Page 6 of Ripped

The two owners of Mars have been my closest friends for years. Beau’s also a big hulking dude and the three of us should be able to wrestle Connor to the ground if it comes to that. It won’t, but at least we have a contingency plan in place.

CHAPTER THREE

CONNOR

Donnie lives in a brownstone. That’s all I register as I follow him up the stoop and into the house. I let him take my coat from me and hang it on the rack by the door. He leads me past a few rooms to the back of the house where he deposits me on a stool next to the kitchen island.

I’m a zombie. Dead and alive at the same time, my body is nothing more than a shell of flesh. My feet move me to where I’m supposed to go. My legs sit me down where I’m supposed to sit. I don’t control them, I don’t even feel them. I don’t feel anything, not even the rage that consumed me at Mars.

Back there, my body had been too small to contain all the shit rioting around inside me. Anger, sadness, disbelief, more anger, at Miles and Wyatt. At myself. They multiplied and multiplied until they burst out of me in those fucking awful sobs. It felt like I was trying to heave my guts out. It kinda feels like I’d succeeded.

“Here, drink all of that.” Donnie sets a new bottle of Gatorade in front of me, the cap already missing. The blue liquid looks like toilet bowl cleaner. “You need to hydrate or you’ll wake up with a massive headache tomorrow.”

I already have a headache, a steady throbbing of my brain against the inside of my skull. I don’t think toilet bowl cleaner is going to make it go away, but what the hell do I know? I drink the Gatorade.

“I’m guessing you haven’t had dinner yet, have you?” Donnie asks. He’s moving around the kitchen, opening cabinets and shutting drawers. Every clang and every bang is reverberating through the sludge in my head, making the throbbing across my forehead worse.

Dinner. My tacos are on the floor of the apartment. Shame floods through me and I bury my face in my hands. God, what the fuck. I have to be dreaming. This has to be a nightmare.

I’m sitting in Donnie, The Spin Instructor’s kitchen. He’s trying to make me dinner. I was supposed to be having dinner with my boyfriend, but I’m not because he’s fucking my best friend. I’m missing my tacos and wishing I hadn’t dropped them before running out of the building.

How is this real? Fucking tacos. Who the fuck cares about tacos or dinner or fucking eating? Instead of fixating on tacos, maybe I should’ve been more focused on what my boyfriend and best friend were doing right under my fucking nose. Maybe then, I wouldn’t be sitting in Donnie, The Spin Instructor’s kitchen like a sad, pathetic loser.

“Hey.”

I jerk up as Donnie’s hand closes over my wrist.

“I’m going to make some salmon and roasted vegetables, okay? Are you allergic to anything?”

I shake my head. “I’m not very hungry.”

His brows draw together. “You need to eat something, even if it’s only a couple of bites. You’ve burned a lot of calories tonight and you need to keep your blood sugar up.” He pushes the half-empty bottle of Gatorade into my hand again. “And you have to finish this.”

My wrist is cold when he lets go of it. Just like my whole body had felt cold when he left me in that room to go do whatever it was he needed to do before we left Mars. I want his hand on my wrist again. I want his arms around me again. I didn’t feel cold then. I didn’t tremble so much when he held me. I’d been floating aimlessly, set adrift, and then Donnie pulled me in and anchored me. I want to feel anchored again.

Donnie slides a tray into the oven and sets a timer. Then he turns to me, arm outstretched. I go to him and nestle into his side. His calm settles over me and I can breathe again.

“Come on. Let me show you to your room. You can wash your face and change into something more comfortable. Dinner will be ready when you come back down.”

Donnie grabs my bag from where I dropped it by the front door and we go up to the second floor. He ushers me into the guest room and I do nothing but stand there by the corner of the bed, not sure what comes next. Donnie sets my bag on a padded bench at the foot of the bed.

“Do you have anything to change into?”

I stare at my bag. The only things in there are my laptop and the sweaty clothes I took off after his class. Everything else I own is at the apartment. I have literally nothing but the clothes on my back. My throat closes up and I sit heavily on the edge of the bed. How is this fucking real?

“No? Okay. Not a problem.”

Donnie disappears and I stare at the floor. There’s an area rug on top of the hardwood. It’s beige-y and shaggy and I wiggle my toes in it. I’ve always wanted a rug like this in my bedroom so I can feel the soft squishiness under my feet when I get up in the morning. Guess I have my chance now.

My head spins and I suck in a breath. I’d forgotten to breathe.

Donnie comes back with a stack of fluffy white towels, neatly-folded flannel PJs, socks, and a toothbrush and toothpaste. He tilts his head for me to follow him. “Bathroom’s over here.”

It’s one of the other doors that open off the landing of the second floor. Donnie sets his stack of linens on the counter and turns to me.

“You all right?”

They keep asking me that and I keep not knowing what to say. No, I’m not all right, not really. But I’m all right enough, I guess. I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be.

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