Release by Louise J

approach, he releases
his legs and lowers his head onto the mat. His expression is expectant. If he’s
reading mine correctly, he’ll know he’s unwelcome. I kneel beside him and get
close enough to prevent anyone else hearing me. Keeping my teeth gritted, I
say, “You’re making me look bad.”
    His brows pull tight. “I’m
making you look bad? Not only am I the only guy here, but I’m the most
inflexible person in this room. I’ll handle all the core exercises you wanna
throw at me, but my hamstrings can only be pushed so far. You really don’t need
to be the one concerned about looking bad.”
    He folds his inked arms
behind his head, combining the look of a bad boy and a Calvin Klein underwear
model on a billboard to perfection. I dislike him even more for looking so good
when I’m this angry. I can imagine him in this very pose wearing nothing but
briefs.
    “You’re making me look bad
because I’m not helping you and I should be.”
    “So help me then.”
    “I don’t want to. No
offence, but I’d actually like you to piss off.”
    “Piss off meaning go away?”
I nod, meaning it. “Shit, girl, you really are a feisty thang, aren’t you?” He
doesn’t even seem offended.
    “I have a job to do.”
    I stand up and walk back to
the front of the class, and proceed as though Dane isn’t present. He stays for
the whole fucking session.
    After I bid farewell to the
final participant, I pause for a moment, preparing myself, and then turn to
face Dane. He strides towards me, and I make a point of not taking in a single
detail about his appearance, though I’m fully aware of how out of this world he
looks.
    “Why are you here?” I ask
without being too hostile. I don’t want this to get aggressive.
    “I wanted to apologize.” He
stops beside me and leans sideways against the wall with his arms folded across
his chest.
    With the subtle drop of his
shoulders, this is the worst posture I’ve seen on him. Maybe I’m being sucked
in here, but he looks like he means it. The focus in his gaze, as it meets
mine, and the almost humble air about him suggests so.
    I’ve been on the receiving
end of many apologies and never seen the sincerity I’m witnessing now. But
that’s not the point, is it?
    “No apology necessary. You
said it yourself; we’re looking for different things. At least we didn’t waste
too much of each other’s time.”
    I can smell him, the
non-artificial scent he owns, and I wish to God I couldn’t.
    After walking away from Dane
yesterday, I was able to block him out of my thoughts completely. I woke up
today feeling the way I did all the mornings before I met him. Seeing him now
makes me uncomfortable because, even though I think he’s a knob, I’m still
ridiculously drawn to him. I can pretend he doesn’t exist when he isn’t around
me. Not so easy when we’re face-to-face. The sooner he leaves the better.
    “I meant what I said. I
wasn’t out to play games.”
    “What am I supposed to say
to that? There’s no point in us even discussing it. I’m having trouble
understanding why you’d come to my class just to say sorry, and why you’d put
me in an awkward position by showing up unannounced.”
    “I had no other way of
contacting you, and I figured you’d be more likely to talk to me this way than
if I showed up after. It wasn’t my intention to make you feel awkward, that
didn’t even cross my mind. More importantly, I really am sorry for the
pussy-ass way I dealt with things. You deserved better than that, but for some
reason I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s not something I usually find hard to
do.”
    “Be careful, you’ll have me
thinking dropping women who aren’t going to shag you is a full-time habit of
yours. Or I might even be stupid enough to consider myself something special
because for once you found it difficult.” I finished sarcastically so he
doesn’t think I really am that stupid.
    I doubt the words ‘woman’
and ‘special’ fit into