While I was stretching, Nellie walked past the field, passing by the end zone beyond the chain-link fence that wrapped around the area. She walked with her head down, her eyes on the concrete sidewalk.
It was Phoebe who made the first snide comment. She called Nellie a brainiac. Then I called her a prude.
A single comment. She’s a prude.
Then our coach whistled and waved us into the locker room. Nellie disappeared around the corner of the bleachers, out of sight and forgotten.
The journal entry was from the next day.
And my comment was not so forgotten, after all.
I probably should have known better. Done better. Been better. Anyone with two eyes could have looked at Phoebe’s face and seen the envy as green as Nellie’s eyes. Of course she’d taken my comment and run with it.
Nellie had everything Phoebe’s money couldn’t buy. Intelligence. Wit. Beauty.
A beauty that radiated from her pure heart.
I closed the diary and reached behind my seat, placing it on the floor of the Land Rover. Pathetic as it was, that book had become my constant companion. Over the past five days, I’d read it again.
Nellie’s adolescent thoughts had consumed me. Retiring this young was clearly fucking with my head. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t just leave the damn book alone. Just like I wasn’t sure what had come over me at Grays Peak last week. I sure as hell wasn’t sure why I’d wanted her to verbalize why she hated me.
Maybe I’d been trying to pick a fight. Or maybe I’d been hoping that if I asked her what she hated about me, she’d come up empty.
Of course she hated me. I had the evidence in a leather-bound book. So why couldn’t I just accept her hate and move on? Why couldn’t I stop thinking about her?
Why did I care about her opinion?
Christ, I was fucking losing it.
“I really need to stop reading that diary,” I mumbled.
A blonde came walking down the block. I grabbed my yoga mat from the passenger seat, climbed out of the car and slammed the door. The sound caught Nellie’s attention. Her footsteps stuttered on the sidewalk.
I smirked and walked to the door of The Refinery, lingering outside as she marched my direction. “Morning, Blondie. Your roots are showing. Time for a new bottle of peroxide.”
She cringed.
I stifled one of my own. Yeah, okay. I was a prick for constantly making fun of her hair. Especially considering I liked the color.
“Go away, Cal.”
I yanked the door to the fitness studio open before she could touch the handle. “After you.”
“What?” She looked me up and down, taking in the athletic shorts and sleeveless tee. “What are you doing?”
“Yoga.”
“No.” She clutched the mat rolled under her arm tighter. “This is my yoga class.”
“Mine too. I’m the newest member at The Refinery.”
Nellie closed her eyes, her hands balling into fists. “You do not do yoga.”
“Yes, I do. My trainer thought it would be good for my back. Turns out, he was right.”
“Can’t you afford a private instructor?”
“And not support Kerrigan’s business? What kind of friend would that make me?”
“The Cal Stark kind.”
The shitty kind. I gestured for her to go inside first. “Shall we?”
She stomped past me, flicking her ponytail so high and hard it whacked me in the face.
We each checked in at the reception counter and toed off our shoes, stowing them in a cubby along with our keys and phones. Then we entered the studio, me keeping pace with Nellie as she crossed the mats to the far end of the room.
With a fast shake, she unrolled her mat and tossed it on the floor.
I did the same, crowding close. Our hands would probably touch during Shavasana.
“Cal.” She seethed through gritted teeth, dropping to her knees.
“You seem stressed, Rivera. Work been rough on you this week?”
She blew out an audible breath, then leaned forward into Child’s Pose.
Her tank top molded to her frame. Her leggings left little to the imagination. And God, what I wouldn’t give to strip it all away. To forget yoga and work out the tension in my body, and hers, with sex.
My cock jerked as I stared at her ass, so I forced myself to my mat, wishing like hell I’d thought this through.
Yoga was the reason I’d come downtown this morning. My back had been killing me all week. Tormenting Nellie was a bonus. I’d chosen this class specifically because Kerrigan had mentioned this was Nellie’s favorite.
Last night, I’d gone to Pierce and Kerrigan’s place bearing pizza. I’d played with Elias for a couple of hours. I’d held the baby for a minute until she’d started to cry. Then I’d caught up with my friends after insisting on doing the dishes.
When I’d asked Kerrigan about the yoga lineup, she’d told me this was Nellie’s class, probably thinking that I’d avoid it. On the contrary . . . Nellie’s class was now my class too.
I relaxed into a similar pose, feeling the stretch in my hips, thighs and ankles. I turned my head to face Nellie. “Tell me another one.”
“Please go away,” she murmured.
“No.”
She lengthened her arms even farther, her eyes closed as her forehead pressed into the mat. “Then shut up.”
“Hurry. Before class starts. Tell me another one.”
“Another what?”
“Another thing you hate about me.”
She shook her head, her ribs expanding with a deep breath. “This is a very strange, very annoying game.”
“It’s not a game.” I lowered my voice. I wasn’t sure what it was. Maybe redemption? I just . . . I needed to hear it. I wanted current examples, not the ones from her old diary. “Tell me what you hate about me.”
“I hate that you’re still in Calamity. Happy now?”
I frowned. “That’s stating the obvious. Try again.”
She inhaled another breath, blowing it out in a purposeful, steady stream. Then she repeated the calming technique, four more times while I studied her profile and the way her sooty eyelashes formed crescent moons against her cheeks.
Nellie didn’t have much makeup on today, just a slight coat of mascara. There were four freckles on the bridge of her nose, so faint that normally they were covered with whatever crap women used to hide what they considered imperfections.
The first time I’d seen Nellie’s freckles had been in Charlotte. The second, the shower at her apartment in Denver when I’d flown to town during the off-season to visit Mom and Pierce.
Nellie had been living in Pierce’s building, and I’d bumped into her waiting for the elevator. When she’d gotten off on her floor, so had I. To this day, Pierce thought the reason I hadn’t shown at his penthouse on time was because I’d been outside on an urgent call with my agent. No, Nellie and I had just been fucking on her couch.
“You’re living in a camper.” Her voice was no more than a whisper. “You’re worth millions of dollars and you’re living in someone else’s RV.”
Either she’d asked about me or gossip was spreading. Probably both.
It was only a temporary living situation. My architect was nearly done with the design. The build was already on my contractor’s calendar. “Your point?”