“You’re blind if you think that.”
Her eyes narrowed at his vague remark.
What he wanted to tell her was that he wanted her all the fucking time. Every minute of every hour of every day. And it only pissed him off when someone showed interest because she was so wrapped around his heart that the idea of someone else having her felt like they were taking away the thing that was keeping him alive.
That’s what hewantedto say. But he didn’t say that, because he knew her well enough to know she wasn’t ready for it. Whatever mental block she had that made her believe she wasn’t deserving of someone to love her wholly and completely wasn’t unblocked. And until it was, there was no point in pouring his heart out. She wouldn’t hear it.
So he left it at that. Another fucking stalemate. Super.
“I’m going home.” She finally said. “I’m tired.”
He nodded. “Fine, I’ll walk you.”
“You won’t.”
“Ivy.”
“You won’t, Sean.” She turned and as she walked away, Sean watched another acre grow between them.
CHAPTERELEVEN
“Pick up the pace, ladies!” Erica hollered in her typicalSports Illustratedmodel come drill sergeant tone. “I don’t want to see your asses in the air. Keep your form. Jesus, what are you? Beginners? This is anadvancedclass. Read the small print next time.”
At six in the morning on a Saturday, Ivy did feel like a beginner as she went down for another boxer burpee. She hated Erica’s ‘warmups.’ They were like a full work out all on their own, but Ivy was avoiding Sean’s classes and Erica was the next best option. So here she was, doing her thousandth burpee of the morning, because she needed a way to release all the pent-up emotion that was boiling inside her. She’d forgone her morning run because the rain was torrential and even she had limits from her self-punishment. Little did she know then that Erica’s class would be a thousand times worse than running in a downpour.
“Ivy Harrington. I want to see you kiss the fucking floor. Lower!” Erica barked.
They had moved on to push-ups.
“Holy shit,” Christine wheezed from beside Ivy. “Who pissed in her cereal this morning?”
If Ivy could have caught her breath, she might have responded, but as it was, ‘kissing the floor’ was taking every last ounce of her energy.
Christine was right. Erica was a nightmare trainer on good days. She’d earned a reputation for it. Anyone who took her class was going to feel the memory of her tyranny for at least a week in their sore muscles.
Today, though, she seemed off. She wasn’t just being a tyrant, she was being a little mean.
“Anna,” Wendy gasped the name as she lowered herself into yet another push-up. She barely made it back up, and that was saying something for the Brazilian jiu-jitsu master who could drop push-ups like Ivy dunked donuts. “Fight.”
Erica had a fight with Anna? Impossible. They were the perfect couple, the envy of all their friends. They had been trending #couplegoals pretty much the entire four years they’d been together. They were the couple who made Ivy believe that maybe true love did exist, and maybe it could defy all the odds. They’d had spats to be sure, but nothing that resulted in Ivy getting her ass whipped in class at six on a Saturday morning. The whole idea that such a perfect couple could be in crisis burned more than Ivy’s thighs midway through class.
Forty-five painful minutes after Wendy’s revelation, the supposedly in-shape Ivy, and her two fitness influencer co-workers, lay on the floor of studio one, drenched in sweat and gasping for air. The other students, those that hadn’t crawled out early, unable to make it through the drills, had somehow managed to drag their sorry asses out of the room now.
Erica hovered above them, arms folded, lips twisted into a sneer. “Wimps,” she muttered before stalking out of the room.
“It must be bad,” Ivy said to the ceiling. She tried to blow her bangs away from her eyes, and failed. They were glued to her forehead with sweat.
“Yeah.” Christine’s disembodied voice floated up from yonder. “She’s never insulted us before. Not after class was officially over.”
“Bagels,” Wendy managed and got a resounding grunt of approval.
Within half an hour Ivy, Wendy, and Christine had showered, changed, and dragged Erica against her will to the bagel shop down the street, where they now sat, staring expectantly at Erica, waiting for her to spill.
She sat slumped in her chair, arms folded over her chest, her dark curly hair a halo around her frown-creased face.
Finally, Ivy bit the bullet and spoke. “Did she cheat on you?”
Beside her, Wendy gasped. Not surprising. Even the suggestion that Anna would cheat on Erica was about as unfathomable as someone divorcing a Hemsworth brother. And yet, it had happened.
