“Breathe in,” instructed Ana, the yoga teacher, in Spanish.

My heels reached the floor as I extended my tailbone up to the sky, my hands pressed firmly in the ground.

Downward dog.

Inverted, I cast my eyes between my legs behind me to see Trent, wearing basketball shorts and a T-shirt, folded over in half.

He was more flexible than I thought he’d be. Guess I’d figured a soldier was all brawn and no give. But Trent had plenty of give.

I was proud of him. He’d emailed the therapist in California, Marie Thrash, and set up a Skype call with her. Today, he’d joined me at the yoga studio by his hostel, which was the place I’d been going to since I got to Granada.

Lifting his head up, he caught my eye and smiled, messy, sexy hair falling into his eyes.

Damn.

“Breathe,” said Ana.

Light filled the bright room. I’d brought my own yoga mat, while he’d borrowed one. Our bare feet tied us to the floor as we moved through the poses.

Something about practicing yoga always hit me deep inside. As much as I traveled, I always knew I had my body to come home to no matter where I was in the world. If I could stay with myself, then I always could rely on myself. And I’d be okay.

But normally it was a solitary practice. With Trent right there behind me, I knew he was watching my body, and it distracted me. Before, I’d be so into my body, my breathing, that I wouldn’t focus on anything except the challenging pose.

Today, I wondered what he thought. If he liked looking at me. And enjoyed watching him, knowing how beautiful he was inside and out.

So, once again, he was distracting me from class. Only this time, I wasn’t the teacher, and we both were learning.

I’d catch his eye and follow his moves, checking out his strong legs anchored into the ground. Those legs, built and defined, made me think of how much he’d changed since he was a kid.

But even more delicious than his legs were his arms. The way veins in his forearms popped out when he held himself up. The structural form of his arms. And I knew what it felt like to be held by them.

Best of all, though, was his face, relaxed and uplifted for the first time since I’d seen him. Given his downcast eyes and drawn shoulders before, I’d somehow known how much sorrow he’d been carrying when he came to me that first day of class.

Now, he seemed to get some relief. Not a hundred percent. But yoga seemed to alleviate his suffering. While he still had something dark in his eyes that hadn’t been there before, he also had a lightness in his smile that he hadn’t shown me to date in Spain.

At the end of the forty-five minute class, he came bounding up to me. “I loved that! It’s so challenging. Trying to get all the parts of your body aligned. I know that it must chill people out, but right now, I feel more energy than I have in weeks.”

“That’s awesome! Yoga can have all sorts of effects on people, from calming their central nervous system to helping them lose weight. I think you needed to get some energy flow going. This is great.”

Ana wandered over to us and asked in Spanish, “Are you two going to join us at our weekend yoga retreat in Nerja?”

“Yes,” I answered in Spanish. “It’s gonna be awesome.”

Trent tilted his head with his elbow on my shoulder, trying to understand. “What did she ask?”

“She wanted to know if we’re going to the yoga retreat. She’s part of the group that’s putting it on.”

He bounced on his toes and grabbed me by the waist, picking me up and spinning me around.

“I can’t wait!”

His bright-eyed enthusiasm was catching. Not only did a weekend away with him sound groovy, especially since we were spending so much time together, but we needed to be able to touch each other without looking over our shoulders. He’d told me that when he left my apartment once, a student saw him. We had to be more careful.

But it was so hard. In class, I kept wanting to smile at him. I had to school my face to stay normal, not giddy from having some of the best sex of my life, with the most handsome man I’d ever known.

I’d given them the assignment to translate parts of the body. Problem was, when Trent said anything, I found myself remembering what that specific part of the body looked like on him. His sexy elbow. His delicious, lickable neck. His muscular shoulders. And other parts that we didn’t discuss in class.

Hiding what I was feeling about him from the students had been a challenge. Because I was damned if I glanced at him and damned if I didn’t. He fared no better, since I was sure at one point he got hard, because I knew the expression in his eyes—wide pupils and unblinking gorgeousness. At least it was cooler this week than last, and at least the storm between us had broken.

Rolling up my yoga mat, I asked him, “Wanna go for a run? Get the barks out?”

He grinned, confused. “Get the barks out?”

“Remember? Degan used to say that a long time ago. He needed to go exercise to get out his energy.”

Something in his eyes clicked. A memory. “I remember. Yeah. Let’s go get the barks out. Tie your shoes, and we’ll go stash your mat.”

We hustled over to his room, which was closer than mine, dropped off my stuff, and then took off.

People bustled about on this tranquil day in Granada. Stylish men and women lounged at pretty tables, drinking coffee in outdoor cafes. Mothers pushed babies in strollers to go shopping. Ancianos, older people, sat on park benches under the leafy plane trees and chatted. All in all, a pleasant day. We jogged down to the huge park at the edge of town, Parque García Lorca.

“Let’s do a few laps around the park, and then keep going,” I huffed, moving my legs fast.

As we passed the sign to the entrance of the park, Trent asked, “I’ve been running here most days, but I don’t know who this is named after. Who was Federico García Lorca?”

