The Gravity of Us (Elements #4)(48)

“Well, you gave me a garden, so the least I can do is get you laid. I’m going to order the pizza now. I’m exhausted after all of that.”

“Only cheese on my half! Oh, Lucille?”

“Yes?”

“What’s Snapchat?”

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head twice. “Nope, not even touching that one. Only one social media adventure a night. We’ll save the snapping for another day.”





Graham’s first Tinder date was on Saturday, and before he left, I forced him to change out of his suit and tie and into a plain white T-shirt and dark jeans.

“It feels too casual,” he complained.

“Um, it’s not like your clothes are going to stay on anyway. Now go. Go on and spread some legs, do some pelvic thrusts, and then come back home and write about horror stories and monsters.”

He left at eight-thirty that night.

By nine, he’d returned.

I arched an eyebrow. “Um, not to sound totally disrespectful to your manhood and all but…that was legit the fastest round of sex in the history of sex.”

“I didn’t sleep with her,” Graham replied, dropping his keys on the table in the foyer.

“What? Why?”

“She turned out to be a liar.”

“Oh no!” I frowned, feeling my chest tighten for him. “Married? Kids? Three hundred pounds bigger than her picture? Did she have a penis? Was her name George?”

“No,” he said harshly, plopping down on the living room couch.

“Then what was it?”

“Her hair.”

“Huh?”

“Her hair. On the app, she was a brunette, but when I got there, she was a blonde.”

I blinked repeatedly. Full-on blank stare. “Come again?”

“I’m just saying, it’s obvious that if she’d lie about something like that, she’d lie about gonorrhea and chlamydia.” The way he said it with such a straight face made me burst out into a giggling fit.

“Yes, Graham, that’s exactly how it works.” I laughed, my stomach hurting from laughing so hard.

“This isn’t funny, Lucille. It turns out I’m not a person who can just randomly sleep with someone. I’m on a deadline, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how I’m going to loosen up in time to send the book to my editor. It was supposed to be done by the time Talon was born. That was over six months ago.”

I smiled widely and bit my bottom lip. “You know what? I think I have an idea, and I’m one hundred and ten percent sure you’re going to hate it.”

“What is it?” he asked.

“Have you ever heard of hot yoga?”





“I’m the only man in here,” Graham whispered as he walked into the yoga studio with me that Sunday morning. He was in a white tank top with gray sweatpants, and he looked terrified.

“Don’t be silly, Graham Cracker. The instructor is a guy. Toby. You’ll fit right in.”

I lied.

He didn’t fit right in, but at least watching a grown man with muscles on top of muscles trying to do a sun salutation was the highlight of my life—and of the lives of all the women in class that morning.

“Now travel from cobra to downward dog to pigeon with controlled movement,” Toby instructed.

Graham groaned, doing the movements but complaining the whole time. “Cobra, pigeon, camel—why is every move named after a sex position?” he asked.

I giggled. “You know, most people would say those are named after animals, Graham Cracker, not sex positions.”

He turned my way and after a second, realization broke through. A tiny smile formed. “Touché.”

“You’re super tight,” the instructor noted to Graham as he walked around to help him.

“Oh, no, you don’t have to—” Graham started, but it was too late. Toby was helping adjust his hips.

“Relax,” Toby said in his soothing voice. “Relax.”

“It’s hard to relax when a stranger is touching my—” Graham’s eyes widened. “Yup, that’s my penis. You are actually touching my penis,” Graham muttered as the instructor helped him with one of the positions.

I couldn’t stop giggling at how ridiculous and uncomfortable Graham looked. His face was so stern, and when Toby made Graham pop his butt out, I had tears rolling down my cheeks from laughter.

“Okay, class, one final breath. In with the good energies, out with the bad. Namaste.” Toby bowed to us all, and Graham just stayed there, lying on the floor in a pile of sweat, tears, and his manhood.

I kept giggling to myself. “Come on, get up.” I reached down to him, and he took my hand as I pulled him up. As he stood up, he shook his nasty, sweaty hair all over me. “Ew! That’s disgusting.”

With a sly smile, he said, “You made me get touched in public, so you get to enjoy the sweat.”

“Trust me, you’re lucky it’s Toby who touched you instead of the women who are currently gawking at you over in the corner right now.”

He turned to see the women staring his way, waving. “You women and your sex-driven minds,” he joked.

“Says the man who does camel as a sex position. What do you do exactly? Do you just sit on your knees and like”—I thrust my hips—“do this repeatedly?” I kept making the humping motion, which turned Graham’s face even redder than it had been during the class.