“The dramatics are truly outstanding this morning.”
I glanced up to see Vann standing outside the girls’ locker room dressed in running shorts and a sweaty gray t-shirt.
It was a straight up miracle I didn’t trip over my own feet and faceplant. What was he doing here?
Molly groaned and rubbed her face, “I’m sorry, Dillon. Honestly, I think I’m still hungover from the wedding.”
Vann gave her a look. “I didn’t realize you were bringing a guest.”
Molly blinked at him. “Is Dillon considered a guest?”
“I gained like four pounds this weekend,” I rushed to explain and then resisted the urge to slap a hand over my mouth. Why had I admitted that? Why couldn’t I have said something about getting in shape? Or wanting to try a new gym? Or anything that didn’t involve my flab-ifying midsection?
“Ugh, me too,” Molly agreed. “Which is why I’m here. Now it’s my turn to fit into a wedding dress and I don’t have the excuse of being pregnant.”
“Although if you really wanted to, you could.” I grinned at her, warming up to the idea of having a niece or nephew. Sure, I was excited for Vera and Killian, but Molly’s baby would be related to me. “I mean I don’t think it’s hard.”
She tilted her head, not looking amused. “But then who would you drag to spin class at the butt crack of dawn?”
Vann and I accidentally looked at each other and then quickly looked anywhere else. “Oh, I’m sure I could find somebody…”
“You wouldn’t,” she assured me. “Vann is the only person crazy enough to want to go to spin class, but he doesn’t do nice things for anybody.”
“That’s not true.” My defense for him was out of my mouth before I could think better of it. I accidentally looked at him again, but this time he didn’t look away, so I had to first. “I mean, that’s not a nice thing to say, Molls. Surely, he’s nice to people. Other people. At least his sister.”
“No, she’s right,” he said. “He’s not nice to anyone. Not even his sister. Or her annoying best friend.” He started to walk past us, shooting an indecipherable look my way. “Or her best friend’s friends either.”
I couldn’t help but stare at his back, and okay, his toned butt, as he walked away, a towel slung over his straight, proud shoulders.
And we were back to the beginning. Where he found me annoying again. That was fun.
“Sorry, about him,” Molly said, leading me all the way into the locker room this time. “He won’t admit that he’s a bear before coffee, but he can be really grumpy.”
“I get that. No worries.”
She turned to face me while I took off my sweatshirt and threw my hair in a ponytail. “I thought you guys were getting pretty close though. I saw you dancing at the wedding.”
I stood up from tying my shoe. I figured I could level with her. “We did dance at the wedding. And we kind of got to know each other.” And slept together. “But I don’t know… he’s a tough cookie.”
She frowned and looked at the door as if he would reappear and give us all the answers. “True. But… I don’t know, he seemed to open up with you.”
“Not really,” I assured her. “I feel like I barely know him at all.”
“He danced with you in front of his dad and sister, so that means something. He hasn’t even brought a girl home to meet Vera or their dad in years. He’s like super weird about getting girls’ hopes up or letting them meet his family.”
That was all news to me. Hope bloomed inside me and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Did I want to be the girl that got special treatment from Vann? Did I want to be the girl he was willing to introduce to his dad.
Not that he did. But we did dance in front of all our family and friends. That could mean something.
All I managed to say to Molly was, “Huh.”
“If you like him, don’t give up on him, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
She stopped for a second to look me in the eyes and grip my hands. “He’s a good guy, Dillon. A great guy. And he deserves someone wonderful. He might be prickly around the edges, but once you get to know him, you’ll see that he’s like the most generous person you’ll ever meet. And he’s secretly funny and kind and super loyal. I’m just saying, even if he’s giving you the stay away vibes right now, clearly there was something there over the weekend. Don’t give up.”
I opened my mouth. And then I shut it. Then I opened it again, hoping something neutral would come out. I tried blinking, but that didn’t help either. Finally, after she’d started to look at me funny, I came up with a profound, “Duly noted.”
Her smile was still sleepy, but it was also knowing. She saw way too much for not having a cup of coffee. “Okay,” she said, grabbing her towel. “Are you ready to die?”
Twenty minutes later, I kind of wished I could die. Vann had gotten to class before us. Actually, everyone had gotten to class before us since we’d chatted for so long in the locker room. The only two bikes left were the ones in the front row. Apparently, no one in this class was an overachiever.
Molly had gripped my bicep with two hands when we’d stepped inside the cycle studio. “Don’t make me do it,” she’d pleaded, her voice high-pitched and hysterical.
Bailing totally crossed my mind and I was tempted to give in to that panicked urge. This was dumb. I wasn’t here to impress Vann. I just wanted to burn off some of the alcohol and wedding cake from last weekend. And I thought it would be cool to hang with Molly a few mornings a week.
I didn’t sign up for front row in an exercise class I’d never been to before.
Not to mention Vann would be directly behind me—watching me inevitably fail at basically spinning my feet on spikey pedals. It was humiliation I did not welcome. Nor did I need. Nor did I have to go through with.
