Page 185 of All Packed Up

“What happened?” he interjected.

“Oh, right to it, huh?” She laughed nervously. “You always have been like that—

“Just tell me,” Nic pleaded.

A long pause. “Something happened to the gym,” Ashley finally said.

Nic listened as she calmly explained the order of events, but he tuned out after a few minutes.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said, cutting her off in the middle of a sentence. “Sorry, that was rude. Uhm, I need to process. Can I call you back?”

She was quiet for a long minute. “Yeah. I’m so sorry, Nic. I can give you more info when you get back into town. But the police want the security tape footage ASAP. And I’ll… I mean, if you want me to, I can send you the pictures I took for insurance?”

His chest ached as if someone had kicked him in the sternum. “The police want security footage? Why?”

Ashley was silent for a moment. “I didn’t realize I was the very first person to talk to you. Uhm…” Her voice wavered before she took a deep breath. “They said it didn’t look natural. And they were asking me all these questions about other businesses in the area that might feel threatened or if there’d been anyone suspicious hanging out. Why would someone do this?” she asked, voice breaking.

Nic’s throat tightened up. “Thanks for letting me know, and… yeah, just text me the pictures. Thanks.”

He ended the call numbly, the barbed wire shaped worry constricting around him too tight.

Why would someone do this?

Ashley’s words rang in his head like a bell, loud and insistent, jarring. Clanging, over and over, trying to drum a damning realization into his head.

One he wasn’t ready to face.

But would have to, assuming he was ready to see the damage up close.

Right, he was going to have to go back to the city.

Sucking in a breath that went down like crushed glass, he held it. Held it until his chest ached and his lungs screamed and his head rushed. When he finally released it, he did so as a hiss between his teeth.

The vibration of his phone jarred his concentration, and he turned his phone around to see the screen.

Ashley’s pictures had arrived.

Nic clicked on the first one, his breath exploding out of him in a gasp at the charred image. His back thumped against the wall as he swiped to the next one, slid down to the floor as the earth fell out from beneath him.

There was nothing left. A charred lot. The remnants of blackened, metal machinery sticking up around what remains he could make out in the pixelated images.

He’d put his whole life into that place. Instead of a mortgage, he had the gym. Instead of a partner, he looked after the gym.

Once he’d left the ring behind, the gym had become his distraction. From boredom, from loneliness. It had become his entire life.

Hell, maybe this was karma for what he’d done to Griffith. It only seemed fair. Nic had lost just as many if not more years in that gym. And now it was gone.

The sound of laughter drifted up from the first floor, and Nic stared at the door, a little lost.

Why would someone do this?

Who would do this?

There was only one answer, and the answer wasn’t one he was keen to share.

Wendy’s heat had only just ended.

The last thing Nic wanted to do was ruin the mood, strain the ease and comfort they’d found between each other in the past few days.