CHAPTER ELEVEN
Chapter 10
Trying Something New
Maggie
“I’m supposed to do what with my hands?”
I look at the long piece of silk in my hand and then follow it up to where it’s hanging from the 30 foot ceiling. When Char messaged me asking if I wanted to hang out with her today I was defiantly not expecting to be doing aerial dance. You know that thinging where you hang twenty feet in the air with nothing but silk and your own muscles holding you up?
Looking around I have to admit this is the perfect place for it. Another section of Mike’s gym, specifically designed for aerialists. It’s in the back part of the gym facing the Lake. It has floor to ceiling windows lining the whole back wall facing the gym and the rest of it consists of mirrored walls, exposed brick and steel beams. The thick mats on the floor do nothing to help my anxiety about falling to my death.
Or busting my ass.
Now don’t get me wrong, aesthetically this place looks really cool, looking around the place seems almost unreal. With the long aerial silks hanging in different stations , in different colors, around the room. With the giant windows and the lake back drop it’s almost like your doing this outside. Your still hanging from the ceiling with nothing keeping you from falling and busting your head open, so my understanding of this is very limited.
Why can’t people just keep their feet on the ground?
Char comes up to me and starts to reach for my hands holding the aerial silk when she stops about two inches before touching me and looks at me, silently asking for my permission. For some reason that consideration makes my throat thick and my eyes sting. I give her a shaky nod and she adjust my hands on the silk showing me how to keep one hand straight holding the silk and then keep the hand directly under it holding the silk slightly turned for better handling. Once I’m situated she goes back to her own silk across from me and gets into position. She does it so naturally it almost looks like second nature. She looks over at the instructor as she comes in and then back at me giving me an encouraging smile.
It’s been almost a week since we had coffee and I met Max, her brother. She said she didn’t tell me before I went in because she honestly hadn’t known. She apologized profusely about it and then reassured me there was nobody better to make me feel safe and secure with my self than Max. Despite the fact that her brother terrified me for the simple reason I didn’t like the way he was making me feel, I had come to adore Char.
She was one of those genuinely good people, with a huge heart, and an infectious smile. We were becoming fast friends but were still in that kind of new friend period where you were still figuring each other out. Looking up at the ceiling and then following the silk down to where the end of it laid curled on the floor I closed my eyes and swallowed hard. I had no clue figuring out a friendship could be so dangerous. I open my eyes when the instructor drops her water bottle on the floor by the silk at the front of the room and turns toward us smiling. Here we go.
“Ok I’m Denise, you can all call me Dee, and I know most of you are new but I see a couple of next levels in here so what we are going to do today is the basics. Those of you who I know have over twenty sessions if you will go around and help those who are brand new that would be great. The first 20 minutes is going to be spent doing strengthening poses to help you and your body kind of get accustomed to using certain muscles and get you warmed up. Next we will do 20 minutes of stretching poses to get you limber and flexible. The last 20 minutes will be spend in inversions and savasana. During that time we will be meditating and trying to find balance within ourselves so try to remain silent during that time, but by no means feel like you can’t ask a question if you need to. Now lets get started shall we?”
Over the next hour something amazing happened. I found this new kind of peace. Usually I am so anxiety ridden that yoga, mediation and running are my outlets. This was something else entirely. I learned how to climb up the silks using nothing but the strength of my own body and the stability of the silks. It was incredible. Don’t get me wrong it was defiantly a workout but it was also unbelievable freeing. By the end of the hour I was hooked. For the first time, in longer than I can remember, I was calm. Completely present and just zen. I never really thought of the meaning behind that word much, Zen, but I totally got it after that class. During the class I felt weightless and with each new stretch or pose I felt more and more of the outside world fall away. When Dee took us over to the Silk Hammocks in a connecting room to do the last twenty minutes in Savasana I was had no idea what to expect but it was like floating in a silk cocoon.
The silk hammocks are just silks where both ends are stabilized at the ceiling creating this kind of cradle. The room was smaller, lined with mirrors and the wall with the door was all glass looking out into the larger area with the hanging silks. It felt like once we were in those cocoons that the world just fell away. It felt calm and safe. I mean who wouldn’t feel all warm and fuzzy after flying around a room then hanging out in a floating silk cradle?
Walking out of the studio with my water bottle I was waiting for Char to come out of the locker room when I looked over and saw none other than the star in most of my day dreams this week, Max.
He stomped over to his truck, threw his gym back in and climbed into the cab. He sat there a minute and then leaned his head back and closed his eyes. He seemed frustrated and don’t ask me why I thought the grouchy look on his face was cute. Considering all the muscles and tattoos on the man I don’t think it was really possible for him to be cute, but that’s what he looked like.
