Peeling at the label of my own bottle, I feign interest in the television. It does no good.
“Not that I give a fuck, but what’s wrong?” Walker asks.
“Not a damn thing you want to hear about.”
“That’s true, and I don’t even know what it is.” He grins. “But, Machlan is keeping his distance, so that means it might be interesting.”
“It’s not.”
His chest rumbles with a silent chuckle before downing the rest of his brew. I consider getting up and heading to the pool tables in the back just to get some privacy. If I thought it would actually work, I’d try it, but it won’t—not with this bunch.
Machlan and I grew up with his brothers, Walker and Lance, and their cousins, Peck and Vincent. We were all close in age and have been tight since preschool.
If I get up and head to the back, Walker will signal Machlan over and he’ll tell him what’s going on. Walker will rib me for a minute, and if I’m lucky, Peck and Lance won’t join in. Walker will then proceed to tell me I’m a dumbass while giving me some token of advice.
The problem? I don’t need advice. I need a damn smack to the side of the head.
Running my hand down my face, frustration jumps back into the driver’s seat of my life. My stomach twists, sloshing the two beers I’ve nursed since I came in this evening.
“Okay, I won’t play dumb. I know Kallie’s back,” Walker says, stopping for a moment to acknowledge a woman who stopped to whisper something in his ear. Once she’s gone, he turns back to me, but now he’s sidetracked. “That’s the problem with the world right there.”
My gaze trails after the girl I’ve seen work in the post office then I refocus it on Walker. “What? Easy pieces of ass with great legs?”
“Yup.” He motions for Machlan to bring him another beer. “Those girls ruin it for everyone.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Good idea,” Peck says, slipping onto the stool on the other side of Walker. “Don’t follow him. This fucker will lead you astray.”
“Seriously?” Walker looks at his cousin out of the corner of his eye. “When have I led anyone astray?”
“I think I need to join this conversation,” Machlan says, handing Walker a beer. “When has Walker led anyone astray? What about the time you added a little engine to my skateboard and the thing bolted then tossed me off the ramp you built in the back yard and I broke my collarbone?”
“That was your fault.” Walker laughs. “Your balance is shit. I had forgotten about that.” He scratches his chin. “You know, that was really a good concept.”
“I remember that,” I say, looking at Machlan. “I think my last words to you were ‘This is not a good id—’ I didn’t even get ‘idea’ out before you were on your ass.”
“Face,” Peck inserts. “I think he was on his face, legs kicking in the air.”
“Which, in a really weird way, takes us back to pieces of ass with great legs,” I say, circling back to the original point. “How is that the ruination of the world?”
“Whoever said that, I agree completely,” Machlan adds, shoving off the counter. “The better the ass and legs, the leerier I am of a woman. You get those chunky thighs around your face and—boom! The next thing you know there’s a pink toothbrush next to yours in the bathroom.”
Walker laughs. “So is Kallie’s toothbrush back in your bathroom, Cross?”
Peck’s eyes widen, but he wisely doesn’t say anything. Instead, he hops the bar and rummages through the beer cooler. Machlan lectures him on the law, that he can’t be on that side of the bar without a license, but Peck doesn’t listen. He never does.
“You saw her,” Walker states.
“Yeah.”
“And?”
I shrug. Twisting the bottle in my hands, I realize Walker may be the best person in the world to get advice from about this after all. “Fine. I saw her today. We talked for a few minutes and then I saw her again when I went by to do a few things for Brenda.”
“You have plans to see her again?”
“I don’t know. I’d like to. I tried to cast out some bait, but I’m not sure she took it.”
He tips back the new bottle, his eyes focused on the television. A vein in his temple pops, and I wonder what he’s going to say. It could be anything with this guy. Whatever it is, it’ll be what he believes to be the truth. That’s all you get from Walker Gibson.
“Well, in my humble opinion, I say don’t,” he says.
The finality in his tone irks me. “What do you mean?”
“Look, I know you liked her—hell, we all did. She was a cool girl and you spent your entire adolescence glued to her hip. Trust me,” he says, staring off into space, “I get that. You have history with her like you never will with anyone else.”
“It’s not that…”
“It is.” He turns his attention back to me. “But don’t do that. She left you once. I know that makes me an asshole to say it bluntly like that, but she did it, not me. You tossed that line out there tonight and she didn’t take it. That’s enough for me right there. Fuck her,” he says, bringing the bottle back to his lips.
My jaw sets, the pulsing almost cracking my back teeth. “Easy there.”
Peck leans on the countertop and looks at Walker and then at me. “Don’t listen to him unless it has an engine and weighs at least a ton.”
“Just offering my opinion,” Walker says, getting up. He takes his drinks and meanders toward the back of the bar.
“Listen,” Peck says, looking at me with his brows tugged together, “he’s wrong.”
“How the hell do you know?”
“Because my balls aren’t the ones that ache so bad I can’t see straight.” He grins.
“If I were giving myself advice, I’d say to forget it too,” I admit. “I see Walker’s point. She left when it got hard. She fought with me back then every fucking day over nothing. I couldn’t do anything right. But then I think about how many nights I go to bed wondering where she is and how often I miss her. Then it seems stupid to pretend I don’t at least want to get to know her again.”
