Page 176 of Colliding with Ten

Voluntarily?

Lennox

My muscles ache.

Ayla

How much longer?

Lennox

Three minutes.

Ayla

I would rather be set on fire.

Lennox

Your ice bath wasn’t that bad.

Ayla

It was. I contemplated whether death was preferable. It was a close call.

I chuckled, forgetting the frigid water and aching muscles. Two minutes left, but with her talking, I could’ve done ten more.

Lennox

But it helped your knee

Ayla

I don’t care. I hate the cold. I am a warm-weather person trapped in a cold-weather city.

Lennox

You should move back to LA then.

I waited for her response. She’d applied to Columbia, and I loved that she was going back to school. Still, I wished she’d return to USC. The three dots appeared, then disappeared. Then they reappeared for what felt like a century while she typed for two minutes.

Ayla

AJ has been encouraging me to.

I perked up, sitting forward in the tub. What was she saying? Callahan was encouraging Ayla to move back here?

Lennox

Encouraging how?

Ayla

Well, he knows I loved the USC campus, and the weather is great for me. He wants me to consider it.

Heat spread through my chest, but I tamped it down. California didn’t mean me. She could live twenty minutes away and still be as unavailable as in New York. If she stayed in New York, I could handle it. I wanted her to chase her dream, but I hadn’t let myself wish she’d do it close by until now. But if she moved here, she wouldn’t be with the Hawks.

Ayla