Chapter Twenty-Five
They’d started theday in the weight room, gone to the track for a few hours, and headed back to the gym for another round of calisthenics before dinner.Despite all that, Misty couldn’t sit still.The high of bobsledding hadn’t worn off, and even a somewhat heavy stroganoff dinner hadn’t brought her down.If anything, it had been the liveliest meal of the combine with everyone else’s adrenaline still pumping.
“I’m gonna try to work off some of this energy in the gym.”Tish gathered up her yoga mat.“Wanna come?”
“Thanks, but I’ve got a call to make.”She held up her phone as she paced around the room.
Spencer didn’t pick up on the first try, but he was probably in the shower or winding down with a client.She killed time by running a shower of her own, going through her socials, and going in search of a midnight snack.All the exercise of the combine made her hungrier than she ever used to be, but nothing in the mini-market in the hotel lobby appealed.She grimaced at the sight of the packaged ramen, a far cry from her last meal in New York.She turned away, got back on the elevator, and pulled out her phone to place a Grubhub order from a diner in town.An ETA of twenty minutes popped up as she finished.
Back upstairs, she saw that half an hour, enough time for Spencer to have finished whatever he was doing, had passed.She sent him a text instead of calling right back.
Misty:You free to FaceTime?Tish is out.
His request came through a short time later, and she jumped on it.“Hey, you!”
Spencer’s smile wasn’t as wide.“Hi.”
“I’ve been dying to talk to you!”
“Really.”
It came out in a tone that made Eva’s introduction speech sound lively, but she refused to let it dent her high.“Yeah, really!We finally got to get in the sled, and...”She launched into the story of how scary it was at first, but how she couldn’t wait to do it again.
“They’re going to set it up so everyone’s in the sled with everyone else at some point, to get an idea of who fits and works best together when they’re building the team,” she wound down.“But what have you been up to?It’s been a while since we talked.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“I know, and I am so sorry about that.Between these workouts and this mountain air, Icrashat the end of the day.”
He scoffed.“I thought you’d have better stamina than that after all the training we did.”
“Excuse me?You want to talk about stamina?I haven’t collapsed, thrown up, soiled myself, or dropped out of the multiple workouts a day we do here, as opposed to the one a day I used to do—give me some credit here!If anything, I’ve gotten some nods and extra-long looks from the people running the combine.”
“Good for you.”
Even her mom put more enthusiasm into her ‘Good for you!’s.This was the least enthusiastic congratulations she’d ever gotten, and Spencer looked as closed off as the day after the ice bath.“Is something wrong?”
“I’m gladyouhad a good day”—he sure didn’t sound like it—“but mine was a little rougher.A work friend got suspended.”
She frowned.“I’m sorry.”