“You’ve answered your own problem.”
“How do you figure?”
Peck shakes his head, downing half his bottle. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he sighs. “You said you could pretend, which means…”
“Yeah…”
“You have two options here,” he declares. “You can either let this thing go or you can see what you can make out of it. If you pick option one, get over it. You’ll have to, but because I know your ass and know you won’t just get over it because you haven’t since that fight outside of Crave years ago, option two should come with a lot of consideration. You feel me?”
“I feel you.”
“Good. Now that’s done, I’m going to see what kind of trouble I can get into tonight.” He winks before disappearing into the growing crowd of bodies behind me.
I sit for a long while, returning hellos and chiming in to basic chitchat when required. All the while, my mind is replaying the interactions with Kallie from today. With every second that goes by, I feel a burn in my gut grow hotter.
Leaning forward, I grab my wallet out of my pocket and find a twenty. I put it on the counter and set my beer on top of it. “Hey, Mach! I’m out of here,” I say, nodding to the money.
“Tell her I said hi.” He grins.
“Fuck off. I’m not going to see her.” I look down at the money and then back up at him again. “Maybe tomorrow after work.”
Machlan laughs. “Make some time in that busy schedule of yours for me. I want to talk business.”
“Will do. Later.”
“Later.”
Six
Kallie
“You shouldn’t be doing this, Kallie.” Rolling my eyes as I head across the parking lot, I set my sights on the building nestled between the laundromat and a secondhand store. “Now I’m talking to myself—totally losing it.”
/>
My feet stop and I stand on the edge of the curb, peering into the windows of the gym. The early morning sunlight shines through the glass. Cross is standing in the middle of a stretch of blue mats in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. A short, caramel-haired woman in all spandex stands in front of him. She’s facing me, her hands running through the air as she tells Cross a story. He’s watching her, his arms folded in front of him, one eyebrow cocked in the air.
My skin suddenly feels too tight, too unforgiving as I try to draw air into my lungs. When her hand rests on the curve of his bicep, I squeeze my car keys so hard that the alarm goes off behind me.
“Shit!” I mumble, twisting around and shoving the keyring toward the parking lot. “Stop it. Stop it!” Pressing the button repeatedly, the frantic beeping finally stops. “Sorry,” I call out to a woman and her child as they climb into the car next to mine. She gives me a look like I’m crazy before speeding off.
I take a deep breath as I feel a gaze on my back. Turning around, I see Cross and the woman in the gym are watching me. I contemplate saving some face and fleeing, but Cross is stalking toward me before I can make a break for it.
He shoves the door open, the muscles in his arms flexing as he holds it. “You all right out here?”
“Yeah.” I wince, tucking my keys in my pocket. “My alarm is faulty. Probably a recall or something.”
“I bet.” He tries to hide his amusement, but fails. “Wanna come in? I mean, I’m assuming you weren’t coming this way to do laundry.”
Blushing, I walk past him and into the gym.
“Do you know Megan McCarter?” he asks.
“I don’t think so. I’m Kallie Welch. Nice to meet you.”
“You too,” she says in a way that lets me know she doesn’t think there’s anything nice about meeting me at all.
“Wait, McCarter? Are you related to Molly?”
“She’s my older sister,” she says, eyes glued to Cross. “Want to show me that move one more time? I think I forgot it already.”
“If you forgot it already, you aren’t going to remember it next week either,” he replies. “I think that’s it for us today. Good work.”
“I…” She looks at me, then back at Cross. “See you next week.”
We wait as she takes her time gathering her things, including a glittery pink water bottle, and heads out. Once the room is free of her noxious perfume, Cross speaks.
“What brought you down here?”
It’s the question I asked myself on the car ride here, the one I still haven’t answered. All I know is I thought of him all evening and dreamed of him last night. There was no awkwardness in my dream, no feelings of anything other than happiness. I woke up wondering how much of that was just the dream and how much of that was reality. It was hard to tell the two apart.
Shrugging, I look around the room. One half is set up like a gym with treadmills and free weights, and the other has mats and a makeshift boxing ring elevated in the corner. The walls are white with posters of motivational sayings hanging here and there. It’s impressive.
“Guess I just wanted to see what you were up to,” I say finally. “Is this place yours?”
“Yeah. I opened it a couple of years ago. Have another one in Fairview too.”
“Really?” Turning a small circle, I take in every little detail. “That’s amazing. Is it just a gym?”
“Just a gym.” He snorts, heading to the mats. “It’s definitely not just a gym, thank you.”
“How do I know?”
“You don’t, until you ask.” He winks. “It is a gym. People pay a membership fee to use the facilities, but I also train a couple of amateur fighters and have a boxing program for kids. That’s really my favorite thing. They love it for the love of the art, you know? Not because they can whip ass in a bar or flex around town.”
“You used to do both things,” I point out, moseying my way toward him.
Leaning against a wall, his face sobers. “I did. I still do, if it’s warranted, but that’s not what I’m about anymore.”
