Without even having the conversation, I got my answer. Griffin had moved on. All this time I had been his casual. I kept looking at the phone as if some cruel mistake had occurred. Besides work, my life had been defined by these men. Griffin was who I called before anyone else.

I hardly slept. I could almost hear the wind blowing through the hole in my heart. The next morning, I was leaving to take the train to a university in Upstate New York that I was working on when my phone rang.

“Hey, Bae. What were you calling about last night?” I tried to gather my thoughts. Gathering up the contents of my portfolio had been a lot easier.

“Nothing important. It doesn’t matter anymore. I still can’t believe you got a tattoo.”

He laughed. “Think about Julian and our yoga class.” On the train, I remembered Julian convincing Griffin and me that we were much too serious and needed to attend this pranayama breathing class which would “change our lives.” How had we let him talk us into that? We were a curious threesome, Henry, Griffin, and I. Henry was the genius, the virtuoso in the kitchen. You would expect him to be the serious one, but much like Elliott, he could be silly, whimsical, and fun-loving. But Griffin, not quite as talented as Henry, took trying and working at his talent very seriously. Like me. I lived in my head with my ideas, dreams, and visions.

The class had started promptly at five-thirty in an upscale studio on West Paces Ferry. Griffin and I went the first time at Julian’s suggestion. When I was in Atlanta putting NOIR together, we attended more frequently. The instructor was not your granola yoga type. Her class was quite an operation. She folded blankets, accordion style, to open up our spines so we could get maximum air into our lungs. “Belly breathing,” she called it.

“And don’t be afraid if you just fall asleep,” she had said.

“Don’t count on it. I’m much too inhibited to fall asleep with a bunch of strangers breathing on me,” I whispered to Griffin. He laughed. We went to the class many times together. “I don’t know about changing our lives, but I’m glad I did it with you,” Griffin said to me one night when we were putting away our blankets. The instructor approached us.

“You’re Griffin Hardwick, one of the Color-Wheel Boys. You own those restaurants. Can’t wait for the new one to open.” Was she flirting with him?

“That’s right. Tell me next time you’re coming and I’ll whip up a pranayama cocktail,” he smiled. He then offered, “This is Bailey. Bailey Edgeworth, Henry’s sister.”