Hate the Game

by Holly Hall

  “Whoa now, there’s a big word for a backwoods boy.” He eased to standing with maddening composure. “I’m sorry you got dumped, but that’s really no reason to lose your shit. Take a Xanax, or whatever you need to do to get your mind right, and let’s get this workout in.”

  Then Pierce fucking Pressinger had the balls to turn away from me, shoulder his duffel, and make for the door, like he was going to traipse off into my gym without a care in the world. I made it there first. I caught the door as he opened it, and he all but rolled his eyes.

  “Consider this the end of your contract. I don’t want to see you in my gym ever again.”

  “That’s a little dramatic, isn’t it? For the sake of one conniving bitch?”

  I shoved the door, and because I had at least twenty pounds on him, it closed with a resounding bang. “She’s a thousand times the person you’ll ever be, you stalker-ass little worm. Now get the fuck out of my gym.”

  He left. More like I allowed him to leave, as soon as I took my hand off the door. I guess I was an idiot to expect all my anger to leave with him; I was only more pissed. His arrogance, his complete disregard for Ava. It was sickening. And all along I thought he’d been my friend.

  I kicked the chair he’d been sitting in over, and it did nothing to absolve the ache in my chest. I’d been betrayed, right here in the place I’d made into my home. I had to get out. I gathered my keys and wallet, hardly seeing what I was doing, and breezed past Ralph on the way out the door.

  “Do me a favor and call my training clients. Tell them I’ve gone home sick for the day.”

  The door closed on his response. I’d confronted Pierce and taken out my frustration on Ralph, and yet I was still alone. More so than I’d probably ever been. There was one place left to go.

  At the end of the street, I turned left, toward the shelter.

  Chapter 26

  Ava

  It’d been a long few weeks.

  I didn’t see Theo again after that day we’d spoken, not even in the halls of our building. I wasn’t surprised. He was probably toiling away at the gym. Maybe reemerging onto the dating scene, but I preferred not to think about that. I made sure I was never in our shared hallway too long. I imagined I looked like a cartoon character every time I left the apartment, my lower half a blur of limbs.

  And I had plenty going on, myself. Mid-November found me amid a stadium of hollering football fans. I’d finally taken Holland up on her offer to attend one of Cade’s games. Where everyone else was bundled up in the cold, I’d somehow been swindled into a suite.

  “You could’ve dragged me to a game sooner,” I sniped at Holland as I filled a plate from the buffet. There was a huge variety, from Buffalo wings to an intricate charcuterie situation, and that wasn’t including the spread of beverages at the bar.

  Holland rolled her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

  That one word sent a reflexive jolt through my chest. I did my best to brush it off. “Pretty soon I’m going to adopt a whole other persona, where I wear fur and send my kids off to the nanny every Sunday so I can watch my dear husband make a thousand dollars per second in person, while never taking my eyes off my flourishing social media account on which I flaunt all those things.”

  She nudged me hard, but I could see the effort it took to keep her giggles contained. “I’m glad you’re back to true form.”

  “Mostly.”

  “Well, you look amazing.”

  “That’s because I’ve been using any excuse to stay away from the apartment, including LoveLeigh’s group membership to that fancy gym I was telling you about.”

  “The one with the sauna?”

  “Yes, but I gave up hiding in there when I kept running into the same woman, who preferred to be naked and talk about her bunions.”

  “That would force anyone out of their comfort zone.”

  “Exactly. Due to the circumstances, I’ve become the Stairmaster master. A couple more buffets like this, though, and all my suffering will have been for nothing.”

  Holland dumped a spoonful of ranch dressing on her plate for the mountain of wings she’d served herself, before we chose seats along the window with a view of the field. It was the second quarter and Chicago was up by ten, hence her willingness to drag her eyes from Cade for two seconds to grab a bite to eat.

  “But how are you, really?”

