5.
Nick paced outside the Kroger, one hand mashed to his thumping chest. Holy shit, Aubrey MacLean.
Aubrey fucking MacLean.
She’d just... appeared, out of nowhere, like some kind of ghost. Or hallucination. Or, more accurately, the physical incarnation of a wound he’d carved into himself seventeen years ago and never let heal.
It was her hair that had given her away. He’d passed the aisle and caught that singular glimmer of garnet, and, for a moment, thought he was dreaming.
But no, Aubrey had been all too real, and she’d nearly knocked him senseless just by existing. And damn, had she looked different. So polished, with her red hair cut on an angle, longer in front and shorter in back—the kind of haircut only women with pin-straight hair could get away with. Not to mention her clothes. Fashionable in a way that left him excruciatingly aware of the thread coming unstitched from the hem of his tank top and the grime still clinging to his skin.
He’d probably repulsed her, and now he groaned just thinking about it. But that hadn’t even been the worst part. No, thathad been the frosty glint in her eyes, so cold he still felt clammy all over, despite the thunder in his veins.
Aubrey hated him.Still.One glance had made that painfully clear, so he’d defaulted to what had always come so naturally. He’d shielded himself. Retreated behind a hard blank wall, even while his heart had clawed itself to ribbons.
Now he turned a circle and stared at his empty hands. He couldn’t remember what he’d gone into the store for. He couldn’t think at all. He just needed... hell, he couldn’t even say. Probably the same thing he always did.
He pulled out his cell phone and shot a text to Jackson.Meet at the gym in 5?A moment later, he added an uncharacteristicPlease.
His phone buzzed in seconds.Does 15work?
I’ll be waiting, Nick typed.
The MMA gym was eleven blocks away, but he elected to jog. Just minutes ago, he’d been too exhausted to even consider an after-work gym session, but now he blazed with the fiery need to move.
Aubrey MacLean. The woman who haunted his dreams. What the hell was she doing back in Henderson?
Nick was already waiting on the mat when his best friend strode into Wilder’s MMA Academy. Thankfully, Jackson had shown up in his gear. All the guy had to do was toss down his duffel and slip on his gloves.
“Hey, asshole,” Nick said, mostly because Jackson never swore and always fought harder if Nick said something dickish beforehand. “Took you long enough.”
Jackson glanced at the wall clock. “Jeez, man. You kiss the ladies with that mouth? What’re you all fired up about, anyway? You texted me twelve minutes ago.”
In lieu of answering, Nick put his fists up. The truth was, hedidn’tkiss the ladies with that mouth. Except for that one time,four years ago, when he’d taken Nisha Hansen to dinner with the misguided notion that if Tansy was dating, he should be, too. They hadn’t even made it into the restaurant when Nisha had grabbed him by the collar and pulled him down for a kiss, saying she couldn’t resist a face like his.
Funny, since she’d resisted just fine in high school. Back then, she hadn’t even given him the time of day.
Even so, he’d been hopeful, at least for a moment. But then the great white nothingness had set in, that depressingly familiar desert of feeling, as if someone had bleached him of all emotion. Close on its heels had come the equally familiar jab of guilt, like a knifepoint drilling into his sternum. That one felt suspiciously similar to how Nick imagined cheating did, which was more than a little incredible, considering you couldn’t cheat on your high school ex-girlfriend’s memory.
But his heart didn’t seem to realize that. Why would it? It hadn’t with Tansy, either.
So he’d ended the date with Nisha right there in the parking lot and hadn’t bothered to try again.
Now he bounced from toe to toe, his gloves on and his mouth guard in, impatience like a snapping whip inside him. “I’m not fired up. Come on, let’s go.”
Jackson stepped onto the mat. The overhead lights warmed his ebony skin and gleamed on his freshly shaved scalp. “Something’sgot you wired. What’s up? Tansy hounding you for money again?”
Nick dropped into a fighting stance. Tansyhadasked about Paige’s internship fee again. Seven times, to be exact. And in the almost-week since he’d posted the love-letter ad, not a single person had responded. Which meant if the idea didn’t pan out soon, he’d have to come up with something else.
But that was the least of his worries right now. “Paige just needs money for this internship thing. Not a big deal.” Nick punctuated his answer with a right hook.
Jackson dodged without any apparent effort. “You don’t have it?”
“Not yet.” Nick followed up with a low kick.
Jackson danced away. “You wanna borrow it?”
“Nope.”
