Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) Read Online Free Page A

that senior set, huh?”
    “You know it.” She waved. Actually, Sidra didn’t mind teaching the geriatric group that often showed up for her Monday beginners class at Evolve Yoga. They didn’t show off, they didn’t hit on her, and they were open to new poses. She smiled as she crossed Lexington, remembering how her class had mastered Lizard last week. Age spots and crepe paper–like skin had lent themselves well to the pose.
    Lizard pose always reminded Sidra of Charlie’s iguana. Banana Louie was the only thing she truly missed about her ex-boyfriend. She used to get nervous when Charlie would let the creature roam free in her apartment. A lash from its powerful tail could easily draw blood or break one of her mother’s few remaining sculptures. But with time, she came to like watching Banana Louie. Especially when he’d bask under his UVB bulb and let her feed him green beans.
    Turned out Charlie was the one you had to look out for. Chasing tail and biting the hand that fed him. Turning wild when given the allowance to roam free.
    Dark thoughts swept in as she crossed 64th Street, clouding Sidra’s mind and tightening her chest.
Set your best intention for the day,
she told herself.
Just let it go.
    Maybe chivalry isn’t dead,
Sidra reasoned as she breezed through the door of the medical center.
Maybe it’s just being kept on life support somewhere. Waiting for the right person to come along and breathe life into it.
    Or to pull the plug and put it out of its misery.

Rick
    Shafted
    Rick surveyed the crowd before him, clearing his throat loudly. Discordant chatter fell to an expectant hush, and all eyes were on him. Camera flashes popped.
    I don’t belong here.
    A prod in the back from Isabelle reminded Rick that this wasn’t about him.
    He looked down at his hands and almost burst out laughing. It was like one of those horrible dreams you had as a kid, showing up at school and suddenly realizing you’re naked. Except he was way overdressed, in a bespoke suit with a horrible Brioni tie strangling him in ways his guitar strap never could.
    But that sinking feeling of the dream, of looking down to the utter shock of nakedness? Yeah, that was there. He had no guitar to hide behind. But what he did have in his hands was a pair of gigantic, ceremonial scissors.
    “Don’t hurt yourself,” Isabelle wisecracked from behind him.
    “Right.” He knew the drill. Welcome everyone, allow the hospital president to say a few words, shake hands for the camera, cut the blasted thing, and call it a day. Both his publicist and the hospital’s spokesperson had been over it ad nauseam.
    He opened his mouth and words started to flow. But the audience began to murmur again, shaking their heads and raising brows to one another.
    “Sorry, sorry.” He tapped the dead microphone, then remedied it with a flick of the switch. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sound-check my own mic,” he joked. “Check, check one-two.” That garnered a laugh, mainly from the under forty crowd.
    Rick had done the easy stuff earlier. Posing for pictures with various board of director muckety-mucks, signing autographs for them and for some of the doctors, their children, and their children’s children. Now came the hard part. He glanced down at the wide, orange satin ribbon stretched out before him as Isabelle gave him another nudge. It was the only thing keeping him from performing a perfect swan dive into the arms of the city officials and dignitaries seated below.
    That and social decorum, he supposed.
    “Thank you all for coming, and for giving me this honor. Simone would be . . .”
    Simone would be what?
    Rick glanced around at the shiny new cancer wing of the famed Manhattan hospital. His wife had died far away from here, the city of her birth, and from her parents, who had been unable to make the opening due to unforeseen circumstances. They were the ones who tirelessly raised the money and spoke for the cause, year after