But just when I’d been ready to grab Molly’s quivering hand and flee, Vann had turned around and raised a single, challenging eyebrow.
It was like he could sense my flight reaction kicking in. He didn’t think I’d go through with this. He didn’t think I was serious about cycling. He probably thought I was here to see him.
I would show him.
Only now that we were well into the class, I realized it wasn’t slipping off the pedals into a puddle of my own sweat and tears that I had to worry about. It was the super slimming workout tights I’d chosen to wear this morning and my ultra-formfitting halter top.
And, because I hated underwear lines, I wasn’t wearing any. My butt crack was potentially the sweatiest it had ever been, and Vann was here to freaking witness it. And not just see it but have a front row ticket to the sweaty ass show. Literally.
I had been trying to get Molly’s attention for the better part of the last ten minutes, but she had this technique where she stared at the ground the whole time. Probably so she didn’t fall off the bike, but still. I needed her to wake up and pay attention to me.
Also, there was a good possibility she’d actually fallen asleep and was somehow managing to pedal unconsciously.
Not a bad plan, Molly Maverick. Not a bad plan at all.
Another side note—this class was complete and utter hell. This was how I imagined boot camp. Forty-five minutes of a straight incline up the world’s steepest mountain. Maybe minus the techno version of Taylor Swift in the background.
And I worked out. I wasn’t like Molly who could consume seventy-five percent of the planet’s fast food in one day and wake up the next morning somehow thinner than the day before. I was starting to suspect she had a pet tapeworm.
She complained about her lack of curves and Gumby-like body, but she had no idea how good she had it.
I couldn’t eat half of what she did and even hope to be marginally thin. My body type was brought to you by weekend drinking, six days a week workout and dinners consisting of cocktail cherries and bleu cheese stuffed olives.
To be fair though, most of my dinners happened at two in the morning, aft
er I’d been cooking all night, so I was never in the mood to cook for myself. Especially when there was only me.
I usually just grabbed what was available. Which meant cocktail accoutrements. And sometimes good cheese I nicked from the restaurant kitchen.
The instructor looked at me and smiled sadistically—er, at least that was how it appeared from my angle. Like he was possessed with a workout demon intent on enslaving the entire world with cycling. “All right,” he shouted into his headset, “who’s ready to kick it up a notch?”
I shook my head rapidly. Not me. I was so not ready to kick it up a notch. No notches should be kicked.
Molly groaned next to me. I turned to see if she was okay and she mouthed, “I hate you.” Well, okay then.
It was easy to stop obsessing over Vann after that, since I was convinced I was about to pedal my legs right off my body.
By the end of the class, I was gasping for breath and sweating every last drop of liquid in my body. I stumbled off my stationary bike and grabbed for my towel with shaky hands to wipe it down. I wasn’t always diligent about this step of community workout protocol, but the amount of sweat I’d drenched this bike seat in was unnatural. I’d straight up desecrated the poor thing.
“Oh, my god,” Molly groaned. “That was hell.”
“That was pure insanity,” I huffed. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
Her laser glare was answer enough. “Are you serious?”
I managed a weak smile. “You said it was hard. You didn’t say I wouldn’t be able to walk straight for a week after.”
She threw her hand in the air. “That’s exactly what I said! Those were my exact words!” She turned to the person standing behind me. “Can you believe this, Vann?”
My throat dried out and it had nothing to do with the workout. “My memory is a little fuzzy about what you said.”
“At least she didn’t run out of here to puke,” he said, standing closer than I thought he would have at this point in our estranged relationship.
“Who did that?” I had to ask.
“Vera,” Molly said seriously. “She claimed it had something to do with the pregnancy, but it sounds like an excuse to me.”
“Obviously.” I snapped my fingers. “Maybe I should get knocked up too. That would get me out of a couple of jams.”
Molly laughed, but Vann stilled beside me. I was afraid to look at him, realizing what my comment must have sounded like to him after our one-night stand.
“I think there’s a few steps you have to take first,” Molly suggested. “Like finding a guy willing to knock you up. And I don’t think you’re going to have any luck in your current pool of losers.”
The sound that came out of my mouth was supposed to be a laugh, but it was more like the sputtering sound of mortification. “You never know…”
She gave me a knowing look, but she had no idea the hornet’s nest she was poking right now.
Vann leaned in and nudged me with his elbow. “They’re all losers then?”
Was he fishing for a compliment? Or just trying to make me melt into a blushing puddle of embarrassment. Seriously, what was I supposed to say to that. “No one interested in being my baby daddy at least.”
“Have you asked any of them?”
“What?”
His glare cut through me, tearing my insides to shreds. “Have you asked any of them? Maybe they aren’t all the losers you think they are.”
I used the towel to pat my sweaty face and stall for time. “I guess that’s true. Some have been more memorable than others.”
He flinched, catching the punch I’d subtly delivered him. “And some are just forgettable?”
“Completely.”
Molly blinked at us. “You guys want to fess up to something?”
