Page 14

“You can add more load,” my trainer, Mick, tells me as I nearly pop a vein leg-pressing my personal best.

Seriously? Sadist.

Sweat coats my long-sleeved athletic shirt, and it’s during these sessions I wish I was as comfortable as everyone else working out bare chested. I’m sorely tempted right now as the wet fabric clings uncomfortably to my skin. I can’t even speak as I bear down, struggling to get the last rep of my set in.

“Come on, don’t be such a pussy, it can’t be that hard.”

He thinks he’s encouraging, but he should be grateful I don’t have any violent tendencies. As it is, I’m ready to punch him in the mouth to shut him up.

Before I can say anything, the door to the gym opens and Paige walks in followed closely by Leah. She pulls up short when our eyes collide.

I tear my gaze away, my heart thudding, and nod to Mick. He adds ten more pounds on each side and I brace myself before starting .

By the end of the sixth rep, I can’t help it. I glance over at Leah. My stomach drops when her back is turned—she and Paige are speaking to Henry Whyatt, the Whales’s head coach.

Mick turns to see where my focus is and chuckles. Loudly. Paige and Leah both turn at the noise while I level a glare at him.

He simply smirks, nodding for me to continue. And now that I know she’s looking, I can blast out three more reps before I feel my muscles scream. I definitely worked them to failure and I’m going to pay for it later.

I sneak another peek and see Leah still watching me, or more accurately, watching my legs. When I catch her staring, she quickly turns around.

“You’re welcome,” Mick hisses.

“Dick,” I mutter.

“Call me what you want, but you’ve been stuck at 860 pounds for months and I just got you up to 880. So again, you’re welcome.”

I want to correct him—it had nothing to do with him—but what can I say? We move on from strength training to functional training. All the while I try to keep Leah out of my field of vision and utterly fail. I see her stealing glances every so often. My body is going to hate me tomorrow.

Especially since I let Mick convince me to do weighted Bulgarian split squats as a finisher. I should have told him I was absolutely maxed out. Bulgarian split squats are the worst on the best of days. But Leah was watching.

Mick tosses me a towel and I pat my forehead, trying to stop my legs from shaking .

“Damn, Jules,” Paige says from across the room as they make their way over to me. “Should I book you in for an extra massage this week?”

I nod, because yeah, my body will need it after this.

“Great, I’ll put it in your calendar. You remember my sister Leah, right?”

I nod again.

Leah narrows her eyes. “Hello,” she says slowly, drawing out the word like I’m a child. I fight to keep the smile off my face when Paige nudges her not-so-subtly.

I clear my throat. “H-Hi.”

“Riveting greeting, you two,” Paige laughs. “Keep her company for a sec, I’ve gotta find Adam and tell him we’re ready to go.”

“Sure.”

Leah stiffens but doesn’t object as Paige jogs away. There’s a beat of silence and then another. The clink of weights and grunts of the people lifting them fill the space between us.

She’s looking at anything but me. I’m not sure what to say. I don’t want to break this semi-truce we’ve apparently formed. Last time we spoke, she did apologize, and I don’t want her to regret that.

“You d-don’t look like you’ve seen many weight rooms.” There, that seems innocuous.

She sighs with all the exasperation I would expect of a mother. What did I say?

When she finally meets my gaze, there’s not quite anger there. More like apprehension.

“I cannot figure you out,” she says .

“What?”

She’s locked in on me, assessing. “You don’t hear it, do you?” When I don’t respond, she rolls her eyes.

“Let me put it this way for you.” Her hands come up in air quotes. “‘You don’t look like you’ve seen many weight rooms’ sounds like ‘your body doesn’t look like you work out.’”

I feel my jaw drop. What the hell? “T-That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean?”

“You look uncomfortable in here.”

“Ever thought that has something to do with you?” she says, taking a step forward, nullifying the sting of her words. If she really was uncomfortable around me, she would have backed away, not come closer. Right?

