My hand visibly shakes as I try to get my menu lined up with hers. The plastic rattles as it swings back and forth, bouncing off the metal. Nora has sympathy and takes it from me then puts it away.
The lights of Crave twinkle overhead as I look into the eyes of the man I both love and hate.
“Did you sleep with her, Cross?”
His Adam’s apple bobs. “No. I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Did you do anything with her? Because that’s what they’re saying,” I gulp, my eyes stinging from the tears of the last few hours. They said he was with a redhead from Merom. All I knew is I couldn’t find him. And now, here we are, and I almost wish I hadn’t found him.
“We were at the same party,” he admits.
“The one you weren’t going to?”
“Come on, Kallie …” He blows out a breath. The smell of alcohol is thick on his breath.
Blinking back another round of tears, I take a step back. “You come on,” I tell him. “All you do is party. Drink. Be with God knows who.”
“It’s who I am,” he says, his arms out to the side. He wobbles a little.
Walker stands a few feet away. I look at him.
“You drunk?” I ask, wiping my tears with the back of my hands.
“Nope,” Walker replies.
“Good. He’s all yours.”
I didn’t look back.
Maybe I shouldn’t have now.
“I’m not with him,” I say. It’s aimed at Nora, my words directed across the table, but in reality, I’m saying it for me. “He is working with her at the gym.”
“Look, I didn’t mean to stir the pot…” Veronica looks at me with more smugness than I ever care to see on a person again. It sparks something inside me.
“No, you did.” I slide out of my seat so we’re eye-to-eye. “You always do.”
“Kallie, really, I didn’t.”
“It’s fine, Veronica,” I tell her. “You know why? Because your small town gossip is all you have.”
With a smile as deadly as I can make it, I swing myself in a half-circle and storm to the doors. Nora’s voice trails behind me but I can’t hear what she’s saying. The white noise pulsing through my ears is too loud.
As soon as we’re in Nora’s car, I collapse into the soft leather seat. She flips on the engine but doesn’t pull out.
“This is why I can’t do this with him,” I say out loud.
“Because Veronica is a bitch?”
“No, because this is what it always is.” The words crack with emotion. “I don’t want this and if I don’t stop this shit with Cross, I’ll be settling for a relationship I have to fight all the time.”
“She could be lying, you know. Just saying.”
“Yup.” I yank my seatbelt down and click it in place. “That’s why we’re going to the gym.”
“You sure?” she asks.
“Absolutely.”
Cross
“Good workout today, Cobble. See ya next week.” I grab a towel and wipe my face off as my fourth appointment of the day gathers his things. Usually by this time of day, my ass is dragging, but not today. Today I have so much damn energy I could train an entire football team.
A few minutes will go by and I’ll forget I spent the night with Kallie. I’ll get caught up in teaching a jab or timing a round on the jump rope and she’ll momentarily be gone from my mind.
Then I’ll remember.
The image of her spread out on my bed, how soft her skin felt last night as I held her tight against me will come charging back, and I immediately have another spark in my step.
It doesn’t seem real in many ways. This girl I thought I lost, the girl I knew I’d never stop thinking about is all of a sudden back and has fallen in step with me again. I’m in all the way with Kallie.
Thank God.
The door chimes and I look up, expecting to see Cobble leaving. I do, but I also see Kallie walking in.
“Hey, babe…” My voice drifts off as I take in the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Not really.”
“Then why do you look like you lost your puppy?”
She crosses her arms and then drops them. She crosses them again. “How has your day been?”
“Good. Getting better—I think,” I add, still unsure as to what’s causing her to fidget with the hem of her shirt. “How was yours?”
“Fine.” She heads to the free weights and drags her finger over them. “Did you train Megan today?”
“Yup. Last session. She took it reasonably well.”
She raises a brow. “Took what?”
“The fact that I’m not training her anymore,” I explain. “We talked about that. What did you think I meant?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
Her arms go across her middle again, this time firmly. She takes a deep breath, almost like she’s counting to ten before blowing it out. It makes me take one too in an attempt to settle the little fire that starts to burn in my gut.
