CHRYSALIS

26.

He laughs louder now and pulls his shirt up over his head. "I don't know what you're talking about, I'm much too mature for that."

I roll my eyes at him before I have time to process the fact that he's half-naked in front of me right now. I do not need to spiral about that this morning.

"Come on, arms up!" He pulls my arms away from my chest and stretches them way up above my head before flattening his palms against mine.

"Follow me, okay?" His eyes bore into mine with too much intensity for my liking so I just nod slowly and take a deep breath while I watch his chest rise and fall.

He puts his foot between mine and wiggles it a bit until I scoot my legs farther apart until they're about shoulder-width. He puts his foot back and takes a deep breath, bringing our hands down to chest level, and presses into me.

I have no idea what I'm doing but I follow his lead as he asked. I press my hands into him and I'm focused on the way his hands seem so large when I hear his voice break my train of thought. "Stop thinking, Jo. Take deep breaths with me and settle that frantic mind of yours, you'll feel better."

The low rasp in his voice is a mixture of the early morning and the intimacy of this moment, but it makes my breath catch in my throat just the same. I gulp down the bundle of nerves that's risen, why the hell am I even nervous!? It's just Harry. We're just stretching. He probably does this with all of his friends, it's fin-

DOES HE BRUSH HIS LIPS AGAINST ALL HIS FRIENDS TOO!? huh!?

Dammit.

Does he invite his other friends to sleep in his bed and then do half-naked yoga with them? Does he!?

Oh god, does he?

"Jo. Breathe."

"Oh right. Breathing. Yup, got it. On it."

I fill my lungs and exhale through my nose, desperately trying to quiet my thoughts and just let this moment be what it is instead of over-analyzing it.

Harry raises our hands over our heads again and then stretches onto his tiptoes, so I stretch up on mine to reach him. I feel my legs burn from the unfamiliar movement and I almost giggle at how ridiculous it is. He brings our hands out in a wide circle and brings them back to chest level and our heels return to the mats.

I match his breathing with another big breath as he leans us to one side, extending his left arm out and bringing his right above his head again. His long arm slides past mine so I leave my hand on his wrists until we meet up again.

The stretch in my side feels good, in a way that kind of hurts but feels like it's a good burn. We hold that for just a few seconds before he switches us to the other side.

After the side stretches he gestures down to the mat between my legs which makes me raise an eyebrow at him. "Down the middle. Deep breath, just go as far as you can."

It was my turn to snort now and he chuckled lightly while he shook his head at me. I hung both my arms down to reach toward the ground and tried to slowly lower my self.

"Fucking ow." My legs were burning, my back was burning, even the backs of my arms were burning.

Harry's barefoot appears between my feet again, "move your legs apart more, it won't hurt so bad." I do as he says, and some of the tension releases from my back as my hands fall closer to the ground.