Chapter 1
“Keep that focus on your breath. Let the weight of your hands pull your knee to your chest, and hold there. Think about the moment you’re in now, not the moments you came from before entering this space.”
Amalia Reyes’s problem was, no matter how she centered and re-centered herself, her yoga teacher Sheila’s instructions were only moving her muscles, not settling down her mind.
Next time, she wouldn’t do anything as infuriating as stopping by to visit Mike Moll on her way to yoga. But she’d created a schedule for herself, to keep accountable to her goals, and that meant it was once again time to approach him with her portfolio. She could have put it off a day or two, but she’d finished her other admin work early, and his art gallery was right around the corner from the yoga studio.
So she went in, polite professional smile in place, offered a civil greeting to Mike’s assistant, waited on his condescending to make time for her. The place was, as usual, a bit overfull of the same sorts of things. A pastiche mashup of fin de siècle and Texana that, presumably, sold well, even if it didn’t reflect the full range of local artistic traditions, like Mike claimed.
Amalia hadn’t gone in expecting Mike Moll to budge in his views. She wasn’t that kind of fool, not with the way Mike liked doubling down on being sure he knew better than anyone what art buyers wanted. And maybe he did, maybe he could stock Amalia’s work year-round and not sell a single sculpture, but she still wanted to wedge her way into the town’s annual festival. And that, unfortunately, meant dealing with Mike.
It didn’t help now that, as she moved into Cobra pose, there was Dante Morales right in front of her, stripped to his little shorts, back muscles glistening in the heated studio. Normally, he was a pretty distraction from whatever thoughts tried to intrude during their hot yoga class. Nothing put her in the moment like tracing the ways his long limbs stretched and flexed in front of her. Maybe it was rude of her, to enjoy his objectively nice form, when she wasn’t interested in anything beyond casual friendship from him, but: it was a good form. And his quietly solid presence in their social group hadn’t changed, back when she’d turned down his offer to take her out. He’d accepted her statement about not looking for a relationship and still turned up to yoga every week. So maybe he wasn’t interested in how she viewed him.
But Dante had been there that afternoon, at Moll’s on Main. Doing some sort of something she hadn't been aware of, until he emerged from the back room with his tool belt low on his lean hips, just in time to hear Mike disparage her talent, her value, and her place in the Honey Wine art scene.
Again.
The way those brown eyes of Dante's had lingered on her as he stood behind Mike, listening in on the gallery owner’s judgment of everything she'd ever done with her career. As it turned out, she was invested in how her friends viewed her. It was somehow more unbearable to receive Mike’s judgments with Dante lurking nearby.
And then Dante had clanged his toolbox on the counter and pulled out his phone, saying, “Sorry, I can't get to this today. Looks like I could schedule you … a week from Tuesday. Four p.m.?”
Then he just stood there while Mike protested and grumbled. He rolled one strong shoulder back in a mild shrug when Mike threatened to call a competitor.
And then, when she’d caught him waiting outside to walk with her to Shelia’s studio, he’d said, “I could have finished the sink in three minutes, but Mike’s bullshit distracted me into putting the bad coupling nut back in place.”
It was infuriatingly nice, and Amalia did not appreciate his quiet show of sympathy. Her career was her own to deal with; no one needed to put their own business at risk because Mike Moll was kind of a jerk.
So ogling Dante didn’t ground her in class in the least. The flex of his ass as they all moved only sent another wave of irritation through her. Amalia dropped her head towards the mat and focused on maintaining equal weight on her limbs, letting the energy move to her core with her breath, and imagining her negativity sweating out through her pores.
She'd expected the rejection from Mike. He'd never once given her portfolio serious consideration. He paid no attention to her sales numbers, or to her facts about the true origins of Honey Wine. His mother had been more receptive, back before she retired and left the place in his hands. She’d stocked a decent amount of Amalia’s early sculpture, given her one of the earliest breaks into her career as a sheet metal sculptor. Mike, however, was determined to believe that work arising from the white Bohemians who settled in Honey Wine in the mid-1800s fully represented the cultural and artistic traditions of the town.
Enough. She settled herself into a twist and idly scanned the room for sights that didn’t drag her thoughts into her problems. A community of dimly lit dripping bodies; the fading mandala mural above the mirrors; Sheila’s pastel peace sign headband. Her shoulder blades dropped as she breathed in. Her spine obliged by giving a bit more as she let the breath go.
