“I don’t work out with people.”
“Great, neither do I. We can not work out with people together.”
“You realize that your pestering is not helping your case.”
I close the space between us and watch as her gaze slowly rakes me over one more time. “Or is it helping?”
After she finishes tying her shoes, she stands tall in nothing but a sports bra and spandex shorts and says, “It’s not.”
“How about we place a little wager?”
“A wager? Like money?”
“No.” I shake my head. “I don’t want your money. I want your mind.”
“I’d rather give you my money.”
“Funny,” I say. “Twenty minutes, let’s see who can do more flights of stairs. If I win, you owe me five minutes of honest, no-hostility conversation.”
She fits her hands on her hips. “And what do I get if I win?”
“What do you want? And it can’t be a divorce or annulment or me moving out, because I won’t agree to that.”
“That takes away everything I want.”
“Think harder.”
She heaves a sigh and says, “Fine, if I win, you sleep on the floor.”
“For tonight only. Challenge me again tomorrow if you want me to sleep on the floor again.”
She perks up. “Okay, that seems fair.” She holds out her hand.
Happy with the bet, I shake her hand.
I’m not a superstar when it comes to cardio, but I do run about eight miles a week. Doing some flights of stairs should be a piece of cake. I motion to the door. “Lead the way.”
She smirks up at me. “My pleasure.”
“How’s it going?” Killian asks over the phone as I start my lunch break at school.
I wince as I take a seat at my desk chair. “Could be better.”
“Why do you sound as if you’re in pain?”
“Because I am.” I reach into my lunch bag that Cora packed me, and once again, she packed me leftovers from dinner.
Kill.
Me.
Now.
But since food waste is one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gases, I’ll eat the swill.
I pop open the container of soggy green beans accompanying the charred and unseasoned meatloaf. When I was warming it up in the teachers’ lounge, I tried adding in a leftover seasoning packet someone left behind, hoping it would offer some support for my tastebuds that, after just a few nights of consuming Cora’s cooking, are pretty much non-existent now.
“Why are you sore?”
I pick up my fork and toss the green beans around, mentally preparing myself to chew fast and swallow quickly.
“Because I thought it would be a good idea to try to get to know my wife.”
“And you’re sore from—ohhhh.” He chuckles. “That kind of sore, huh?”
I expel a sarcastic laugh. “I fucking wish. No, I’m sore from doing twenty minutes of stairs three days in a row, attempting to beat Cora in a bet.”
“And you lost?”
“Every single time,” I answer. “I’ve slept on the floor the past three nights. It’s fucking brutal, mate.”
“How do you keep losing?”
“I found out yesterday.” I scoop up some green beans and quickly chew and swallow. “After I was heaving when the twenty minutes were up, she smiled down at me and said the StairMaster is her best friend at the gym.”
“Oh fuck.”
“Yeah. So, I’ve been played. All I asked for was a five-minute conversation, and instead, I’ve slept on the hardwood floor. Not fucking tonight.”
“Are you bound and determined to win?”
I shake my head, even though he can’t see me. “I won’t be partaking in any stairs tonight. I need to find a different way. And for the love of God, I’m taking home dinner. I can’t suffer through another one of these meals.”
Killian chuckles on the other end of the mobile.
“What’s so goddamn funny?” I ask him.
“When you first told me your plan, I assumed you were going to be very persuasive in the bedroom. Here I thought you were going to be having all this sex, when in reality, you’re choking down burnt dinners and sleeping on the floor. This is too comical.”
“I’m glad you’re finding humor in all of this.”
“I am. A lot of humor.”
“I need to figure out another way of attack. She’s not breaking. I still have no fucking clue what she does, just that it’s something she can do from home. I have no idea what kind of activities she likes other than kicking my arse on the stairwell. And I don’t have a clue what food she likes other than apparently roasted to its very core. And I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more to her than those few things.” I sigh. “I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman like her.”