A Kind of Honesty Read online

  “Let’s go.” He opened the glass door and ushered me inside. At the last second, he turned back to give me a serious stare. “Just remember to breathe.”

  The reception area was typical of nicer workout facilities, except it smelled like a spa instead of a gym. The curved front desk and the long wall of shelving behind it were a deep mahogany that contrasted with the pale walls. Black-and-white photos of rocks, rivers, and trees hung throughout the small space. I wanted to roll my eyes at this Zen haven on a busy avenue in New York City, but no one here would appreciate my cynicism. The clientele hovering near the desk and outside the studio’s glass windows looked like serious aficionados in their expensive yoga gear, carrying brightly colored mats and designer water canteens. What they didn’t look like was a group of beginners.

  “Tim, I want you to meet Greg. He’s our instructor this morning.”

  I turned back to Carter, who was standing next to a tall, dark, muscular god with longish, wavy hair and a sleeve tattoo on his left arm. The guy was beautiful, and I couldn’t help thinking Carter and he made a nice-looking couple. Of course the moment the thought materialized, I decided I hated Greg. I gave him a halfhearted smile and quickly decided I hated yoga too. This was going to be a disaster.

  “Nice to meet you, Tim. I understand this is your first time. Do you have any injuries I should know about? Shoulders? Wrist?”

  “I broke my arm when I was twelve,” I volunteered in a dull tone.

  “I don’t think that will be a problem. This is a beginner group class. You should be able to follow along easily, but please let me know if at any time you have any questions. You’re with an expert, though. This guy can give you any pointers you may need.” He laid a proprietary hand on Carter’s bicep and grinned at him before heading toward the studio.

  “Ready?”

  “I don’t like him.”

  Carter’s forehead creased in bewilderment. “Why not?”

  “I dunno. He’s kind of handsy.”

  “You don’t strike me as the jealous type, Chalmers. Knock it off. You aren’t getting out of this. Put on your big-boy pants and let’s do some fucking yoga.”

  I pulled at his arm before he could walk away and covertly brushed my hand over his crotch. “That was hot.”

  “Tim….” His voice was full of warning, but the flicker of heat in his gaze let me know he wasn’t immune to this odd connection between us.

  It made me want to push him. Test the boundaries. “Why aren’t we at my place fucking like bunnies? It’s been a whole week. I have blue balls and the attention span of a gnat right now. I don’t think I can handle watching you bend over in those pants without embarrassing myself. And I don’t care what you say… I’m keeping an eye on your yoga buddy. That guy has the hots for you.”

  “Actually, he doesn’t. He’s in a relationship. With a woman.”

  “Nope. Not buying it. He wants you. If he has a girlfriend, he’s not really into her. God, people are so fucking weird. Why can’t anyone just be who they are?”

  Carter crossed his arms and gave me a sharp look. “You mean like you? Quit stalling. We can argue all you want after class. Let’s do this.”

  I may have never been to a yoga class, but as a twentysomething living in twenty-first century New York City, I had a general concept of how it worked. I pictured nubile, sexy men and women lying on mats in a spacious studio doing ridiculous poses with names reminiscent of bad porno cues. Downward-facing doggie-style. Been there, done that, I snickered to myself as I struggled to hold a wide-legged forward-standing bend. I was bent at the waist with my legs far apart, trying to support my weight on my fingertips. The college-age girl to my left and Carter on my right were both able to flatten their hands to the floor. Show-offs.

  Every shift and position change that pointed me in Carter’s direction was a challenge in my thin workout shorts. He was muscular in all the right places, and those leggings… damn. They accentuated every contour of muscle in his quads, calves, and his tight ass. I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the calming meditation music, hoping it might help my concentration.

  Music was the key to everything for me. If I could find a beat, I could get in a zone. If I couldn’t find one, I could always make one in my head. I wondered if part of the reason I’d stopped playing piano as a teenager was that I couldn’t manipulate a beat the way I could with the drums. There was instant gratification in a drumbeat. Not to mention an undeniably base, carnal quality. Piano coaxed sensual movement. Drums demanded it.

