Page 14 of Pretend Girl (The Lucky Girls 4)

We’re in the private gym she runs for her high-end clients, but we’re alone today and I prefer it that way.

“Yeah, I’m asking you right now, when you’re straining to get those weights up and can’t think twice about evading my question.”

I groan. She knows just when to catch me. The weights feel heavier today because I’ve been drinking. Alcohol and training just don’t go together, no matter how old you are.

But even when I’m stone cold sober without having touched alcohol in days, Emma won't let me bench my bodyweight anymore. I have to go down to eighty percent.

Anyone who knows me knows that if I do anything, it won’t only be at eighty percent. I like to give it my all.

Because of my fuckingage.

Emma is lucky I trust her enough to let her boss me around. She’s the only pain in my ass I’ll allow.

I hold the weight up, focusing on not locking my elbows, and breathe a few times before lowering it again slowly. As I lower it, I inhale and exhale on the press.

“I don’t have a problem,” I say before I lower it again.

I hate it when Emma corners me with questions while I train—she likes catching me off guard and getting the truth out of me this way.

“Yeah, you do,” she says. “You’re stubborn as hell and you’re only making your own life harder.”

“That’s twenty-five,” I say and push the weight onto the clip before I duck out and grab my water bottle. I have a minute’s rest before I dive into another set. My biceps twitch and tremble, already tired, but I’m planning to push to failure.

Eighty percent, my fucking ass.

“What am I stubborn about now?” I ask.

“You don’t just do what you want to do and get it over with.”

“Be a little more cryptic, won’t you?” I ask and suck on my water bottle. The cold water runs down my throat, and I breathe hard. I need to spend more time in the gym—it makes me feel better when I have too much on my mind.

“I’m talking about Rachel.”

When she says her name, I still.

“What about her?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she says.

I groan. “You keep saying that.”

“You keep doing that,” Emma claps back.

I laugh and shake my head. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

“Of course, I’m not. Don’t you know me by now? When I get a hold of something…”

“You don’t let go. I know.” Her tenacity is what makes Emma a great athlete, an incredible personal trainer, and in insufferable friend I wouldn’t trade for the world.

“So?” she asks, and I know what she’s trying to say. She wants me to ask Rachel out. But I can’t do that—she’s dating. And I don’t have space in my life for a girlfriend.

“You know I can’t do that,” I say and lie back down on the bench. My resting minute is up.

Emma takes her position by my head, spotting me so that I don’t get stuck under the weight when I can’t lift it into the clip after muscle failure.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself,” Emma says as I exhale on the press and inhale as I lower the weight to my chest. I count the reps in my head.

“I can’t be like him,” I breathe as I lower. “And I’m not going to take that risk. She doesn’t deserve it, and neither do I.”

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