I duck into the closest bathroom and rip off my shoes. I’m not leaving. If she thinks she can scare me off with a little puke, she’s going to have to try harder than that.
But I really hope she doesn’t.
***
By the time I return to the main desk, Maddie is there with a woman. Gunnar is nowhere to be found. And the front entry is, thankfully, puke-free.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” the woman asks Maddie.
She rubs her hands up and down her arms. “Yeah, I just took too much pre-workout.”
The woman nods like this kind of thing happens often. I’m not a gym regular, mainly because I can’t afford it, but I don’t think trainers should make a habit of throwing up on clients.
“I can take over your session if you need,” the woman offers.
Maddie opens her mouth to respond when she sees me. Her face morphs into a grin—an evil one. If I wasn’t immune to that expression by now, I’d be quivering in my soggy sneakers. But instead, it feels like coming home.
Maddie turns to the woman. “Actually, I feel great now. Thank you, though. I can’t wait to train my new client.”
She’s going to go through with it? The better question is, am I? She already vomited on me. How can it get worse?
“Okay,” the woman says before busying herself at the computer.
Maddie rounds the desk and approaches me.
“I can come back next week if you aren’t feeling well,” I say. Step one of the make-it-up-to-Maddie plan is showing her I’m not a despicable human being.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to make you come back. I’m sure they’re missing you in hell.” She smirks.
My lips twitch. I’ve missed her little digs, her challenges. My retaliation comes as an automatic response. “I believe they’re missing you more. There were posters on pitchforks and everything.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t bring one to shove into my back.”
My grin slips. There’s that brick in my stomach—the one that’s been festering for the last four months. I open my mouth to retort again, but that is exactly what I came here to rectify. I’m not that jerk anymore. At least, that’s what I’ve tried to convince myself.
I close my mouth. The look in her eyes is lethal and ice skids through my veins. I knew the potential dangers of this plan going in, which is why I have been working out at home to prepare. Push-ups, man-jacks—modified jumping jacks so I don’t punch the ceiling—and nice little jogs around the neighborhood. I’m not a bodybuilder like that guy over there with muscles bigger than my head, but I’d like to think I do a good job of staying fit.
I’m not scared.
“Why are you here?” she asks.
“I came to talk to you.”
Her eyes narrow. She already knows where I’m going with this.
“All I want is a chance to explain what happened four months a—”
“Motion denied,” she cuts me off. “Either get out of here or let’s get started.”
I don’t have time to hesitate even for a moment, because she’s gone. It takes me almost ten seconds to find her again. Which shouldn’t be so hard to do, given the fact that since I first met her nearly five years ago, I’ve barely been able to take my eyes off her. Her long black hair swishes in a high ponytail over her sculpted shoulders that her lavender tank top leaves on display. Her legs are miles of lean, toned muscle.
The only imperfect part of Maddie is that she never understood. She never figured out the reason I tested her, tried her at every turn, wasn’t because I wanted to be the best—okay that was part of it—but what I wanted,allthat I ever really wanted, was for her to notice me.
I guess she did. But not in the way I wanted her to.
Maddie stops in front of the treadmill so quickly I almost slam into her back. “Jog for ten minutes at your warm-up pace.” She hops on the nearest one and puts her earphones in.
There will be time to talk later, I guess.