“So, the things you said to me last night, Cross, about how this changed things between us…”
“Yeah?”
“Exactly how did you mean that?”
“I meant it like if I see a man hitting on you, I’ll break his face. Exact enough?” I’m partially teasing, but she there is no levity in her reaction. Instead, she bites the inside of her cheek.
“I was just in Carlson’s with Nora. Veronica said you and Megan were in your truck—”
“Woah. Hold up.” I throw the towel at the basket near the wall. “What the fuck is going on?”
“So, you were with her today? Getting lunch?”
“No—well, yes, I took her to Carlson’s and grabbed a sandwich because it was the easiest fucking way to get her out of my hair.”
Her jaw clenches as she huffs. “Really, Cross?”
“Yes, fucking really,” I say back. My head spins in disbelief. “She had Molly drop her off here and she didn’t come to pick her up. Was that intentional? Probably. Did I want it to happen? Absolutely not.”
“Explain to me again why she was in your truck getting lunch?”
Forcing a swallow, I try to be calm. “I needed to head to the school for a boxing class I was putting on for the sophomore class. Megan was still here. What was I supposed to do? Leave her on the sidewalk?”
“That’s where whores usually do their work. She’d probably feel right at home.”
“When did you get so mean?” I laugh.
“When I feel messed with.”
“Look, I was just trying to move on with my day. I wasn’t fucking her. She wasn’t blowing me. It was nothing like that.”
She turns her back to me, looking at the parking lot. “I need to move on with my day too.”
There’s a finality in her tone, an insinuation that she doesn’t just mean her day. Panic shoots through my veins and I’m to her before she can even take a step. “Hey, don’t get crazy.” My hands go to her hips. I feel her body wanting to cave back into mine, but she doesn’t let it. “I’ll cancel my last session today if you’ll go home with me.”
“I…” She gulps. “I have things to do today.”
“You do not.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then come over tonight,” I offer. There’s a level of begging in my tone I’m not proud of, but can’t deny.
“I’m helping Mom sort things she pulled out of the attic.”
“Want me to help?” I ask, running my hands up and down her arms.
“No.”
“Kallie,” I groan, twisting her around. “Stop it.”
“I think you’re right. That’s exactly what I’ll do,” she says, looking away from me. “At least for now.”
“Oh, no. You’re not doing this.” I bite down the panic rising in my throat. “I won’t let you do this.”
She snorts, flipping her gaze to mine. It’s steeled, with an iciness to it I haven’t seen since that night way back when. “Me? What in the world am I doing, Cross?”
“You’re not giving me the benefit of the doubt.”
All I can see is her walking away from Crave that night years ago and feeling so hollow every minute of my life after. If she leaves again, I won’t survive it. I can’t re-invent myself again. I can’t trick myself into hoping it’ll all work out every morning when the sun comes up.
“No,” she says with a simple shrug. “I’m not, because I’ve been through this with you before and I don’t know why I thought it might be different this time. It’s not.”
“The hell it’s not!” I roar, taking a step back. “I fucking love you, Kallie. I’ve waited on you to come back for years and you tell me it’s not different? Maybe you’re not different, but I fucking am!”
She blanches, stepping away from me too. The corners of her eyes wet as she takes another step back. “Maybe we both are.”
My chest reverberates as I watch her take each step toward the door. With each inch of distance added between us, the air stagnates. A hollowness begins to form in my chest, and I know it will never fill this time.
“I love you,” I tell her, my voice the softest this gym has ever heard.
“Do you? Do you really?” There’s a fear in her eyes that chills me. “Or do you love what we were? Or what we could’ve been? Is it easier to settle for me because it’s the easiest solution?”
Her words hit my heart like a poisoned dart. I take a step back. “You think I’m settling for you?”
“Maybe.”
Forcing a swallow, I sigh. “You want to know something? I had this big thing worked up to tell you I loved you but then I thought it would be better to show you, to make you believe it so much you didn’t have to ask or wonder,” I admit. “Guess that failed.”