Page 46 of Putting Out
Reilly pushed back the chair as she stood. She glared at Odie and felt the rage boiling in her gut. Not a competitor? Not a hard worker?
“Lunch break is over. Let’s go to work.”
* * *
“Ow. Ow. Ow.”
“Maybe if you stop saying ‘ow’, it won’t hurt so much.”
Kenny adjusted his sister’s arm over his shoulder. Pierce had the other side and together they were helping Reilly up the stairs.
“You think? You think it’s the ‘ow’ that’s causing the pain and not the severe muscle cramping in my stomach?”
With each move of her foot, her muscles protested. With every breath, her muscles protested.
Five hundred variations on stomach exercises designed to strengthen her core. Her core was not happy.
“Take a hot bath and a muscle relaxant. It will help. We’ll concentrate on arms and legs tomorrow to give the stomach muscles a rest, but after that it will be full-steam ahead. Sixty- two days isn’t a lot of time.” Pierce opened her bedroom door and removed the arm from around his shoulders.
“Sixty-one,” Reilly muttered. “There’s only sixty-one days left.”
“Right. Well, good night. Night Kenny.”
“Yeah.” Kenny nodded to him and helped Reilly the rest of the way to her bed. He made his way to the door, which led to the connecting bathroom between their rooms, and got the bath started for her.
Reilly heard the running water and groaned. It was going to feel good if she could make it there. Right now it was about a fifty-fifty shot.
“You going to make it on your own?”
“For a hot bath, I’ll crawl there.”
“He really worked you hard.”
“And not in the good way,” she said, smiling.
“Hate to tell you this, sis, but I think Pierce would be more interested in me than you.”
“I know. But a girl can dream. He’s still nice to look at. Too bad Erica isn’t here to appreciate him with me. I’ll have to call Tessa. It isn’t right only one woman should enjoy such a natural work of art.”
Kenny grimaced. “Tessa won’t come. She’s got a boyfriend, remember? Robert.”
Reilly didn’t have much energy left, and what she had, she planned to use to make it to the bathtub and then to bed, but she couldn’t let the snot quality in his tone pass unnoticed.
“What’s your deal with that, anyway?”
“No deal.”
“You were a dick to her when she came over to offer the auditorium.”
“She was trying to show off she had a boyfriend. As if I care?”
“Which you shouldn’t. Because you have Erica. But even if you didn’t have Erica I would beat you to within an inch of your life if you tried to get between Tessa and her boyfriend. You had your chance. You led her along for years. If she’s found someone else, I say good for her.”
“You don’t know what it was like between us so shut up about it. You are the last person on earth who should be handing out romantic advice. You do nothing but fail at relationships.”
“And you do nothing but avoid them,” Reilly snapped back, feeling the sting of his comments. Kenny stalked off toward the bedroom door. “Mind your own business. Go get married again.”
“Stay away from Tessa!” Reilly shouted as the bedroom door was slammed shut, and then winced as once again her stomach muscles protested. Stupid brother. The least he could have done was helped her to take off her sneakers because there was no way she was going to be able to bend down far enough to do it herself.
Oh, well. She’d take the bath with them on.