“A poet. He was executed at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, rather tragically. It could have been because he was gay, or it could have been political. It’s a mystery. But he was so young, and his poetry was so beautiful. Like, ‘To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.’”

Trent rubbed a hand against his heart as he moved. “God, isn’t that the truth?”

“Or, ‘To see you naked is to recall the Earth.’”

He grinned. “I love that.”

We challenged each other as we ran. He was fast and in shape, but so was I. I just loved to run, I loved the way I didn’t feel like I got enough air, and I needed to move faster and faster.

Kind of like the way I ran from place to place. A modern nomad.

After circling the park laden with scented roses, we headed out along the perimeter of the tall, compact city.

“I haven’t been out here yet,” he said.

“Let’s go run around the bullring. Have you seen one yet?”

“A bullfight?”

“Yeah.”

“No. I haven’t even seen a bullring.”

Our feet hitting the pavement, we made our way to the large, circular bullring, painted white. Two entrances stood on either side of the ticket booths. One read, “Sol,” and one read “Sombra.”

“Why does it say that?” he asked, pointing.

“Because you can buy tickets and sit in the sun or sit in the shade. Your choice.”

He stopped running so fast I almost mowed him down. “Really?”

“It’s an ancient way of selling tickets. The ones in the sun cost less.”

Heaving with the exertion from running, he leaned over, inspecting the entrance. “Wow. I’d think they’d cost more.”

“Nope. It gets too hot in the sun.”

Bending his leg to stretch his hamstring, sweat pouring down his shirt, he said, with a far-off look in his eyes, “It’s so interesting. You can pick. You can live your life in the sun. Buy that ticket. Or you can buy a ticket to stay in the shade. But it’s your decision.”

“Right.”

Dropping to a plank position, he started doing push-ups. Easily. The muscles in his arms pushed and flexed. His shoulder blades met in his back, vigorous and bold.

“How many of those are you gonna do?” I asked.

“A lot.”

After seemingly doing a hundred of them, he bounced up, wiped off his hands, and started pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, animatedly pointing at the bullring. “It’s not for you to complain about sitting in the sun if you buy a ticket there. You’re the one who chose that course of action.”

I latched on to what he was talking about. “But sometimes things happen to us that we don’t plan on. Sometimes the Universe has greater plans for us than we even know.”

Gazing down at me, he said, “I agree. But you can still decide which ticket to buy, and how you’re gonna react.” He touched my nose. “You, Dani, you’re always buying a ticket in the sun. You want to experience everything.”

“I do.”

“I think I accidentally bought one in the shade, and I want a refund.”

A flutter in my belly rose up, making me whisper, “I’ll share my seat in the sun with you. You can have it, and I’ll sit on your lap.”

He bent down and kissed me. “Thanks.”

We stared at the entrance, which had the ripped remnants of old bullfighting advertisements plastered to the side. “Want to keep going?” I asked. But no, he was still fascinated by the bullring.

“In a minute. What do you think of bullfighting? Do you think it’s barbaric? Killing an animal for sport?”

“No. I don’t. I think it’s just part of Spanish culture. Who am I to judge? I’m an outsider. I know there are plenty of critics in Spain, especially among the younger generation. But I don’t feel like that’s up to me.”

His mouth fell open. “I figured you’d be campaigning against it. Animal cruelty or something.”

“True. I’m not a fan, but I don’t have to go. I guess I forgive the Spanish for being Spanish.”

“You allow them to be themselves?”

“Yeah.”

And I wished that I could forgive myself for being myself. For my last words to Degan.

But those weren’t something you could forgive.

The sun in our eyes, the warm breeze on our skin, and sweat dripping down our backs, we stood in front of the bullring a moment more. Then he turned to me and asked, “You still have barks in you?”

“Yep.”

“Then let’s keep going.”

* * *

Trent pressed me against the shower wall as he thrust into me, water inundating our bodies, mouth ravaging mine. My legs circled his torso, and I held on tight. We joined in union in his little bathroom down the hall, after we snuck down separately so that no one would see us.

“Don’t ever stop fucking me,” I breathed. “Don’t. Stop.”

But it was more than fucking. It was asserting that I was his. That he was living, now. That he wanted to experience everything. Everything. He wasn’t wasting time. He wasn’t hiding in the shade. And while ironically we had to tiptoe into the room, he was saying it loud and clear: we were together. He demanded it. And I demanded it right back.

My mouth latched onto his shoulder. One hand of his under my ass propped me up, supported by the wall. The other hand circled my nipple, as he filled me up from the inside, infinite pleasure, all the attention of the cosmos here. Now.

Water washing off sweat. Bodies linking. And finding each other.

I came so hard I lost all sense of time, my body quivering with the release. He followed soon after, licking my lips, holding me up, and then washing me clean.

That night I slept at his hostel in his twin bed, so connected that we were one.

* * *

My phone buzzed the next morning with a text from Lulu.

Girl. You alive? Or you getting in trouble? Check in.

I texted her back. I am, in the best way possible.

She gave me the eye roll emoji and a heart. Mr. Trouble is that good, huh?

I laughed out loud and ignored her question. Coffee soon?

Count on it.