Page 15 of Slash & Burn

She shrugged, not an ounce of remorse in her eyes. “It’s a win-win, Jill. You need to get out more and I need someone to chat with between sets.”

I slammed the weights back down, the clang earning me a dirty look from the older gentleman on the other side of the nearly deserted weight room. It was bad enough my pregnant gym buddy was lifting more than me, but the geriatrics in the room were judging my every move.

“Can I chat with you between sets whilenotlifting any weights myself?”

Her tiny hand swatted my arm, but it hardly grazed me. Standing next to LeAnn always made me feel like a giant, but her attitude more than made up for the difference in stature.

“No. You’re young and fit, you should like this stuff.”

I slid off the machine’s seat and grabbed my water bottle as she took my place. “I like hiking and kayaking.” I drank, taking in the awkward equipment around me and the god-awful mirrors that lined nearly every wall. “Swimming in the lake. Hell, even swimming laps in the pool. Not this.” Waving my hand, I shook my head with a scowl.

“We can do that stuff, too, but you can’t beat the endorphin rush of a good lifting sesh.” Her eyes were locked on her form in the mirror in front of us, so she missed my smirk.

She had no idea just how far up the wrong tree she was barking. After being with my brother for a decade, you’d think she’d have figured out by now that I was allergic to anything and any place that routinely put me on display. And this gym was like a fit-fluencers wet dream. The only reason she’d been able to guilt me into this was because of the time; I knew it would never be emptier than it was now.

I took another drink, but when I emptied my bottle, I seized the opportunity. “Gotta go fill up. Carry on without me.”

LeAnn grumbled, eyeing me in the mirror like she knew that I was stalling. The leg press was next and I hated it most of all.

As I screwed the lid back on my bottle, I glanced out the window. The parking lot was as empty as you’d expect given there were only four of us in the whole place. But as I went to get back to work, I spotted a familiar car, and a familiar body moving toward it.

Grady.

I’d know that gait anywhere, even if he was moving a little slower than usual. He’d said he’d get me the key this week but I hadn’t heard from him. We were two days away from the next event and over my dead body were we going to have a repeat of last week.

“Be right back,” I called over my shoulder as I shoved through the door to chase him down.

“Hey!” I yelled from a row over, jogging toward where he was sitting in his car with the door open. “You forgetting something?” I strode up to him, swinging my bottle with every determined step.

But then I saw his face.

“Shit, are you okay?” My feet faltered as I took in his ashen color and the damp hair clinging to his forehead. He looked like he had a fever. At first it was like he hadn’t heard me, but when he finally lifted his head, his eyes were glassy. They went wide with panic the second he registered who I was.

“Jill, fuck,” he muttered, whipping to look out the windshield.

I could swear it was like he hadn’t known where he was. “Are you feeling all right?”

Grady flicked a grin my way before turning to his passenger seat. “Yeah, sure. Why?”

“Cause you look like crap. Are you hungover or something?”

When they were in high school, my brother used to be the only one who didn’t party. He never ratted out his friends, but every morning after a good bender he’d invite Grady for a run or something. It was like he wanted to punish Grady for making crappy choices. But the joke was on him, because Grady loved it. He said it was the best way to clear the alcohol from his system, to sweat it out. So, seeing him in the gym parking lot like this, it wasn’t a giant leap to imagine he’d come here to cure himself from a bad night.

“No,” he said, his tone defensive, but his voice weak.

I propped my arm on the top of his car door, taking a breath before I demanded to know where the key was. But then I noticed Grady’s fingers gripping the wheel, his knuckles a ghostly white from holding on so hard. His legs were trembling through his thin mesh shorts. Something was wrong.

My throat felt thick as I swallowed and bent down on one knee. “Grady?” I said his name softly, watching him turn toward me with a grimace on his face. “Talk to me, what’s going on?”

He was scaring me. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him like this.

“Just…” he tried, and then stopped, shaking his head. “I’m fine, Jilly.”

He was clenching the wheel so hard I could see the muscles in his forearms flexing, the tight cords popping through his skin like he might break the thing if he held on much longer. I took a slow breath and reached my hand out, gently placing it on the taught muscles as he watched my every move.

“Can you let go for a sec?” His lips pressed into a thin line as his nostrils flared. “Just for a second. Just talk to me.”

“I always like talking to you,” he said, his words coming out choppy on an exhale.

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