  As I sank into the increasingly uncomfortable yoga pose, I realized there was no way to find a beat in the calming instrumentation. It was pretty, but it was… haunting. It didn’t allow you to be part of it. Instead it wrapped you in a gossamer veil and choked the life out of you. My balance faltered as soon as the errant thought filtered through my brain. I tipped sideways and tried to correct my fall by leaning to the right. Instead I collapsed in a heap at the edge of Carter’s mat.

  My flustered blush was instantaneous. In a hushed room with a dozen strangers and the guy I was kind of, sort of seeing, it was beyond embarrassing. It was downright humiliating. I struggled to sit up and hurry back to my mat. Greg continued teaching as though he hadn’t been startled by the grown man falling flat on his ass a few feet away. Fucker.

  “You okay?” Carter whispered.

  “Bruised elbow and ego. I’ll survive,” I replied, pitching my voice as low as possible. “This music sucks. I can’t—”

  “Breathe, Tim. Just breathe.”

  I heaved a sigh that was more of a violent release of air and then tried again. I glanced at Carter and copied his stance, thinking breathing was a fuck of a lot easier to say than do sometimes. I felt claustrophobic. I took a deep gulp of air and gasped like a fish out of water.

  Fuck this shit. I stood up and walked out the door.

  It was quiet in the reception area. Wayward thoughts came flying at me from every direction. This wasn’t me. I didn’t belong in a fucking yoga class. This was Carter’s path to clarity and balance. Not mine. I shoved my shoes on my feet and pulled my sweatshirt over my head just as the classroom door opened. Carter emerged carrying my borrowed yoga mat. He left it on the front desk, then turned to face me. He observed me curiously for a moment as though he was gauging my mood and how to deal with me, but he didn’t say a word.

  “I couldn’t breathe.”

  “It’s okay.” His voice was calm, almost kind. “We’ll try another day.”

  “Nah. Not my thing. Don’t be offended, but don’t bother converting me either. It won’t work. I—”

  Carter grabbed the sleeve of my sweatshirt and fixed me with a piercing glare. “Your problem is you don’t know what your thing is, Tim.” He pushed his hand through his hair in frustration, and then pointed toward the exit. “Let’s get some fucking coffee.”

  We walked up Greenwich Avenue in silence. I was lost in thoughts I couldn’t verbalize, but Carter didn’t seem to mind. I let the familiar hum of the city provide the background music I missed in yoga. When we reached Grinds, I pointed to the kitschy cutout coffee cup sign above the door. Carter nodded and gave me a small smile.

  I stood next to him, breathing in his subtle, musky scent as I perused the drink menu. I’d already had coffee and I wasn’t sure I wanted more caffeine.

  “What are you having?” I asked, bumping his shoulder. I wanted to get back on his good side, but I wasn’t sure how. Or why.

  “Green tea.” He returned the gesture before running his fingers discreetly over my lower back and stepping into the line.

  I followed him, increasingly aware of my reaction to him. The way he smelled, moved, spoke. He was all man. And I was like a kid in a candy shop that had been closed for renovation and had finally reopened. My senses were on high alert. I didn’t want to miss a thing.

  “I’ll have the same. Let me get it. Your hands are full,” I said, pointing at the rolled mat he held under his arm.


  My smile faded as I noted the same shy barista who’d served me a couple weeks ago. I adjusted my grin and placed my order in a rushed tone. She turned a funny shade of red that clashed with her short, pink hair when she took my card, but she didn’t say a word.

  I picked up our teas and joined Carter at the corner table he’d scored and took the chair opposite him with my back to the store. It wasn’t exactly private, but it gave the illusion, which was all I needed at the moment.

  “Looks like you’ve got a fan club here,” Carter commented idly as he cradled his cup. “I suppose it’s my turn to be jealous.”

  I kicked his leg under the table and gave him the evil eye. “I wasn’t jealous. I was stating the obvious. The yoga master wants in your tights.”

  “He does not. Tell me about the cute girl with the pink hair.”

  I huffed a humorless laugh. “She’s… sweet, I guess, but she doesn’t speak. At least not to me. She points, stares, and generally always makes me wish I’d gone to the Starbucks down the street.”

  “Why did you suggest this place, then?”

