Page 38 of DFF: Delicate Freakin' Flower

No.

I had no business being turned on right now, but the noises were not helping my current precarious hormonal balance.

I grabbed my gun from the shelf, ignoring the screaming protest of my bladder, and slowly crept toward the trees, following the sound like some wild-eyed idiot in a horror movie. If Maddox’s guys were here, we were screwed.

If something was happening to Gabby?—

A twig snapped under my foot, making me wince.

The moaning stopped, and I rounded the tree line, gun up, ready for the worst, and stopped dead.

Gabby was on a yoga mat in the clearing, bent in half, face serene, doing downward dog like it was a holy mission. A family of raccoons sat a few feet away, watching her like they were at a Broadway show.

She moved fluidly into cobra pose, stretched her arms, breathed in deep, and let out a softhumsound that might’ve sent a weaker man to his knees.

I stood there, half-aroused, half-panicked, blinking into the sunrise like I’d walked into some kind of fever dream. My gun was still in my hand, and my bladder was still demanding action.

Gabby looked up mid-pose, spotted me, and smiled.

“Morning,” she called, cheerful as hell. “You okay?”

I finally regained some of my cognitive functions. “I thought someone was being murdered.”

She tilted her head. “What? Why?”

“The noises.” I gestured helplessly. “The grunting and moaning. I?—”

“Oh, that’s just intensive yoga breathing.” She sat back into a seated pose, casually wiping sweat from her neck with a towel. “It helps with stress, flexibility, and digestion, apparently.”

I rubbed the back of my neck and then cracked it to relieve some tension. “Right.”

The raccoons chittered, one of them casually licking its paw like it, too, had been confused and slightly aroused.

I put the gun into the back of my shorts, turned slowly back toward the outhouse, and muttered, “I’m gonna go... not shoot anyone and reevaluate my life.”

Behind me, I heard her laugh, and God help me, it made me want to kiss her all over again.

Gabby

Webb came back from the outhouse looking like a man deeply and existentially rattled. He still had his gun in one hand, his expression unreadable, and he walked like someone who’d just stared into the abyss and hadn’t liked what stared back. I was mid-stretch, sinking into a sun-drenched warrior pose, when he stopped at the edge of my yoga mat. He stared at me as if I were doing something profoundly inappropriate. Though, to be fair, yoga poses in the right humidity and the wrong clothes could probably land someone in trouble. Especially when that someone was sweaty, breathing deeply, and wearing a sports bra that was currently fighting for its life.

“Are you okay?” I asked, shifting smoothly into a child’s pose, watching him through the corner of my eye. “You look like you just saw a ghost or a frog doing taxes.”

He didn’t answer right away, he just kept staring, but not at my face. His eyes weren't even close to that part of my body.

“You’re acting weird,” I informed him as I pushed myself up to sit on my knees.

“I’m not,” he replied, far too quickly to be convincing.

“You one hundred percent are.”

“I thought you were being attacked.”

“By what? Enlightenment?” I lifted my arms over my head in a slow stretch, letting the heat and the tension in my shoulders melt away. “You said my stress levels are high, and this helps.”

He nodded absently but still didn’t seem present. His gaze flicked away from mine and landed somewhere around the tree line like he was trying not to make eye contact with the sun.

I narrowed my eyes. “Okay, now I’m sure you’re acting weird.”

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