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He nodded. “Sure, Fiona. Anything.”
I bit my lip and looked just over his shoulder so I didn’t have to look him in the eye when I asked what I needed to ask. “Um… I couldn’t help noticing that your…suit…is very…thin in the back. Do you know that your butt shows through it?”
He laughed so loud that it startled me. I stepped back and clasped my hand to my chest, but Luis just kept laughing. When he managed to calm himself down, he rested his hand on my shoulder and grinned. “I do know that my butt shows through it. That’s the way it’s made. So often when you’re settling into certain stretches, it’s natural for flatulence to occur. I created these suits to allow air to flow freely without any hindrances. Most of the yogis here wear them now. I could get you a suit if you’d like?”
“No!” I shook my head and giggled into my hand. “No, thank you. I don’t think yoga is really for me.”
Someone called his name from up the trail and he slowly backed away from me. “We’ll talk about that. For now, you all should meditate and journal. Breakfast is at seven-thirty sharp. See you all there.”
I waited until he was a good ways up the trail before I rushed back over to the guys. I could barely get the words out as laughter threatened to choke me but I managed. “It’s for farting. The naked butt situation is for farting during yoga. He said a lot of the people here wear them.”
Sebastian’s mouth dropped open. “You’re joking.”
I shook my head. “For farts. Oh, my god. This is what I’m going to journal about today.”
Sebastian sank back onto his mat and stared up at the sky. “Napping can be meditative, right? Maybe if I sleep for a minute, I’ll pretend none of this is happening.”
I sat on my mat and pulled out the journal Luis had given me. I wagged it at the guys and smirked. “Don’t you want to grow exponentially this weekend? You’d better journal your feelings.”
Ryder grunted. “Pretty sure my publicist and lawyer would advise against me writing down my current feelings.”
I looked up at him. “You should journal about that.”
All three of them groaned and sat by while I journaled. I didn’t write about Luis’s fart suit but only because my mind was preoccupied with the amount of muscles on display. I was afraid it was reading more like an erotic short story than a journal, but I couldn’t help myself. I’d never been around so much man candy.
An actual dinner bell rang to let us know it was time for breakfast and we each rolled up our yoga mats and headed down the trail to the dining hall. The mid-sized room was packed with three long dining tables and more people than I expected to see. There was tension in the air as eyes around the room focused on my cabin mates and awareness of who they were occurred. I tried to separate myself from them to avoid the scrutiny but the guys all stuck to me like glue. Where I went, they went.
They were there as I ate a barely edible breakfast of egg whites and spinach and they were there as I used our hour of personal time to go back to the cabin and drop off my mat. They even trailed behind me as I headed towards the first workshop of the weekend. Despite their grumbling and overall bad moods, they didn’t try to get out of the rest of the activities.
I was even the first to crack during that first workshop. The guys went into the group setting unresponsive but quickly warmed up. It was the exact opposite for me. After hearing what we were going to do, I wanted to run out of there like my non-airflow-friendly pants were on fire.
Too bad I was trapped between Jake and Sebastian with Mallory’s money on the line.
5
***Fiona***
Meg, the instructor of the Naming the Trauma workshop, had bright red hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. Her freckles made me want to trust her but her words made me want to throat punch her before sprinting away. “This isn’t going to be easy. The first thing we have to do to start this experience is name where our issues are coming from. You’re all parents. You all have a responsibility to not only yourself, but your children. Ignoring our trauma is how we create and continue cycles. Unhealthy cycles. I’m going to challenge you right now to do something that is probably going to hurt. Think about the big T, the big trauma that brought you here. I know it probably feels huge. I know it isn’t going to be easy to do this next part, but I need you to compress that trauma into one single sentence. One sentence to sum up maybe your worst time in life. Tell me everything I need to know in that sentence.”
A woman across the circle laughed uneasily. “Can it be a run-on sentence?”
Meg smiled. “Be as precise as possible.”
I glanced around as the other guests around the circle started writing. My stomach clenched and I swallowed the sour feeling at the back of my throat. I knew what my trauma was, of course. I knew why I’d avoided serious relationships for nearly seven years. I just didn’t want to write it down and stare at the words in a room full of people.
“Ms. Fiona? I promise this will be helpful.” Meg had somehow appeared at my side and her warm smile might’ve been comforting if the sound of pencils scratching over paper wasn’t filling the room.
Jake reached over and tapped my knee with his pencil. “You’re going to let me win?”
I narrowed my eyes at him and straightened my shoulders. The competitiveness I felt towards him wasn’t enough to goad me into writing my deepest, darkest secret, but that and Meg’s expectant eyes were. I scribbled the words that I’d repeated in my head a million times and then clutched the paper in my fist. “Fine.”
Meg stood in the middle of the circle and clapped her hands together. “Okay. I want everyone to name it for real now. We’re going to stand up and read our sentences out one at a time. I’ll go first to get you warmed up.”
I held up my hand instantly. “Wait. We have to read them out loud?”
“Yes. I know it’s scary, but everyone is going to make themselves vulnerable in this space. This is part of the process.” Meg closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I cheated on my wife after being married for ten years and I broke apart my family.”
Silence screamed throughout the room, each second of it like a knife of awkwardness going all over me until it punctured my ears. Meg smiled serenely and gestured to the woman right in front of her. The woman looked just as panicked as I felt.