  I barely suppressed a groan. “I’m taking on too many projects at work, staying late, spending more time at the gym than I do at home, and watching Ten Things I Hate About You on repeat.” I took a dejected sip of rosé.

  To anyone else, that update wouldn’t have been very informative, but Holland knew what bingeing my favorite movie meant. I was still in the healing process, and it’d take several more sessions with my personal therapist, Julia Stiles, to get through it.

  “So it’s business as usual in the life of Ava Marie Wynn?”

  “Yep.”

  “Has Theo contacted you after you talked a couple weeks ago?”

  “No.” Something tightened in my chest. Even though he’d said he would give me space, him doing just that was like a nail of finality in the coffin of our relationship.

  “Oh. I thought maybe he’d text, at least. Check up on you.”

  “I blocked his number.”

  “Well that explains it.”

  I tried not to think about how many times Theo had, or hadn’t, tried to contact me, and now Holland had me wondering. Blocking him had possibly been an overreaction, but it was also necessary. I was realizing, slowly, that the crumbling of Theo and me had been more a reflection of myself than him. My fragile trust and self-image needed readjusting, building. I still had some work to do.

  We ate in silence for several minutes, before I said, “Have I told you about my current project at work?”

  “It’s okay if everything’s not okay,” Holland said. She knew what I was doing, which was diverting attention to anything but myself. Work was easy to talk about, but my heart? Broaching the topic of that traitorous organ was something else altogether.

  “I know you. I know you like the whole put-together image, with your glam apartment and your perfect outfits and your pretty smile, but not everything has to be perfect. It’s okay to not be okay for a while.”

  “I resent that statement,” I said, forcing a light tone. I kept the façade in place for mere seconds before deflating under her knowing look.

  “Fine. I have about a pound of concealer covering my eye-bags, because I stay up far too late watching TV every night until I finally fall asleep. Because if I don’t, if it’s dark and quiet, I’ll think about him. I’ll think about the weight of his arms around me, how he’d smirk when I said something insane. And I don’t want to think about those things.”

  “You were in love with him.”

  “That is a serious accusation.” I pretended to be offended, but my jokes were falling flat even to me.

  “You were in love with him—you know it and I know it—and your problem is that you want to forget it all happened. But that’s impossible, Ava. You can’t throw some time on the Stairmaster and projects at work over your relationship in the hopes of burying every reminder that it ever happened.”

  “Wow. Tell me how you really feel.” Just outside the glass door, on the balcony overlooking the field, Cade’s friends were toasting to another touchdown, but even that wasn’t enough to steal Holland’s focus.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know.”

  “Think of it as proof.”

  I was making a mess of a glob of hummus with a celery stalk, but I couldn’t bring myself to take a bite. “That what I was doing as an RC was messed up?”

  Her beer paused on its way to her lips. “What?”

  “Admit it, Leigh’s guidelines for dating were a sham. I was making my clients out to be the ‘perfect’ match, when there’s no such thing, and it was only a matter of time before karma showed up to pie-face me. Theo being the pie. I keep th
inking that in a roundabout way, I deserved it.”

  “No. What the hell? Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in that head of yours.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  “You didn’t deserve any of that. Maybe the job wasn’t ideal, but you did mostly good things for people who needed it, and you have a track record of success stories to prove it.” She clapped in time with those last words. “What I was getting at is that it’s proof that you can always come back. You were devastated after Liam. You didn’t want to try again. But you took a chance, and Theo happened, and—”

  “I was devastated again. Where is this story going?”

  She reached over and physically pinched my lips closed. “Less talking, more listening.” I nodded, albeit reluctantly, and she released my lips. “It happened, okay? It sucked, but at least you know you’ll always have room in your heart for one more. One more try. It might not be this ‘one more’ or the next, but dammit, hang on to that hope. Because eventually, you’ll find your last ‘one more.’”

  “Next time, I’m going to be your therapist, okay? It’s much more fun when you’re not the one on the figurative chaise longue.”

