Page 50 of Follow Me
Once he was back in his seat, he offered her a smile. “That’s a good sign.”
“I hope so.”
“You still have to work onyourrecovery, independent of his.”
“Yes, Sir.” She cradled her bare right wrist. “I will.” Where she was now was temporary.
It was starting to get easier to believe that, to see there was a future for her.
Hopefully a future with Kel.
* * * *
After her appointment, she headed to June’s studio. She was looking forward to this for a lot of reasons, including getting to see her friend.
When she arrived, she texted the group thread that she would be there for several hours before she headed inside.
June and May weren’t teaching at that moment, and they both hugged her when she walked into the lobby. “You made it,” June said. “I was hoping you would.”
“I’m looking forward to this.” After Mal changed, June took her over to the new studio space to show her the poles.
“I hope you don’t mind we won’t be alone for that class,” June said. “We’ll have Fen, Mads, and Ben, Jake’s hubby.”
Mal was pretty sure she’d met all of them through the club or the munches. “Okay.”
“Fen is amazing,” June said. “A natural, but he’s very bendy to start with and advanced with yoga. Mads had to take time off from lessons to recover from an emergency appendectomy. Ben’s only been at it a few weeks, but Jake’s a sadist and making him stick with it.”
“Ben doesn’t like doing it?”
June laughed. “He will once his muscles start cooperating. He’s still in theI don’t bend like that yetphase of learning.”
“Ah.”
They settled in the smallest yoga studio, which would normally hold about twelve students total, except Mal was the only one for this session. June started with warm-up exercises. Within five minutes, she was laughing.
“Okay, you’ve been keeping up with it, haven’t you?”
“Yeah. It was something I could do alone in my room that was gentle on me. I hated not having time to myself. I felt like I was always under surveillance. If Kel was there, then he was—” Mal caught herself. “Sorry.” She took a deep breath and let it out. “I need to work on staying grounded in the moment and focused on it.”
“Well, let’s see what you’ve got, sweetie.” June worked with her, taking her into advanced moves and correcting her positions as they went. The basics Mal had easily remembered while in Tampa, but some of these more advanced poses she’d skipped doing. By the time Mads arrived first, Mal was ready for a break and ate a power bar she’d brought with her as her snack.
When she finally headed home two hours later, her stomach was actually grumbling despite the rest of her body feeling tired and achy in really good ways.
She’d had fun with the pole-dancing class. While she definitely wasn’t as good as Fen or Mads, Mal had inwardly snickered a little that Ben playfully grumbled that even she was better than him for her very first lesson.
Mal had bruises on her arms and legs from the pole, her first case of pole burn from slipping…
And she had spent the past couple of hours blissfully free of dark mental mumblings from deep within her brain.
As soon as she arrived home she texted the group chat that she was working on eating. She was a little late now, but they assured her she was fine because she’d already warned them about the class.
Then she put the phone in speaker mode and called Kel while she prepped her dinner.
* * * *
Kel snatched the phone off his desk. “Hey, sweetheart.”
“Hi, Sir. Sorry, I just got home, I need to eat.”
