How I didn't feel the urge to run when her breathing evened out, and she curled against my chest like I was someone safe. How I fell asleep with her body pressed against mine and didn't wake up clawing for distance as I would have with anyone else.
The mistake is realizing that I want more.
I blink hard, irritated at my own body for remembering it. For craving her. For wanting to go back into that bedroom, slide into the sheets, and pull her close like she belongs to me.
Because she doesn't belong to me. I’m just a boundary she crossed. A client that she feels a strong pull toward, and she needed to let out some of the steam as much as I did.
Natalia is here on a contract. She’s here to keep her job and get me out of the mess I made.
She’s here for damage control.
That's what I remind myself as I step into the hall after leaving her a sticky note to let her know that I went to the gym. I pause at the bedroom door and then pull the door mostly shut, leaving it cracked as if I’m waiting for her to wake. A soft detail that is unlike me.
I hate soft things. They get broken, like my mother and her fight against her own body, like my childhood with a father who wanted me to harden up for the world he was preparing me for.
My boots are by the entryway. I slide them on and grab my coat.
If I don't leave now, I'll realize that I've started wanting things that don't belong to men like me.
I opened the door.
Cold air snaps across my face, stinging and biting at any bare skin. The reminder that the world is still real, and no longer softened by steam and skin and the sound of her trying not tomoan my name. It’s why the rink and the slopes are the places that clear my mind the most. Nothing thrives in the ice. It’s too brutal.
I step outside and pull the door shut, the lock clicking behind me.
I stand there for a second longer than necessary, staring at the snow piled along the steps, watching my breath fog.
Then I turn and walk away.
The resort gym is open early. A small crowd of people is already working out. Diehards or people still on different time zone schedules. The smell of rubber and sweat, and the sounds of TV news stations mounted over the treadmills fill the space.
I sign in without making eye contact, nod once at the employee behind the desk, and head straight for the weights.
No warm-up or easing into it. I need this to hurt.
I load the bar until the plates clank like warning bells and start lifting like the only thing I can do is punish the weakness out of my body.
My muscles remember what my mind is trying to forget.
Every push is a refusal, and every pull a reminder.
Her laugh, bright and startled, when I teased her, floats through my mind. The way she looked at me like I was something she didn't understand but couldn't stop studying. The way her body softened when I touched her shoulders in the hot tub, like she'd been carrying everything alone for too long. My body’s reaction the first time I kissed her neck.
That's what gets me. It wasn’t the heat, or how perfect she looks naked. It was the trust she was giving me, whether she knew she was doing it or not. I liked it… her trust in me.
I lift harder, to punish myself, to sweat out thoughts that last night wasn’t a onetime thing.
My chest burns, my arms begin to shake, and sweat drips into my eyes, and I don't wipe it away.
On the bench across from the mirrors, a couple in matching resort hoodies stretches side by side, murmuring to each other in German, smiling like they live in their own personal bubble.
I look away.
The bar dips toward my throat, and I shove it back up, like the idea of wanting more is something I can press out of myself.
I rack the bar with a loud clank and stand there breathing like I've run a mile. My forearms are pumped, veins standing out, fingers tingling with the leftover electricity of exertion.
It isn't enough.