Grumpy and cute.
Just when I was about to turn around and go back inside he opened his eyes and then locked right on to me. Suddenly, all that boneless calm that had filled me up not a minute before was gone, filled with nervous energy and unbelievable awareness. We stared at each other through the windshield of his truck for what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, when the corner of his mouth kicked up in half smile and he climbed out of his truck and made his way over to me.
By the time he got to me, having had those baby blue eyes focused so intensely on me had made me jumpy and very very hot. Which I was dutifully trying to ignore.
Where the hell was Char when you needed her?
“What are you doing here Maggie?”
Clearing my throat I opened my mouth to answer when Char came out of the side door and spotted us.
“Hey! There you are. Sorry it took so long I was trying to find the schedule for the aerial yoga class they do with the hammocks. They were out so Dee printed us both a copy. The regular aerial silks classes are on the bottom too.”
She looks up from the papers and hands me one seeming to just realize her brother is standing there and thankfully doesn’t notice I’m practically melting into a puddle at his feet.
“Hey bro, what are you doing here?”
Looking at the paper with the classes on it I was relieved to be able to break eye contact and apparently release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. Looking over the schedule I’m trying to figure out how to read again because all I can feel is Max’s gaze on me. It’s making my brain fuzzy. What is it with this man?
“Just got finished working out with Deck. I was just leaving when I saw Maggie here. You guys did Dee’s aerial silks class? How did you like it Maggie?”
I figured I had spent a normal amount of time trying and failing to read the schedule in my hand, so I folded it up and put it in the back pocket of my gym bag. Looking up at him I felt a small smile come over my face at the thought of the class I had just come from.
“It was amazing. It felt kind of like flying and while you were up there you let everything else fall away.”
“That’s exactly what it felt like my first time doing it. It just gets better the more experienced you are at it because you can do unbelievable things. Anyways, I’m going to go to the aerial yoga class tomorrow if you want to check that out. We use the hammocks all the way through for that class. I think its early though, around 8 in the morning.”
We started making our way over from the door as more people came out and headed toward Max’s truck.“I definantly want to check it out. I can meet you here again?”
“Yeah that works, Max has to come in to do paperwork for Mike in the morning so I’ll hitch a ride.”
“Oh you will huh?”
Looking back at Max I saw him looking at his sister with this little smile on his face and his eyes filled with amusement as he grabs Char’s gym bag and throws it in the back seat next to his. Reaching over Char punches him in the arm before climbing into the front passenger seat of the cab.
“You will and you will love every minute of driving your baby sister around. See you tomorrow Maggie.”
“See ya.”
I wave at Char and glanced over at Max and gave a little wave before I turn around and head toward my car. I don’t get very far when I hear Max call my name. Turning around I see he is still standing next to the passenger side door of his truck.
“After you finish with Yoga in the morning I have a couple of free hours. Why don’t I show you some boxing moves? We can try some stuff out and if you like it we can continue with boxing before getting into more complicated martial arts training?”
Okay, Im not going to lie. Ever since I saw Max in his truck my heart has defiantly been beating faster than normal, but just the thought of me and him being alone together has all kinds of awareness firing in my body and my heart beating so loud Im surprised he can’t hear it across the parking lot. All of which has me wanting to run as fast and as far as possible, but instead I find myself nodding my head.
It’s then that his smile goes from small and amused to full on mega-watt million dollar smile and I literally feel the butterflies flying double time in my stomach. Damn the effect this man has on me.
I stand there and watch as he leans back agains the side of the truck and looks at me like he is waiting for something else. It takes me a minute before I realize I’m standing at my car and just staring at him for no reason what-so-ever. As soon as I realize it I feel my face heat up and that smile turns into a full on smirk as he winks at me. Turning around I’m thankful my keys are clipped to the outside of my bag so all I have to do is press the button and get in. Pressing the start button on my car I look up through the windshield and see Max wave to me. I wave back, only to realize my hand never made it up over the dashboard so really I’m just waving to myself here. Before I can be any more of nerd I put on my seatbelt, back out of my parking space and pull out of the parking lot onto Main Street without looking back at hime once.
Damn was that hard
That man is anything but difficult to look at, but I do not need to feed his ego by drooling over him as well.
Shaking my head as I drive back toward my house I get the distinct feeling that I am in over my head with Max. Letting out a long sigh I decide to save the analyzing for my therapy session in an hour and just enjoy the fact that for once, in well over a year, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow. No less terrified of Max and all the new things happening around me, but I’m excited too. Something I really thought I had forgotten how to do, get excited about something. Here’s hoping it doesn’t end in disaster. Like everything else in my life.