As the class sank into Savasana, Amalia’s breath was a smooth glide from nose to throat to lungs to belly. Her arms and legs sank into the mat. Behind her eyes, a succession of colors wove sinuously together. She came back to herself as she breathed in Sheila's mist of mint and eucalyptus, letting the slightly astringent tang bring her mind back to the studio.
She reached for her hand towel and wiped down her face and chest. The couple beside her silently offered to take her blocks to be cleaned and returned. She smiled her thanks and moved to the wall to roll and stash her mat in its carrier and finish off her water bottle. She was heading to get a refill when Dante Morales, most recent witness of her professional disrespect, placed himself in her way.
* * *
Two minutes after finishing their hot yoga class was not the right time to ask Amalia for sex lessons.
Somehow, it’s still what Dante did.
He’d been thinking about it for days, and somehow, breaking the ice with her before yoga had been the spur prodding him to open his damn mouth.
“Amalia?”
She spun to face him, face bright with sweat and … just bright. Amalia Reyes was a bright light of a person, always poised to fly off in whatever direction she aimed for. Quick and sure and never at a loss.
Dante often found himself at a loss. He drew in a deep breath, settling his post-workout heart into a calmer rhythm. Let it out gently as he tipped his chin down, speaking more directly to her. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure. You need a ride?” She wrapped her towel around her neck, nodding. “No, you had you van at Mike’s. What’s up?”
He pictured her riding him. His grasping the ends of the towel, to pull her down for a kiss. Their sweat-slick bodies sliding together.
Tried not to calculate the odds that she’d only sweat when she was with him because of working out. That he’d be useless at inspiring any slickness from her most intimate places. That he wouldn’t bring anything to the encounter to elevate her heart rate.
Dante swallowed hard and shifted his mat. Contemplating his lackluster skills was always depressing, but at least he wasn’t flashing a stirring dick to their whole yoga studio. “Thanks. It’s, yeah, it’s more personal. Can I get a few minutes? Buy you a smoothie?”
At the cafe beside their gym, he scoped out the nearby people. The way Honey Wine worked, he expected nosy locals everywhere he went. The place was, for the moment, clear of anyone he knew he’d have to face later.
Only Amalia. But when he’d thought through what he was going to do about his biggest problem, he knew he’d have to tell her just about everything. It was going to suck, and no amount of practice got him to the point of figuring out how to express himself with any ease. Which was probably part of his problem, at least according to the internet. What the internet wasn’t good for, it turned out, was letting him solve the problem on his own.
He needed a helper. And Amalia was … well, she wasn’t nice, but she was true. Dante gravitated towards people who were true. He felt like whatever happened with his big ask, he could trust her.
After picking up their drinks, he made his way to the cafe table where she waited with their workout gear. She was looking strong, and vibrant, and open in a way that let him sit down across from her and spit it out.
Dante said, “I’m looking for someone who can teach me how to fuck.”
* * *
Amalia was grateful that the sweaty backs of her thigh stuck her to the padded vinyl chair, because otherwise she might have fallen over. She’d been thinking he’d ask for a positive job review, or a reference letter for some cousin trying to break into the art scene. Maybe even that he wanted to squeeze his six foot plus frame onto her ordinary little sofa while his place was under repair.
She was a woman of great imagination, but Dante's actual question never would have occurred to her.
She slurped her smoothie hard enough to give herself brain freeze, which didn’t help her come up with anything to say, except, “Okay, but I know you're not a virgin.”
Dante’s head dropped so hard to the table that when he finally looked back at her, his forehead bore the imprint of the mesh tabletop. “Great. Go on. Tell me what you've heard.”
“No, come on, you know I escape gossip from everyone but my family. But didn’t you live with Elizabeth, back before she moved? You can’t tell me that was a celibate arrangement. And you dated Shawna for a good while, back in the spring.”
At the mention of his exes, Dante slumped as if they hadn't just spent an hour strengthening their cores. He got real focused on chasing a chunk of fruit around the bottom of his cup with his straw. She waited him out. He finally stopped examining the substrate of his drink and glanced at her. “That's it?”
“Is there some scandal I haven’t heard about?”