  “Now you know how it feels to be on the receiving end of all the advice.”

  “I don’t like it. Give me my role as advice-giver back!”

  “Not until you admit you get what I’m saying.”

  “Okay. Okay! You’re right. I felt all the feelings, and then disaster struck, yadda yadda yadda. Now I’m back at square one.”

  “Because you never truly acknowledged how deeply you were hurt. The first step in Heartbreak 101 is accepting how deep your feelings were. Otherwise, everything heals over superficially and all the bad stuff, the resentment, is locked inside. Like an infection. Oozing pus and all that.” Holland stabbed the air with her finger for emphasis.

  “Gross.”

  “I know it hurts after uncovering all that again, but now you can heal from the inside out.” Holland sucked her fingers clean of wing sauce. “Thank you for attending my Heartbreak 101 lecture. For more on my advanced course on revenge-dating, swipe up!”

  I shook my head at her antics. A girl I didn’t know, fair-haired and petite, overheard that last part and gave Holland a cool look as she passed by in pursuit of the bar. Holland either didn’t notice or was actively ignoring her.

  “Who’s that?” I lifted a shoulder in the girl’s direction.

  “Take one guess.”

  “Cade’s?”

  “Yep.” She pushed her plate aside and redirected her gaze to the field. “Our friends brought her along. The WAGs aren’t exactly welcoming when it comes to new girls.”

  “What’s a WAG?”

  Her brows shot up. “Really? With all the reality TV you watch, you don’t know what that is?” I shrugged. “Wives and girlfriends. The fur-wearing influencers you were joking about earlier.”

  “Girlfriend status? You’re saying they’re official?”

  “I’m not saying that. Cade did.”

  “Wow.” I settled back and looked out to the field, though the formations made no sense to me. I couldn’t even tell who had the ball. “Must be serious.”

  Holland made a pshhh sound. Maybe she refused to see it, but one day Cade would find someone, even if it was a substitute. He’d fall in love and an engagement would probably follow closely behind. If Holland wasn’t willing to recognize what was right in front of her face while at the same time dating everyone who was the opposite of Cade, my prediction was that she would one day regret it. And that day would come too late.

  “You’re going to have to shit or get off the pot,” I said, in a rare flare of vulgarity.

  “Who says I’m on the pot?”

  “Your possessiveness does.”

  “It’s called being protective. And if someone came around who was perfect for him, I would accept it.”

  “I know someone who’s perfect for him,” I supplied, arching a brow.

  “I know someone who’s perfect for you,” she said. “But you don’t see me throwing that in your face.”

  A noncommittal grunt came from my throat, but I knew, in this argument, I didn’t have legs to stand on.

  The ache I felt now was enough incentive to keep my distance from Theo. But there’d come a day when the ache would lessen and I’d be forced to face what he’d meant to me, and when that day came, I wasn’t sure what I would do.

  The hard part of a break-up wasn’t the heartbreak, it was the choices that came after. Forgiving. Deciding to be strong. Unfurling from the fetal position and moving forward.

  Or, choosing to move on.

  For now, I chose to hold on to the ache.

  Chapter 27

  Ava

  I wallowed for weeks longer than I’d planned. I called it self-care, but I knew it was more like self-sabotage. Thankfully I had work to get lost in, and not the stressful, non-fulfilling type I’d been used to.

  I was not rewarded the bonus for the Healthy-Living segment. Eddie and his busted noggin saw to that. But LoveLeigh was becoming a company that embodied growth and positivity. There was still progress to be made, but the point was, we were headed in the right direction. And that was rewarding enough.

  I’d just sat at my workspace to continue my research for a piece I was writing—“Spring Dresses For Every Body”—when the chair across from me was pulled out. But in place of Eddie, it was Lora who dropped into it.

  “Hi, Lora,” I said slowly.

  She skipped right over the niceties and instead said, “How’s your boyfriend?”

