The TV replayed my missed shot from the third period. The announcer talked about timing. About patience.
I snorted and grabbed a medicine ball instead, slamming it into the floor. It bounced back into my hands. I did it again. And again. My shoulders started to protest. I ignored it.
My phone vibrated against the bench.
I almost left it there.
Instead I walked over, chest still heaving, and flipped it face up.
Sage’s number.
The text read simply, “SOS”.
Underneath it, an address downtown I recognized from late-night drives and bad decisions.
I stared at the screen, convinced my brain had started inventing things. She wouldn’t be texting me. Not after what happened at Purple Rose.
It vibrated again before I could talk myself out of responding.
I wiped my hand on the towel and typed back: “I thought you don’t like me.”
Then I tossed the phone onto the bench and grabbed a kettlebell, swinging it up between my legs and driving it forward with my hips. The motion forced my focus downward, on form, on breathing.
My phone buzzed again.
I caught the kettlebell on the downswing, and set it aside before I cracked a tile. Negotiating with my better judgment was hell in this state. Part of me was convinced Sage knew that. Somehow, she knew the state I was in, and chose this time to do all this.
“Get over yourself and get your ass downtown.”
I barked out a laugh before I could stop it. That was just like her.
Do what I tell you. Ask no questions. Forget how I led you on and made you think there was something worth something happening between us.
I started pacing the length of the gym, phone in hand. If her goal was to weasel her way into my brain and fuck up my momentum then she’d succeeded.
“Busy. Can’t.”
The stretching mats called out to me, and I left it at that. My response was gonna piss her off, which was the goal. In the meantime, my workout wasn’t finished.
Lunges hated me almost as much as I hated them, but I breathed into the stretch anyway. Weight dropped low and slow through my front heel, hands braced on my thigh, I tried to clear my mind of everything that wasn’t controlled, even breathing.
A vibration broke through my best intentions, and I set my jaw. Ignoring Sage’s persistence, I deepened the stretch and breathed through the tight pull in my hip flexor. As long as I kept my focus on the burn instead of the annoyance crawling up my spine, I’d be okay.
But that goddamn vibration came again, and another followed quickly after. My ankle wobbled, and I groaned out loud, stomping over to the bench.
“Aiden.” That was it.
And the next ones read: “Are you for real right now?” and “Are you there?”
Yeah, I was here and being very real. “As real as you were when you told me to take a hike.”
The three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. When next they disappeared, they stayed that way. I was only vaguely aware of the fact I was holding my breath as I clutched my phone, staring at the screen as if a look at the right temperature would compel a reply.
Three dots again, and relief left me in a shaky sigh.
“Are you coming or not?”
Fuck.