His chest hitched. “Crap, no. No, that’s not the gossip. Elizabeth only moved in for a month when her landlord wouldn’t extend her lease before she took off for that Chicago job. I don’t … there’s no scandals, okay?”
She’d never seen him all flustered. He was redder than after an hour in the hundred degree workout studio. Amalia raised her eyebrows at him. “Chill. I wasn't suggesting anything dramatic. Just trying to figure out why you're asking … whatever it is that you're asking. Which, to be clear, I still don’t know. Is this a theory thing, or practical help?”
Dante rubbed his face, then crossed his arms. Tensed then relaxed his jaw. Blew out a breath. Met her eyes. “Okay, so I guess I knew this would be embarrassing, but. I've come this far. And you can walk away whenever you want this conversation to end. So. Thing is, I found out there are rumors about me. And since I’m not the most successful at hanging on to partners, I guess there's no reason for me to doubt them. I’m sure my cousins will be happy to share the worst of the details, but what it boils down to is that I'm … apparently anyway, I’m pretty bad at sex. And relationships, but maybe that’s because of the bad sex?”
Amalia found herself fascinated with the process of stirring her own smoothie to a uniform consistency. Dante reverted to form, not speaking at all, not even when she flat out asked, “Okay, but why?”
She meant a lot of things.
Why her? Why did he need this favor? Why bring it to her and not, say, some Reddit forum? Surely there was porn just for this, and books? While it wasn't her area of art history, she knew there’d been sex how-to guides written across civilizations and centuries. Back in December, she’d overheard a group in the diner laughing about how one of them had been accidentally given a copy of Cosmopolitan Karma Sutra, instead of the history of transatlantic shipping the giver had meant to wrap for that particular person. So it couldn't be that difficult for Dante to learn whatever he needed to learn.
Which was another why? Why did he even need this? He had, they’d agreed, the ability to successfully find people to date. Not that she’d made a point of noticing the occasional women who showed up with him at bars or dinner parties. Or on the mat beside his at yoga, looking like they were specifically designed to tuck under Dante’s long arms as they wandered the Town Square together.
And if he could ask Amalia, surely he could also have asked one of them. Any of them. Either before, during, or after, the times they went to bed together.
She wasn’t any kind of therapist, or teacher, or sex expert. And it didn’t seem like this was a roundabout way of him asking her out again. He was too flat-out flustered for it to be a pick-up angle, even if he’d been the kind of guy who’d try such a bullshit line. Which he wasn’t, not from what she knew after them moving in the same basic circles since he’d gotten grown enough to hang with their hometown crowd.
Maybe she didn’t know him like she thought; maybe Dante was one of those guys who wanted to take possession of her time and energy and mental load. It fuddled her up, a confusion made worse by his downcast eyes and pouty lips, just a touch damp after releasing his straw. And by his ongoing silence.
Just before she gave up on an answer and walked out, he set aside his cup and said, “I wasn’t ever, you know, assertive about figuring it all out with anyone. And then I was awkward and—you know, porn isn’t good at teaching the logistics, not really. When I’ve asked Shawna or anyone, it … it didn’t work right, asking them how. Not if they already knew I was no good. Put me too in my head, maybe. Wasn’t their fault. So I figure I need to learn from someone I’m not dating, not trying to make the person I might marry someday.”
She wasn’t prepared for the foolish impulse to empathize, but damn if it didn’t happen anyway. Probably that scene at Mike’s, when Dante stood in silent defense of her, went and made her heart want to be supportive of him in return. Her voice came out almost gentle. “And that’s me?”
He took her empty cup and tossed their trash, cause apparently he’d do anything to not keep eye contact. “You’re a friend, and you’re always honest. And you didn’t want to date me, that time when I asked. Look, Amalia, I know it’s my problem, and probably not worth your efforts. I don’t know even how exactly you’d fix me, if you do agree to help, but I know I can count on you to not make the gossip worse. I trust you to tell me no. Either now, or after we talk about it more, or even if we get started and you want to end it. So. Yeah. If you’re up for it, I’d like it to be you.”
He was poised to escape, but hovering like some part of him hoped against hope for her agreement.
She closed her eyes while she called to mind her schedule. He stilled when she nodded, and followed her out the door. “Let me think it through a bit. Come over on Saturday and we’ll talk.”