The way he speaks the words, the level of sincerity in his tone…it has my heart swelling in my chest. It’s a reminder that I don’t quite know this man anymore and it raises a host of questions, including how different he just may be now than he was when I left.
“What are you about these days, Cross?”
“I’ve settled down some, I suppose. Don’t interface with the law much these days.” He grins. “I work a lot, either here or over at the Fairview gym. I do some online coaching and personal training sessions.”
“Like with Megan?”
He shoves off the wall, a twinkle in his eye. “Like Megan,” he goads. “Did that bother you?”
“What? Megan? No,” I insist, brushing it off. “Why would it?”
“Just an inkling.”
“Your inkling would be wrong. How is it my place to have any feelings about what you do in your business?”
“It’s not.”
It’s a simple statement, two little words that pack so much of a punch. It’s not. It’s not the words that irritate me so much; it’s the reason for needing them. Even as I stand here inside his gym, even though I feel this link to Cross and have since I saw him yesterday inside Crave, he’s nothing more to me than somebody I used to know.
“I don’t train many women,” he says, picking up a couple of towels along the mats. “I only agreed to three sessions with Megan because someone bought them for her birthday. She has one more and then it’s over.”
“You aren’t training her any more than that?”
“Nah. She knows it. It’s ridiculous, really. She doesn’t want to know how to box any more than I want to know how to bake a cake.”
Laughing at his analogy, I grab a few dumbbells off the floor and put them back in the rack. “I’m glad you found something to do with your life that makes you happy. I always worried you’d float around and get stuck doing something you hated.”
“Come on,” he teases. “You were really worried I’d end up in jail or on your couch.”
“True.” I giggle, turning to face him. “But I like this version of you, all grown up.”
“Well…” He blows out a breath. “You can thank yourself for that. If you’d have stayed here, I don’t think I ever would’ve realized what a punk I was.”
“You weren’t a punk.”
“I was. I did whatever I wanted and had no plan for going anywhere. Then you left and I realized…” He looks at me and then at the floor. “I realized I’d already lost the best thing that would ever happen to me.”
There isn’t a reply to that. I just hold a breath and watch his beautiful eyes soften.
“So,” he goes on, “one night I decided I was going to do something with myself, and if you ever came back, maybe I could show you I wasn’t a loser.”
“What if I never came back?”
“Honestly? I’d have been a little relieved.
“Gee, thanks.”
“What?” He chuckles, motioning for me to follow him. “Is it wrong that I would’ve found relief in knowing I wouldn’t be falling in love again? That shit hurts, Kal.”
I stop walking. “What if I did come back?”
He pauses too and turns around. Running a hand through his thick, silky locks, his cheeks redden. “Then I’d fight like hell to get you back.”
“You’re just being charming again,” I whisper, knowing it’s a lie as soon as I say it. There’s no denying the stripped-down emotion on his face, the crinkle in his forehead just between his eyes. The corners of his lips flicker, almost pulling into a smile, but not quite.
“Come on,” he says, turning away. “Let’s teach you how to throw a punch.”
Seven
Kallie
“I like this one too.” I point at the screen toward a small one-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment.
“It’s so small,” Nora remarks. “That bathroom is barely big enough to t
urn around in.”
“True. But it’ll be just me. I don’t need tons of space.”
“If you use more than five cosmetics at one time, you’re screwed. Just think about that.”
Nora sinks into the pillows on her sofa as I readjust the computer on my lap. We’ve been at this for a while now and my friend’s patience is running thin—not because of the house hunt. Because I’ve not brought up Cross.
Just thinking about him in theory alone causes my stomach to go crazy and, when I allow my brain to focus on his face or his smell or his touch, it’s lights out. I can’t focus on anything else. It’s a Cross Show and I don’t necessarily want a ticket.
Nora does, though. Her gaze is heavy on the side of my face as I pretend to be immersed in the hunt for an apartment.
“What about this one?” I ask.
“Stop ignoring me.”
“What are you talking about? I’m talking to you. That’s hardly ignoring you.” I laugh, feigning ignorance.
She sighs dramatically. “You aren’t giving me an opening.”
“An opening for what?”
Scrambling to sit up, she throws a pillow at me. “I know you saw Cross.”
My head falls to the cushion at my back. Just like that, the weight that had been sitting on top of us is now squarely on my shoulders. I close the computer lid. “And how do you know that?”
“I saw your car at the gym. I just happened to be heading to Crank to take Walker and Peck a sandwich and saw it there.” Her bottom lip juts out. “You didn’t even call me.”
Laughing, I lift my head. “I don’t have to call you with every little thing, Nora.”
“This is not a little thing! You saw Cross. Privately. Alone.”
“And it was private,” I say, shaking my head. “Do you know what that means?”
“Yup. It means it’s for the two of you and me. Besides,” she says, rolling her eyes, “everyone knows. Machlan asked me about it while we were closing tonight.”
“Oh, good grief.” I groan.
My eyes close as I prepare to either answer or do my best to deflect her questions. But, when the peace is supposed to come, Cross’s handsome face comes instead. I feel a smile inch across my lips as my insides grow warm.
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