  “I like it. It’s real, not mass-produced. Everything tastes better… coffee, lattes, even their scones are to die for. Besides, she isn’t always working and… it’s going to happen sometimes. I’ve been told to enjoy the love while it lasts. Vague nods of recognition are one thing, but the gooey stares are kind of creepy. I suppose that’s how you feel when gorgeous Greg is ogling your ass in those leggings. Can you even breathe in those things?”

  “Drink your tea. You’re killing my mellow buzz.”

  I chuckled at his paternal tone and obeyed him. We studied each other over the rims of our cups and smiled in unison at nothing in particular.

  “I’m sorry about earlier. I shouldn’t have walked out. It was harder than I thought.”

  “Nothing worth doing is easy. You’ll build up core strength the more you do it.”

  “And then I’ll get my balance back?” I joked lamely.

  “Physically… yes. I don’t know about the rest.”

  “With a different instructor and some rockin’ music… maybe,” I replied with a cocky grin.

  Carter rolled his eyes. “It’s not a dance class, dummy. It’s yoga. You’re supposed to relax, find your center of gravity. Not rock out. The soundtrack is just background music. You might notice it, but it fades when you concentrate on the exercise.”

  “I don’t hear music that way. I don’t compartmentalize it. It’s everywhere.” I beat a short tattoo on the table to back up my claim. “It’s in the streets. Every person in this coffee shop has a tune in their head. Every person walking through Manhattan is moving to the city’s beat. Jockeying for position on the subway, racing for the bus, or shopping in a store. Sometimes the beat is in the honking, the yelling, the countless languages. Sometimes it’s a layer underneath some crappy song piped through a store’s speaker system. But it’s everywhere. It’s all-encompassing.”

  Carter looked surprised at my impassioned outburst. He cocked his head and leaned in. “I think I understand what you mean, but I’m talking about singular layers.”

  “Huh?”

  “You’re the musician. You know sound is multifaceted and layered. What I’m saying is simple… concentrate on one layer at a time. I bet the reason you feel a little off-balance is you’ve been dealing with life coming at you from all angles for months. Maybe years. You’ve got to break things down to their simplest form to get your groove back. In musical terms, one note at a time.”

  “You sound like a shrink.”

  Carter lifted his teacup in a mock toast. “Probably because I’ve seen my fair share.”

  I shot him a quizzical look. “Really? You seem like you’ve got your shit together.”

  “More or less. But I have a bad habit of making everything in my life all-or-nothing. I work too much. I stay at the gym too long. I worry about things I can’t control, like my friends, my employees… the Yankees.”

  “I’d worry about the Yankees if I were you too,” I said in a serious tone.

  Carter busted into melodic laughter. “My point was that music isn’t a screen to block out your thoughts. It’s about being in tune with them.”

  “If you say so.” I lifted my cup and sipped the fragrant tea.

  “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure where he was going with this, but I was charmed by his intensity. “An astronaut. I figured that was my ticket to a spot on a Star Trek Federation starship. Then I found music and all I wanted was to play in a band.”

  “How old were you when you learned to play the drums?”

  “Fourteen. I joined a band with some buddies on my street. I was the only one who knew how to play an instrument. Rob played guitar… badly. He found a couple guys to play bass and drums and he—”

  “If someone else played drums, what did you play?” he asked quizzically.

  “Keyboard. There were too many of us and we were complete hacks. Rob had a decent voice, though, so we tried to drown out the drums, bass, and his crappy guitar skills with my piano playing. We ended up sounding like a corny cruise ship lounge act. I can’t remember the kid who played drums, but when he quit I took his place. And I never looked back.”

  “So you play piano too?”

  “And guitar. Piano came first, though. My mom signed my sister and me up for lessons when I was in first grade and Kat was in second. I caught on quickly and I liked it. The teacher was pretty cute, which probably had something to do with it. My sister hated it, but I went on to play in school functions and community concerts. No big deal. Back then, it was just something I did… like brushing my teeth. It came easy to me. I was good at it and I liked being told I was good. Once I found the drums, I gave it up.”

  Carter took a sip of his tea and shrugged. “Why? I mean, if you were good at it. Why not play both?”

