“Angie, Diane . . . ?”
I put my hands over my ears. “I don’t need to hear all their names.”
He tugged my hands down. “Come here. Please.” I wanted to resist, but I sighed and let him pull me back down against him. His arms went around me, and he held his phone in front of us both. “Look. They’re workouts.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t look at his phone. “You said that already. And it frankly sounds a little misogynistic if you ask me. To refer to banging someone as . . .”
“CrossFit workouts.” He spoke over me. “Look . . .” He pulled up the web browser on his phone, then navigated to a page for an industrial-looking gym that seemed to be a glorified garage. The kind of place that blasted hardcore metal music twenty-four hours a day. “Here’s where I work out, see?” He tapped again, bringing up the schedule. “Six in the morning, so I can get it done and get to work during the school year. I remember now, right around when we went to my grandparents’， we were doing a bunch of the girls.”
I shook my head. “Not sounding any better.”
He sighed in frustration, tapping a little more. “Okay. Here. Here’s a list. See how they’re all girls’ names? They’re benchmark workouts, so you can track your progress as you repeat them. Here’s Cindy.” He scrolled to the name, in big red letters on the site, and read off the list below it. “That’s five pull-ups, ten pushups, and fifteen squats.”
“That . . . that doesn’t seem too bad.” I leaned forward, intent on the phone.
“As many times as you can for twenty minutes.”
“Oh.” I sat back. “Never mind. That sucks.”
He snorted. “Especially at six in the morning. Fran’s different: that one’s timed, so the point is to beat your time from last time. If you’d actually clicked on the calendar entries, I was keeping track of numbers of reps, time, stuff like that for the different workouts.”
“Huh.” I was quiet for a moment as I reordered my thinking. I imagined clicking on Fran, picturing him timing himself while he . . . nope. I wasn’t going there.
“Wait.” He leaned forward, leaned us both forward, to drop his phone back on the coffee table. “You really thought . . .” He grasped my shoulders, turning me to face him. “April.” The intensity in his voice and the seriousness in his expression were jarring. This was not a guy who looked like this. Not often. “There’s been no one. Not since Virginia. God, before that even. Since that night at Jackson’s, when I chased that guy off. There’s just been you. You know that, right?”
“I . . .” This was too much, and I couldn’t respond. All I could do was shake my head, eyes wide. I couldn’t even blink when he was looking at me like this.
“Look. I know this shit is hard for you.” He tucked my hair behind my ears while he talked. “I know you’ve done everything on your own all this time. You don’t like letting people in. But . . . I’m here, okay? Whatever you need. Whenever you need.”
“I need . . .” But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell him about my secret heart, the one that had just begun to beat for the first time in so long. The one that wanted to let him in. I didn’t have the words. Not yet. I needed time. I needed him to understand.
So instead I kissed him, hoping I could say it this way. And from the way he kissed me back, pulling me into his lap and holding me close, he got the message.
That night was the first time my king-size bed had ever felt cozy. I loved the way he tucked me against him as we fell asleep, one arm around my chest. Copping a feel even in his sleep, I thought as I started to fall asleep myself. Typical.
It wasn’t until that last second of consciousness before sleep took me that I realized. He wasn’t groping me. His hand was placed flat on my chest. Over my heart.
Twenty
I woke up the next morning alone. My heart sank, and I closed my eyes against the swell of disappointment that surged through me. For one barely awake moment I wondered if I’d dreamed last night. But no: even though the pillow on the other side of the bed was cold, it had clearly been slept on, and the blankets on that side were pushed toward the middle of the bed. I rolled to my back and heaved a long sigh.
Then I smelled coffee.
The surge of disappointment became a swell of happiness, and not just because I didn’t have to make my own coffee this morning. I climbed out of bed and, after putting on the shorts-and-tank pajamas I’d never bothered to wear last night, I padded toward the kitchen. I didn’t speak at first, I just leaned in the doorway and watched Mitch, his back to me, wearing nothing but the gray sweats he’d worn last night, pouring coffee into two mugs. He moved to the fridge, getting the carton of creamer out of the door and pouring a good dollop into one of the mugs, and the swell of happiness became a little glow in my chest. He remembered how I took my coffee.
I scuffed one foot along the floor, making my presence known as I walked the rest of the way into the kitchen, and he turned.
“Hey, you’re up.” He passed me the mug of coffee he’d put cream in. He didn’t ask if he’d gotten it right; he just knew. On anyone else that confidence would be irritating. On Mitch it was just . . . him.
So I said thank you and took that blissful first sip of coffee, letting the caffeine soak into my system and chase away the rest of the cobwebs in the corners of my brain. Mitch leaned one hip against the counter, sipping from his own mug, and the whole thing felt so domestic. So right. I could get used to this.
What? No. I pushed that thought right the hell out of my brain. We weren’t there yet.
“You want breakfast?” he asked, as though I were the guest. He really did make himself at home, didn’t he? “I usually grab something on the way to Faire, but . . .”
I shook my head and hoisted my mug. “Coffee’s fine. But help yourself.” I nodded toward the fridge. “There’s eggs in there if you need some protein. I mean, I’m no Cindy, but I definitely feel like I had a workout last night.”
Mitch’s laugh was loud and long, something that didn’t happen often in this house, and his laugh made my smile widen. “Believe me, you’re a lot more fun than Cindy.” His good-morning kiss was coffee flavored and I leaned into it, even though black coffee wasn’t usually my thing. “You should come with me to CrossFit sometime,” he said when he straightened up again. “You might like it.”
“Nah, that’s okay.” I finger-combed his sleep-rumpled hair off his forehead, softening my dismissal of his suggestion. “I’m more of a runner.” The admission surprised me even as I said it, because I hadn’t thought of myself as a runner in a long time.
“Oh, yeah?” Interest lit his eyes, which, of course. He was interested in all things sports and fitness, and I hated to disappoint him.
“Well, I was. I used to be, before . . .” I gestured down to my bad leg, and his eyes followed my hand, glancing down for a moment, then back up, bewildered.
“Was there lasting damage?” His brows knit together in concern. “Did the doctors say you can’t?”