“Keep that focus on your breath. Let the weight of your hands pull your knee to your chest, and hold there. Think about the moment you’re in now, not the moments you came from before entering this space.”
Amalia Reyes’s problem was, no matter how she centered and re-centered herself, her yoga teacher Sheila’s instructions were only moving her muscles, not settling down her mind.
Next time, she wouldn’t do anything as infuriating as stopping by to visit Mike Moll on her way to yoga. But she’d created a schedule for herself, to keep accountable to her goals, and that meant it was once again time to approach him with her portfolio. She could have put it off a day or two, but she’d finished her other admin work early, and his art gallery was right around the corner from the yoga studio.
So she went in, polite professional smile in place, offered a civil greeting to Mike’s assistant, waited on his condescending to make time for her. The place was, as usual, a bit overfull of the same sorts of things. A pastiche mashup of fin de siècle and Texana that, presumably, sold well, even if it didn’t reflect the full range of local artistic traditions, like Mike claimed.
Amalia hadn’t gone in expecting Mike Moll to budge in his views. She wasn’t that kind of fool, not with the way Mike liked doubling down on being sure he knew better than anyone what art buyers wanted. And maybe he did, maybe he could stock Amalia’s work year-round and not sell a single sculpture, but she still wanted to wedge her way into the town’s annual festival. And that, unfortunately, meant dealing with Mike.
It didn’t help now that, as she moved into Cobra pose, there was Dante Morales right in front of her, stripped to his little shorts, back muscles glistening in the heated studio. Normally, he was a pretty distraction from whatever thoughts tried to intrude during their hot yoga class. Nothing put her in the moment like tracing the ways his long limbs stretched and flexed in front of her. Maybe it was rude of her, to enjoy his objectively nice form, when she wasn’t interested in anything beyond casual friendship from him, but: it was a good form. And his quietly solid presence in their social group hadn’t changed, back when she’d turned down his offer to take her out. He’d accepted her statement about not looking for a relationship and still turned up to yoga every week. So maybe he wasn’t interested in how she viewed him.
But Dante had been there that afternoon, at Moll’s on Main. Doing some sort of something she hadn't been aware of, until he emerged from the back room with his tool belt low on his lean hips, just in time to hear Mike disparage her talent, her value, and her place in the Honey Wine art scene.
Again.
The way those brown eyes of Dante's had lingered on her as he stood behind Mike, listening in on the gallery owner’s judgment of everything she'd ever done with her career. As it turned out, she was invested in how her friends viewed her. It was somehow more unbearable to receive Mike’s judgments with Dante lurking nearby.
And then Dante had clanged his toolbox on the counter and pulled out his phone, saying, “Sorry, I can't get to this today. Looks like I could schedule you … a week from Tuesday. Four p.m.?”
Then he just stood there while Mike protested and grumbled. He rolled one strong shoulder back in a mild shrug when Mike threatened to call a competitor.
And then, when she’d caught him waiting outside to walk with her to Shelia’s studio, he’d said, “I could have finished the sink in three minutes, but Mike’s bullshit distracted me into putting the bad coupling nut back in place.”
It was infuriatingly nice, and Amalia did not appreciate his quiet show of sympathy. Her career was her own to deal with; no one needed to put their own business at risk because Mike Moll was kind of a jerk.
So ogling Dante didn’t ground her in class in the least. The flex of his ass as they all moved only sent another wave of irritation through her. Amalia dropped her head towards the mat and focused on maintaining equal weight on her limbs, letting the energy move to her core with her breath, and imagining her negativity sweating out through her pores.
She'd expected the rejection from Mike. He'd never once given her portfolio serious consideration. He paid no attention to her sales numbers, or to her facts about the true origins of Honey Wine. His mother had been more receptive, back before she retired and left the place in his hands. She’d stocked a decent amount of Amalia’s early sculpture, given her one of the earliest breaks into her career as a sheet metal sculptor. Mike, however, was determined to believe that work arising from the white Bohemians who settled in Honey Wine in the mid-1800s fully represented the cultural and artistic traditions of the town.
Enough. She settled herself into a twist and idly scanned the room for sights that didn’t drag her thoughts into her problems. A community of dimly lit dripping bodies; the fading mandala mural above the mirrors; Sheila’s pastel peace sign headband. Her shoulder blades dropped as she breathed in. Her spine obliged by giving a bit more as she let the breath go.