  “I was a typical awkward teen… small for my age, kind of scrawny and shy, and worst of all, I didn’t know if I was straight or gay. I’d pop a boner when the high school quarterback bumped into me in the hall and another when Mrs. Rodriguez, my insanely sexy math teacher, stretched her arm to point out an equation on the blackboard. Add my messed-up home life with a nutty sister, a drunk-ass dad, and an overprotective mom, and it’s really no wonder I switched to the instrument that most effectively blocked out the excess noise. I cleared a space in the garage to practice on Rob’s older brother’s cast-off, ratty, old drum set, and suddenly I had peace. I could make a goddamn racket”—I pitched my voice to sound like a cranky old man and gave myself a mental high five when Carter smiled indulgently—“and no one bugged me. It was heaven while it lasted. The drums got me through some rough times in high school, and ultimately, they led me to Cory and Rand when I went to community college.”

  “Now here you are a few years later, on the brink of making rock-and-roll history.”

  I glanced out the window thoughtfully before turning my attention back to Carter.

  “Maybe. My world is shrinking and expanding at the same time. I feel like I’m not in control of anything, and I fucking hate it,” I huffed, tapping my fingers against the table.

  Carter stilled my hand and left his on top of mine, then threaded our fingers. I’d never in my life held hands with a man in public, and though I felt an immediate sense of panic, I didn’t pull away.

  “Yoga will help and—”

  “Yoga isn’t the answer for me,” I intercepted. “It’s boring, the music sucks, and the teacher’s a perv. It made me anxious, irritable, and really fucking horny. Not Zen.” Carter threw his head back and laughed merrily. I grinned, resting my chin on my hand until he sobered before continuing, “I know something else that might work.”

  He stood abruptly and picked up his yoga mat. “Let’s go.”

  Carter led the way down a pretty tree-lined street away from the bustle of the busier Greenwich Village area. We made small talk as we dodged pedestrians wal
king their dogs, and tourists checking their cell phones for directions. Each step brought a heightened sense of awareness. It had been like this all morning, but now it was palpable, like a live current buzzing in the air. I was almost surprised passersby didn’t notice it. I swear I could feel the electricity. It made me light-headed and prone to do silly things like nudge the mat he carried under his arm just because. The kind of childish jabs Rand and I pulled while Cory and Isaac rolled their eyes. Carter batted me away a couple times, then pinched my arm.

  I yelped and gave him a dirty look as he stopped in front of a red-brick townhouse on what had to be the quietest street in Manhattan. There wasn’t another person in sight. I nuzzled his chin, loving the feel of our stubbled jaws, before kissing his cheek and impetuously brushing my hand over his half-hard member.

  “Cool it. And get your hands off my ass. We’re in public,” he hissed, swatting my hand away.

  I glanced over my shoulder at the empty sidewalk behind me. “This street is a ghost town. Do you actually have neighbors?”

  “I do. And they’re nosy. Behave.”

  I followed him up a short set of stairs to a shiny, black door. He opened it with a flourish before stepping aside for me to enter the grand foyer. I blinked as my eyes acclimated to the shadows after being in the bright sunlight. There was a large, circular antique table under an enormous crystal chandelier. The only light in the cavernous space, however, came from the matching sconces framing a second closed door to the right of a sweeping staircase with an intricate wrought-iron railing. I glanced at the high ceilings, noting the extravagant plasterwork, then at the marble mosaic tile floor. This space reminded me of a smaller entrance at a historic hotel, or a museum exhibit showcasing a relic from the Gilded Age.

  Before I could make sense of my lavish surroundings, Carter waved me toward the second door. He quickly unlocked it and ushered me inside before carelessly tossing his belongings down and then launching himself at me. I stumbled backward, catching him around the waist to steady us before we toppled to the carpet. I kissed him roughly, holding his head between my hands while he raked his fingers down my back and grabbed my ass. It took less than five seconds for me to forget where I was. Nothing mattered but somehow getting closer to Carter. I licked at his lips, angling my head slightly to slip my tongue in his mouth. He groaned in pleasure as he tilted his pelvis and ground himself against me. He rocked his hips in an erotic dance to music I couldn’t hear but knew well.