  “What?”

  “The trainer. He’s still around, right?”

  Now I was genuinely confused. How did she know about him? Unless . . . she was the one who’d somehow found out and told Leigh about us. “That’s none of your business. But, since you’re bringing it up, I take it you’re the one who spilled the beans to Leigh.”

  She licked her lips. “Considering you’ve been meeting with clients outside of consults and accepting their overly generous gifts, I’d say dating the hot gym-owner on the company’s dime was the least of your worries. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

  “Wait. . .” Generous gifts? I thought back to the day I’d seen Janelle outside the office, but the envelope she’d given me was nondescript. Lora couldn’t have known what it contained, even though she’d been right there, unless. . . “Did you go through my things?”

  “No.” She avoided my gaze.

  I sighed, unconvinced. “Alright, Lora. I’ll look past the obvious invasion of my privacy if you promise to stay out of my business from now on.”

  “I have to say”—she inspected her nails—“I’m surprised you’re still here after all that. What did you say to throw Leigh off the warpath?”

  “I told her the truth.” I sighed. “And if you must know, Theo—the trainer—isn’t around anymore.”

  A spiteful smile took the place of her smug expression. “So, Pierce’s little plan worked.”

  The mentioning of Pierce incited flashbacks to Janelle’s birthday party, and then seeing him again at the gym. Then it hit me out of nowhere: the concurrence of it all. Lora might’ve seen Pierce’s name in Leigh’s records, but it didn’t make sense that she’d know anything about his scheme.

  “That’s how Pierce got to Theo, and then to me,” I said, catching on. “You contacted him.”

  She pushed her chair back, and I stood with her. “That’s a bold accusation.”

  “He shouldn’t have known where I lived or that Theo was my neighbor. You shouldn’t have either. Which means, not only did you dig into my personal information, you gave it to someone outside the company.”

  At that, she visibly swallowed.

  “Eavesdropping on my conversations with clients, I could’ve brushed off. But this is a punishable offense.”

  “I was defending my position,” she hissed. “Even you can understand that. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t g
o after my job sooner, but I guess all it took was a vulnerable Leigh to encourage you to make your move.”

  “Your job? Okay, now I’m officially confused.”

  “That innocent Bambi shit isn’t going to work with me, Ava,” she said, panicked. Her voice was rising and our coworkers were starting to notice. “I’ve been with Leigh since the beginning, and I’ll be damned if some opportunistic know-it-all replaces me.”

  I shook my head in dismay. “I don’t want your job. In fact, my discussion with Leigh was about ways to help keep the company afloat so our jobs would keep existing, period. But I have to go to her with this.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “I would. My address is one thing, but imagine what you could do with all the other data we keep. Information about Leigh, stats about the company. . .”

  “I would never release anything about the company.”

  “I don’t know that, and neither does Leigh.”

  Lora’s mouth gaped, and she crossed her arms and looked away. “I don’t know where you found your new pair of balls,” she said. A last-ditch effort to offend me.

  “The important thing is that I did find them.” I lowered back into my chair with forced nonchalance, while my inner, infantile boss-bitch fist pumped. But while I’d grown personally over the past few months, and I’d made some changes to better myself, I wasn’t completely ruthless. “I’ll let you make the decision. Tell Leigh everything, or I’ll do it myself.”

  The last bit of breath left her, and her eyes shined with moisture. I didn’t pity her, per se, but I pitied that she’d felt she had to resort to such measures. She responded with a weak nod while avoiding my gaze. Then she walked away.

  Facing off with Leigh’s pit bull wasn’t my favorite thing to do—but I needed that moment. While I was emotionally tired and professionally put through the wringer. I’d regarded the past few years as a sequence of demonstrations of all the things I lacked and ways I could fail, rather than facing the challenges head-on to realize my own strength. I needed the reminder that I didn’t have to be a passenger of my own life.