As the class sank into Savasana, Amalia’s breath was a smooth glide from nose to throat to lungs to belly. Her arms and legs sank into the mat. Behind her eyes, a succession of colors wove sinuously together. She came back to herself as she breathed in Sheila's mist of mint and eucalyptus, letting the slightly astringent tang bring her mind back to the studio.
She reached for her hand towel and wiped down her face and chest. The couple beside her silently offered to take her blocks to be cleaned and returned. She smiled her thanks and moved to the wall to roll and stash her mat in its carrier and finish off her water bottle. She was heading to get a refill when Dante Morales, most recent witness of her professional disrespect, placed himself in her way.
* * *
Two minutes after finishing their hot yoga class was not the right time to ask Amalia for sex lessons.
Somehow, it’s still what Dante did.
He’d been thinking about it for days, and somehow, breaking the ice with her before yoga had been the spur prodding him to open his damn mouth.
“Amalia?”
She spun to face him, face bright with sweat and … just bright. Amalia Reyes was a bright light of a person, always poised to fly off in whatever direction she aimed for. Quick and sure and never at a loss.
Dante often found himself at a loss. He drew in a deep breath, settling his post-workout heart into a calmer rhythm. Let it out gently as he tipped his chin down, speaking more directly to her. “I have a favor to ask.”
“Sure. You need a ride?” She wrapped her towel around her neck, nodding. “No, you had you van at Mike’s. What’s up?”
He pictured her riding him. His grasping the ends of the towel, to pull her down for a kiss. Their sweat-slick bodies sliding together.
Tried not to calculate the odds that she’d only sweat when she was with him because of working out. That he’d be useless at inspiring any slickness from her most intimate places. That he wouldn’t bring anything to the encounter to elevate her heart rate.
Dante swallowed hard and shifted his mat. Contemplating his lackluster skills was always depressing, but at least he wasn’t flashing a stirring dick to their whole yoga studio. “Thanks. It’s, yeah, it’s more personal. Can I get a few minutes? Buy you a smoothie?”
At the cafe beside their gym, he scoped out the nearby people. The way Honey Wine worked, he expected nosy locals everywhere he went. The place was, for the moment, clear of anyone he knew he’d have to face later.
Only Amalia. But when he’d thought through what he was going to do about his biggest problem, he knew he’d have to tell her just about everything. It was going to suck, and no amount of practice got him to the point of figuring out how to express himself with any ease. Which was probably part of his problem, at least according to the internet. What the internet wasn’t good for, it turned out, was letting him solve the problem on his own.
He needed a helper. And Amalia was … well, she wasn’t nice, but she was true. Dante gravitated towards people who were true. He felt like whatever happened with his big ask, he could trust her.
After picking up their drinks, he made his way to the cafe table where she waited with their workout gear. She was looking strong, and vibrant, and open in a way that let him sit down across from her and spit it out.
Dante said, “I’m looking for someone who can teach me how to fuck.”
* * *
Amalia was grateful that the sweaty backs of her thigh stuck her to the padded vinyl chair, because otherwise she might have fallen over. She’d been thinking he’d ask for a positive job review, or a reference letter for some cousin trying to break into the art scene. Maybe even that he wanted to squeeze his six foot plus frame onto her ordinary little sofa while his place was under repair.
She was a woman of great imagination, but Dante's actual question never would have occurred to her.
She slurped her smoothie hard enough to give herself brain freeze, which didn’t help her come up with anything to say, except, “Okay, but I know you're not a virgin.”
Dante’s head dropped so hard to the table that when he finally looked back at her, his forehead bore the imprint of the mesh tabletop. “Great. Go on. Tell me what you've heard.”
“No, come on, you know I escape gossip from everyone but my family. But didn’t you live with Elizabeth, back before she moved? You can’t tell me that was a celibate arrangement. And you dated Shawna for a good while, back in the spring.”
At the mention of his exes, Dante slumped as if they hadn't just spent an hour strengthening their cores. He got real focused on chasing a chunk of fruit around the bottom of his cup with his straw. She waited him out. He finally stopped examining the substrate of his drink and glanced at her. “That's it?”
“Is there some scandal I haven’t heard about?”
