“Why?”
“Because he texted you a selfie and he’s fucking hot.”
I expanded the photo preview on the screen. Wes was on his balcony, the city lights spread out behind him. The red FitMi Fitness T-shirt hugged his muscled torso.
Wes: The city air smells like city air.
Wes: Wish you were here?
“Does he work for the company?” Claire made a grab for my phone, but I pushed it down into my swimsuit.
“He’s . . .” I had no idea what to say. I had no excuse to explain who he was and why he’d be wearing a FitMi shirt.
Claire narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “Wait. Is he your coach?”
Busted. It was a moment of truth that would test the tenuous truce we seemed to be forging. I nodded, mumbling, “Yes.” I wasn’t brave or drunk enough to tell her the rest of what I’d learned.
“And he’s texting flirty selfies at 9 p.m.?”
“It’s an inside joke . . . it wasn’t flirting.”
“Sure,” she said, lying back on her pillows. “Looks a lot like flirting to me . . . unless it’s more than flirting.” Claire’s eyes cut to me slowly, a grin spreading across her face. “Are you sleeping with your coach?”
My face heated. “No! We’re friends. We work out together.”
“In person?”
I nodded.
“FitMi doesn’t offer that, do they?”
I shook my head. All of this was wrong on some level, but Wes made it seem like it was fine. I’d been on the cusp of telling him the truth in bed last weekend, but then everything happened with his mom, and he’d made it clear he didn’t want to be with me anyway. Claire was the last person I should trust, but under the stars, with the wine and sharing secrets, confessing didn’t feel as scary as I thought it might.
“And there’s nothing going on?”
“Nothing going on. I mean, once . . .”
“What?”
“Something kind of happened once, but it was a mistake. It meant nothing. Look at him.”
“You like him?”
“It doesn’t really matter. Nothing’s going to happen again.” My phone buzzed, and Claire glanced to my right boob, where the device was shoved into the ruched fabric. “Please don’t say anything, Claire. It’s not impacting what I write about the company. I’ve stopped focusing on FitMi altogether to make sure I’m not writing something biased.”
She looked doubtful. “Setting everything else aside, it’s a pretty big deal. And I know you know that . . . but I’ve read your stuff, and it doesn’t sound biased. But if you like him . . . I give you a hard time, Britta, but don’t sell yourself short. He’s texting you, for starters, and it’s not a booty call or a sext. In my experience, guys who look like that don’t want to chat unless they like you.”
“Even if that were true, he’s my coach.” And owns the company. And thinks I was a mistake. “Please don’t say anything. I am making sure nothing gets in the way of my writing.”
“I won’t say anything. I can beat you fair and square.” She shrugged. “And maybe when the story is over, you can start something with him.”
I leaned back on my raft and listened to the water lapping against the surface. I wished it were as easy as Claire suggested, because we’d already started and now we’d stopped. “I should probably put him out of my head.”
Claire motioned to the water. “Lots of fish in the lake.”
42
THE NEXT FRIDAY, Britta and I were on mile two, our shoes hitting the pavement in tandem. It was a cool morning for late July, and the angry-looking sky hung low, but being next to Britta again lightened the dark cloud I’d been under.
Her brows pinched, and she kept looking at her watch, or where her watch would have been if I hadn’t put it in my pocket. I wasn’t sure why she put it on only to hand it to me, but I liked that brief contact with her fingers every time we ran, so I never commented.
“Hey,” I said. “You haven’t told me you hate me yet today.”
“I do,” she huffed. Her face was red, but she looked strong, back straight and body relaxed. When we first met again in person after the trip to the hospital, it was as awkward as I expected, but once we started running, we fell into our old patterns. We could go back to how things were. It wasn’t going to be so hard.
“One more mile,” I said.
Britta groaned, a low, guttural sound, but despite her protests, she kept going, which I liked about her. She powered through. Even when she didn’t believe in herself, she believed me. I’d been training people for years. No one had ever made me feel as trusted as Britta did. I, once again, wanted to kick my own ass for screwing it up.