Page 106 of Save Your Breath

She was still watching me with equal parts suspicion and curiosity in her eyes.

“So, now that you’ve heard how I met this brute,” Otis said, nodding toward me. “How do you two know each other?”

His bony finger waved between us, and I took a sip of my glass, raising a brow at Mia to let her answer.

“We grew up together,” she said simply.

“Mmm, and he hasn’t annoyed you enough to drop him yet, eh?”

“You’re brutal tonight, Otis,” I teased. “Really hurting my feelings here.”

“You don’t have feelings any more than I have real teeth.”

I chuckled, but my smile slipped a bit when I looked at Mia, who was watching me in a way I couldn’t quite decipher.

“He’s not so bad,” she said, her voice soft. “If you really know him.”

I swallowed at her sincerity, eyes searching hers as if I could find the answer to why she’d been so cold to me since the day of the fake engagement. But she tore her gaze away too quickly, clearing her throat and smiling at Otis before asking him another question about his life.

We didn’t stay much longer after that, mostly because I noticed Otis was yawning quite a bit and his eyelids were already drooping. I didn’t know how this man made it to half our games when he was usually asleep by seven.

Still, I could tell he was enjoying Mia’s company and attention, so until it was almost nine, I let him prattle on about the time he swore he discovered Göbekli Tepe before Klaus Schmidt. When we said our goodbyes for the night, I made Otis promise to call me or come over if he needed anything, and he made Mia promise to not let me chase her away so that he could see her again.

Mia was silent on the walk back to my condo, sliding inside without a word once I ran my key fob over the sensor and opened the door for her. She kicked off her slides, walked to the middle of the room, and stood there — just staring out at the wind-whipped rain visible through the windows in every direction.

It was dark, save for the lamp I’d left on down the hall in my room. Mia stood there like a ghost for so long I wondered if she really was one.

“Can I take a shower?” she finally asked.

“Of course.”

With that, she nodded, slowly dragging her feet down the hall toward the guest room I’d shown her to earlier. I’d been half-tempted to board that motherfucker up and pretend we only had my room available, but I wanted her to feel comfortable, safe — not even more stressed than I knew she already was.

“Mia,” I said when she was almost to the room.

She paused, leaving her back to me but angling her chin so I could see her profile, so I knew she was waiting.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

It was honest, and I also hoped it comforted her a bit in a situation that was completely out of her control.

But she barely acknowledged the statement at all, just a huff of a laugh through her nose before she disappeared into the guest room.

So Prickly

Mia

Numb was my state of being as I padded down the hallway barefoot after my shower, hair dripping wet and Aleks’s jersey hanging from my shoulders. It was so big it swallowed me, the hem of it brushing my kneecaps.

I debated just locking myself in the guest room for the night, but my stomach protested with a fierce growl the moment I smelled whatever it was Aleks was cooking. I decided I’d re-emerge long enough to eat and then I’d ride out the storm alone.

My thoughts and feelings matched the weather, the tumultuous whirlwind inside me mirroring the wind and rain outside the windows. On a whole, I was terrified for Tampa, for anyone in the path of the hurricane. Selfishly, I was worried sick I’d have to cancel my first show at Madison Square Garden. But the most turbulent emotions surrounded how I felt to be stuck overnight with Aleks in this condo.

I was still so angry at him, so hurt by the way he’d avoided my questions only to then knock me on my ass with the most romantic speech of all time. It killed me that he could just fake that, that those words could spill from his mouth, his eyes so sincere, and then he could be shocked by me being upset when he shrugged it off the moment the cameras weren’t on us, looking at me with an expression ofhow’d I do?

In the next breath, I wondered if I was overreacting. I’d iced him out since then, hellbent on putting distance between us for the rest of this little charade because I was in danger of getting hurt. But was that fair?

He was right. Ithadbeen me who had asked him to do this in the first place.