I smiled brightly and took a step back from Vann, lest I do something crazy like actually punch him—or climb him like a spider monkey and shut him up the old-fashioned way. “What? No. I think this is a classic case of boy power.” I held up my fist. “You know, those poor men have to stick together.”
“I’m going to leave now,” Vann announced. “Have a good day, Molly.”
He stalked off, his gray t-shirt drenched in sweat, clinging to all those cut muscles on his biceps and back. My eyes drifted to his ass—I mean, staring there was inevitable—and then to his tight calves. God, had a man’s calves ever looked so delicious before?
“You’re staring at him,” Molly pointed out.
“He didn’t say goodbye to me.”
She snorted a laugh. “Unbelievable! You’re into him.”
Officially grabbing my attention again, I swung around to glare at her, trying to play innocent. “Hardly.”
She rolled her eyes and headed for the locker room. “Yeah, that looked like you hardly noticed him. You’re drooling by the way.”
I touched the towel to the corner of my mouth on instinct. “I am not.”
She turned, grinning over her shoulder. “You didn’t have to play dumb this morning. You can tell me if you like Vann.”
“Ugh.” I winced, dreading the upcoming conversation. “It’s complicated.”
“Men are always complicated,” she agreed. “They like to blame us for the games and being high maintenance. But they’re the real trouble.”
It felt good to hear her say that. And it prompted me to spit out the truth. “We slept together after the rehearsal dinner.”
She dropped her towel and tripped over her feet. After she’d managed to collect herself and stand upright again, she gaped at me. “You did what?”
I dropped my face into my hands. “We slept together. And it wasn’t… my finest moment.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I’d had a lot to drink at dinner. And that whole weekend. And there are some fuzzy spots that I might not totally, completely, wholly… remember.”
She dragged me into the locker room and plopped me down on a bench. “Wait a minute, you’re telling me you slept with Vann, but don’t remember sleeping with him?”
“I remember parts of it,” I clarified. “And the parts I remember are good parts.” Staring at my hands, I felt myself blush. I must have been the color of a ripe tomato. “Really good parts.”
“Wait, does he know you don’t remember?”
I nodded, letting the full weight of her judgment descend. “I woke up in the middle of the night and realized what I’d done. So I escaped before he woke up.”
“Oh, no.”
“I didn’t realize he’d be so pissed. I thought, I don’t know, I didn’t take it very seriously I guess. I thought we were just having fun. But he’s all like, I don’t even know how to have fun. And then I said some stupid things at the wedding. And the whole weekend is a blur of messing up! Molly, fix it for me please.”
She immediately pulled me into a hug, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “Okay. I will. How do you want me to fix it? Do you want things better with Vann because you’re second guessing brushing him off? Or because you don’t want bad blood between you, but you want to move on?”
“I don’t know how to answer that either. Can you also decide that for me too?”
She laughed at me. Seriously, laughed at me. “You must really like him.”
Her words seemed to grab whatever air was in the room and suck it straight from my lungs. “What?”
“You’re so worried about him. I’ve never seen you like this with a guy before. Usually you’re happy to use and lose them.”
If by use, she meant get them to buy me dinner. And by lose, she meant fake a text before the check came, then she’d hit the nail on the head. “That’s true, but only because they’re usually Tinder randoms that aren’t exactly the bring home to mom kind of gentlemen. Vann is just… more complicated than my usual blind date.”
“By complicated, do you mean he has his life together?”
“Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.”
She released me and stood up
. “What if you tried to be friends with him first? I know this might be a foreign concept, and please take no disrespect from this, you know I love you and everything about you. But… what if you, oh, I don’t know, tried dating without sleeping with him? See what happens then?”
I rolled my eyes and wrapped my arms around my chilling torso. Dang, my body was freezing now that it was starting to cool down. “Sounds risky.”
Her smile softened. “He’s not going to leave you just because he gets to know you.”
I resented her words. Not because she had meant them maliciously, but because she knew me and had the right to call me out on my bullshit. Only there was more to my story than just the fear of being known by someone who could potentially hurt me. I mean, there was definitely that. But there was also more. “You don’t know that,” I said instead, it was easier than the truth. “Isn’t that why couples breakup? They get to know each other and decide they don’t like what they know?”
“It didn’t happen with Ezra and me.”
“You guys are different though.” She gave me an annoyed look. “Besides, I don’t want my only options to be to get hurt badly or get married. Is there a third option?”
Now her smile turned into a frown. “I think you’re doing the third option.”
I threw my hands in the air because the third option wasn’t working either. “See? This is why I’m keeping my distance from now on. I need space from Vann so all of these volatile emotions and freak outs can end. We spent too much time together over the weekend and we were the only single people in the bridal party. Basically, it was bound to happen. I’m just glad it’s out of my system now.”
“So, you’re choosing the moving on option?” But she didn’t sound like she believed me.
“It’s better for everyone this way.”
“Whatever you say.” She walked over to her locker and opened it. “You want to meet here on Thursday for another class? Or are you over getting your butt kicked?”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 110