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Lauren frowned. “That’s different.”
“Is it?”
Lauren opened her mouth, then closed it again.
Maybe Paige was right. She had the same knowledge in here as she had in the gym. The same hands. The same instincts. The difference was that clients weren’t Carly, and Carly wasn’t looking at her as if the past was standing in the room with them.
“And,” Jenna added, as if she hadn’t already dropped enough into the conversation, “she’s coming to training tomorrow.”
Lauren pushed herself upright. “She’s what?”
“Training. My hard work is paying off. You really have been useless on that score.”
Lauren stared at her. “You’re unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“That’s going to be a disaster. I know I said I’d help you with this recruitment thing, but she’s going to hate it.”
“Or,” Paige said, “she might not.”
“And even if she does,” Jenna added, “it’s still good for the gym. Which, last time I checked, is the whole point.”
Lauren paced the small space. “Great. So now I get to embarrass myself in two different settings.”
“Or,” Paige said again, “you could not do that.”
Lauren stopped. “Right. And how exactly do I avoid that?”
Paige met her gaze. “By doing what you just did.”
“With him?” Lauren gestured towards the door.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Exactly.”
Lauren looked between them, unimpressed. “You’re both being incredibly vague.”
“I know what you’re like with clients,” Paige said. “You will have said what needed to be said and nothing else. You won’t have tried to make him like you.”
“I don’t need my clients to like me.”
“And you don’t need Carly to like you either. You said so yourself, in the car.”
Lauren hadn’t expected that to matter as much as it did. She folded her arms again and looked down at the floor.
Paige smiled softly. “You know more than you think you do.”
Was that the new version of you’ve got this? Another mantra that did absolutely nothing in practice.
“I just…” She rubbed her thumb over the edge of the counter. “I don’t know how to not mess it up.”
“Don’t try not to mess it up. That’s sort of the point. Keep it simple.”
“No jazz hands,” Jenna added.