His chest hitched. “Crap, no. No, that’s not the gossip. Elizabeth only moved in for a month when her landlord wouldn’t extend her lease before she took off for that Chicago job. I don’t … there’s no scandals, okay?”
She’d never seen him all flustered. He was redder than after an hour in the hundred degree workout studio. Amalia raised her eyebrows at him. “Chill. I wasn't suggesting anything dramatic. Just trying to figure out why you're asking … whatever it is that you're asking. Which, to be clear, I still don’t know. Is this a theory thing, or practical help?”
Dante rubbed his face, then crossed his arms. Tensed then relaxed his jaw. Blew out a breath. Met her eyes. “Okay, so I guess I knew this would be embarrassing, but. I've come this far. And you can walk away whenever you want this conversation to end. So. Thing is, I found out there are rumors about me. And since I’m not the most successful at hanging on to partners, I guess there's no reason for me to doubt them. I’m sure my cousins will be happy to share the worst of the details, but what it boils down to is that I'm … apparently anyway, I’m pretty bad at sex. And relationships, but maybe that’s because of the bad sex?”
Amalia found herself fascinated with the process of stirring her own smoothie to a uniform consistency. Dante reverted to form, not speaking at all, not even when she flat out asked, “Okay, but why?”
She meant a lot of things.
Why her? Why did he need this favor? Why bring it to her and not, say, some Reddit forum? Surely there was porn just for this, and books? While it wasn't her area of art history, she knew there’d been sex how-to guides written across civilizations and centuries. Back in December, she’d overheard a group in the diner laughing about how one of them had been accidentally given a copy of Cosmopolitan Karma Sutra, instead of the history of transatlantic shipping the giver had meant to wrap for that particular person. So it couldn't be that difficult for Dante to learn whatever he needed to learn.
Which was another why? Why did he even need this? He had, they’d agreed, the ability to successfully find people to date. Not that she’d made a point of noticing the occasional women who showed up with him at bars or dinner parties. Or on the mat beside his at yoga, looking like they were specifically designed to tuck under Dante’s long arms as they wandered the Town Square together.
And if he could ask Amalia, surely he could also have asked one of them. Any of them. Either before, during, or after, the times they went to bed together.
She wasn’t any kind of therapist, or teacher, or sex expert. And it didn’t seem like this was a roundabout way of him asking her out again. He was too flat-out flustered for it to be a pick-up angle, even if he’d been the kind of guy who’d try such a bullshit line. Which he wasn’t, not from what she knew after them moving in the same basic circles since he’d gotten grown enough to hang with their hometown crowd.
Maybe she didn’t know him like she thought; maybe Dante was one of those guys who wanted to take possession of her time and energy and mental load. It fuddled her up, a confusion made worse by his downcast eyes and pouty lips, just a touch damp after releasing his straw. And by his ongoing silence.
Just before she gave up on an answer and walked out, he set aside his cup and said, “I wasn’t ever, you know, assertive about figuring it all out with anyone. And then I was awkward and—you know, porn isn’t good at teaching the logistics, not really. When I’ve asked Shawna or anyone, it … it didn’t work right, asking them how. Not if they already knew I was no good. Put me too in my head, maybe. Wasn’t their fault. So I figure I need to learn from someone I’m not dating, not trying to make the person I might marry someday.”
She wasn’t prepared for the foolish impulse to empathize, but damn if it didn’t happen anyway. Probably that scene at Mike’s, when Dante stood in silent defense of her, went and made her heart want to be supportive of him in return. Her voice came out almost gentle. “And that’s me?”
He took her empty cup and tossed their trash, cause apparently he’d do anything to not keep eye contact. “You’re a friend, and you’re always honest. And you didn’t want to date me, that time when I asked. Look, Amalia, I know it’s my problem, and probably not worth your efforts. I don’t know even how exactly you’d fix me, if you do agree to help, but I know I can count on you to not make the gossip worse. I trust you to tell me no. Either now, or after we talk about it more, or even if we get started and you want to end it. So. Yeah. If you’re up for it, I’d like it to be you.”
He was poised to escape, but hovering like some part of him hoped against hope for her agreement.
She closed her eyes while she called to mind her schedule. He stilled when she nodded, and followed her out the door. “Let me think it through a bit. Come over on Saturday and we’ll talk.”