I can’t handle her closeness, not when the endorphins from my workout are coursing through my body. But I don’t want to move back in case she takes offence to that as well. God, this woman is a minefield.

Are all women like this? I haven’t spent much time with them besides the occasional one-night stand, and there wasn’t much talking involved. Or the need to be on my best behaviour. The women wanted me, and I needed to scratch an itch.

Never this.

“How am I supposed to know that?” I can hear the frustration in my own voice, which is no doubt why her cheeks flush.

“You could think before you speak.”

I quirk a brow. “Do I look like a guy who doesn’t think through every word? ”

“You look like a jackass.”

She may think I’m a jackass, but her flush betrays her obvious attraction. Her gaze flicks down, taking in the shirt that’s clinging to my body. I don’t even need to flex because my muscles are swollen from the workout. When she looks back up, redness flares in her cheeks.

I smirk purely to piss her off. She opens her beautiful, annoying mouth, most likely to spew some other accusation, but she’s stopped by Paige and Adam, who are a little flushed as they enter the gym. When I glance at the clock, I realize Paige has been gone for almost twenty minutes.

“Hey, sorry. We, uh, got caught up,” Adam says by way of greeting.

Leah rolls her eyes at Paige. “Again?”

Paige beams. “Sorry not sorry?”

I have no idea what’s going on. I’m missing something.

Adam clears his throat. “You ready, Leah?”

“Yup.”

“Great. Julien, you should come to dinner with us,” Adam says when Paige and Leah turn to walk away. At his invitation, I freeze, as does Leah. I’m not sure either of them notices.

“I, uh ...” I trail off, sounding more and more unintelligible.

“I’m sure he’s busy. He probably has to take an hour-long shower to wash all those muscles,” Leah says. I can’t tell if she’s teasing or not, her face impassive.

Maybe I was lying to Leah before. That, or she impairs my ability to think through my words. “I’m free.”

I’m in Hell.

This is Hell, right? Sitting in the tiniest booth known to mankind, I desperately try not to make any contact with the small woman next to me. The woman who is practically shooting daggers at me with her eyes.

“What did you say?” she asks, her voice calm. I don’t trust it.

“This is not looking good for you, Jules,” Paige whispers helpfully from the other side of the table.

I know it’s a trap of some kind, but I don’t see how what I said was wrong. Though I know she heard me, I say it again anyway.

“C-Can you eat all that?”

“Man, when a woman asks you that, it’s an opportunity to change what you said,” Adam chips in, shaking his head.

That would’ve been helpful to know before I repeated myself.

“I’ll have you know”—Leah turns to me fully, our knees touching under the table—“I plan on eating every. Single. Bite.” She punctuates each word with her index finger, jabbing the table. The cutlery rattles with the force. Damn.

Realization dawns. “Oh, is it because you’ve been—”

Leah cuts me off, turning to her sister. “How is wedding planning coming along? Anything else I can help you with?”

If Paige is skeptical of Leah’s interruption, she doesn’t show it as the two women launch into a conversation about colour schemes, table decorations, and whatever else wedding planning entails .

Adam, however, tilts his head curiously but doesn’t ask. He knows better by now—if I don’t offer information, it does no good to ask me for it. I do wonder why Leah would cut me off. Running isn’t a secret, is it?

And besides, I wasn’t insulting her by asking about her food. I was genuinely impressed by what she ordered, and given how small her body is, it’s hard to believe she could eat an entire platter of nachos the menu said feeds four people. Where does it all go?

The rest of the meal slips by, and I get roped into the wedding conversation, adding nods and headshakes when necessary. I’ve learned the wedding will be next fall—October, Paige and Adam’s favourite month—and the colour scheme is fall jewel tones. Whatever that means.

Apparently, the groomsmen will be wearing burnt-orange suits. What the hell is burnt orange? Whatever that colour is, Paige says it will go well with my darker skin tone. When Leah nods, my heart gives a little flip, obscuring the feeling of discomfort I usually experience in public.

