinking weight in his chest, mightprovesomething—to himself, to the universe.

Sienna moaned, body arching against his, her fingers pressing into the curve of his spine.

Daniel didn’t close his eyes.

He didn’t want to see the flashes ofHannahbehind his lids, didn’t want to picture her lying in their bed, trusting, waiting.

So he kept them open.

Kept them locked on Sienna, on her pleasure, on the proof that he could still bealive, still benew, still be something other than the man afraid of turning thirty, of losing pieces of himself he couldn’t name.

He moved faster, thrusting inside her until he came with a groan against her throat, pressing his forehead to the slick heat of her shoulder.

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