Page 6 of Tripped By Love

Her eyes were still squinty, assessing me, but I ignored them. Instead, I shoved the weights in her direction.

She took them with a sigh. I returned to the second rack, dialed in my amount, and pulled them off. We faced each other in the middle of the mat and went to do the first repetition, but as she raised her arms, pain streaked across her face.

I closed the minimal distance between us, jerking the hand weight from her.

“What the hell?” I asked, voice lowering, fear coasting over me. We’d been working out for two years, and the only time she’d ever looked like that was when she’d done something outside of the gym to hurt herself.

She rubbed her left elbow, continuing all the way up to her shoulder. I dropped the weights and gently pulled her arm toward me. There was a bruise forming above the joint.

“What happened?” I demanded.

Her face closed down, and she brushed me off, stepping away from me much like I had a few moments ago when she’d gotten too close. When she’d gotten under my skin.

“What always happens. I fell. It isn’t a big deal.” Her voice was full of frustration. Anger. She hated being weak. But she was a hundred times stronger than she’d been when we’d started this.

“Where did you fall?” I asked, trying to stay calm. To not freak out like Arlene did whenever she heard or saw Cassidy injure herself. Cassidy’s mom protected her with a fierceness that bordered on obsessive, but I knew it was born out of love. A love I understood because, once upon a time, my parents had felt the same way about me.

“In the restaurant’s kitchen. Chevelle was on my leg…we were playing…I just lost my balance.”

Likely she’d hurt herself worse because she’d done whatever she could to fall in the opposite direction of Chevelle. But it meant she’d hit the unforgiving cement floor. I reclosed the distance she’d put between us, tugging at her fingers gently.

“Let me see.” I couldn’t help the soft beg that littered my tone. Her eyes widened, but she didn’t pull away. I felt her arm, probing gently at the elbow, my time as a corpsman coming back easily and readily to me. “I’m pretty sure it’s not broken, but just in case, we should ice and elevate it to keep the swelling down. You definitely shouldn’t be lifting weights.”

“How could you possibly…it doesn’t matter. I just want to work out and push past it.” Frustration weaved its way through her words again.

“Cassidy, I get it. You don’t want to be injured, but you are. Pushing this will only end up with you at the hospital with Arlene hovering over you.” I used her mom as a weapon because I could. Because I wanted her to stop and take care of herself, and the easiest way to do that was to threaten Arlene’s stifling overprotection.

Her eyes flashed. “Don’t use Mom against me.”

My lips quirked because she’d called me on it. “Then don’t be stubborn. Ice the goddamn elbow.”

She lifted my fingers from her arm and moved away again, heading toward the door this time. She tossed back, “Fine. But when it’s all better in the morning, you’re going to be the one feeling like you overreacted, not me.”

I followed her as she made her way into the dimly lit kitchen. Relief mingled with disappointment wafted through me. Calling off our workout meant I wouldn’t be able to touch her. I wouldn’t be able to watch as her muscles flexed and bent. I’d have to go back to an empty apartment, staring out the window at the lights in her bedroom that called to me more than the stars in the sky.