When we finish up dinner, Paige and Adam say they have “things” to do and make a swift exit, promising to make up for dining and dashing.

I watch them go with my hands clasped tightly together, loneliness I was trying not to be aware of settling over me. This feeling has been hitting me a lot lately. I don’t like it.

Leah stomps out of the bathroom looking furious. Oh shit, what did I do now ?

She holds up her phone. “Apparently, you’re giving me a ride home.”

“W-What?”

“Paige was my ride, but since she and Adam can’t seem to stop banging every five minutes, they left me here. She just texted to say sorry and you’d give me a ride.”

My mind goes blank. At least she’s not pissed with me. She taps violently on her phone, and I fail to suppress my smile. I’m so glad I’m not on the receiving end of those texts.

She glances at me. “What are you smirking at? You think this is funny.”

I shrug a shoulder. “You said ‘banging.’ People don’t say that a lot anymore.”

“You’re a child.” There’s only a hint of frustration in her insult, so I don’t take it seriously.

She puts the phone to her ear. Paige is definitely not going to answer. I’m proven wrong when I hear her voice. Until Leah speaks, that is.

“I need a taxi,” she says, giving the service the name and address of the restaurant.

Before I think too much about it, I pluck the phone from her hand, grazing her skin. A jolt of electricity washes over me, sending shivers down my spine.

“What the hell?”

“Paige said I’m giving you a ride.”

“Yeah, well, Paige isn’t my boss and neither are you.” She stretches to reach the phone, but I hold it behind my back. She’s clearly not comfortable reaching around me to get it, so it’s safe. I am not, however, because even though she’s not touching me, she’s close. Too close.

“Let me give you a ride,” I insist, trying to make my voice as nice as possible. There’s no way she can take that poorly. There’s a beat of silence as she scowls before her shoulders slump in defeat.

“Your mother raised you a gentleman, didn’t she?” she says, putting one hand on her hip and extending the other to me. I place her phone in her open palm.

Without thinking I blurt, “I was raised by my dad.”

She straightens, caught unaware by my confession. That makes two of us.

“Oh, um ... Sorry,” she says, discomfort written all over her face.

Without answering, I hold the door open in a clear invitation for her to exit. She stares at me as she walks through, but I can’t read her face anymore. I know there’s no anger anymore though. She may have a short temper, but she also settles fairly easily.

I didn’t park too far away so it’s a short walk from the restaurant. I wonder what people think when they see us walking side by side. We’re not walking close, so I doubt they think we’re together.

But we’re not walking far enough apart for them to think we’re not. The image of Paige and Adam holding hands flashes in my mind, and I have to ball my hand into a fist when it twitches.

“You were raised by a single dad?”

So she has been thinking about what I said.

“Yeah, in Montreal. ”

She nods, as if internalizing this. “Do you ... Do you feel like you’re missing something in your life because you didn’t have your mom?”

That’s such a loaded question, and I don’t know how to answer.

“My dad did the best he could.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” She seems genuine in her offer, if not a little disappointed. I do want to, though, surprisingly enough.

“Not because I didn’t have my mom, because I didn’t have a mom.”

Her brow furrows and I can practically see the wheels turning in her head as she thinks over my words.

“So no mom was better than your mom?” she asks hesitantly. So that’s what she’s getting at. I don’t know anything about her son’s father, but by the way her question is phrased, he must still be alive. Which means he’s scum, and she and her son deserve better.

“Yes.”

Thankfully, we’ve reached my truck and we both let the conversation drop.

Leah stops, craning her neck as if gauging the distance from the ground to the door, assessing how she’s going to get up there. I didn’t think it through either. I’m going to have to help her.

She doesn’t look at me when she speaks, still eyeing my truck dubiously. “I’ll go with you on one condition.”

I know better than to agree without hearing it .

“What?”

“You don’t speak to me on the whole drive.”

“Deal.” Easiest answer ever. Silence is where I’m comfortable.