Page 31 of Ripped

I think I know where this is going and I don’t like it. “What deadline?” I ask, a little more forcefully than I need to.

He hesitates, studying me, like he knows how I’m going to react. I keep my face as neutral as possible, but I don’t do a very good job.

“Well, when I turn thirty,” he mumbles.

Yep, there it is. “That’s not a deadline, darling.”

Connor’s scowl deepens, but he doesn’t argue with me. He knows I’m right. He just doesn’t believe it. I understand, I’ve been there before.

“Do you know what I did before I started teaching spin?”

Connor perks up. “No.”

“I worked in banking.”

His eyebrows shoot to his hairline. “Really?”

“Really. I hated it. It was boring. The hours were ridiculously long. I had no life outside the office. Spin was just starting to pop up in some gyms and it was the only way I could get a break from work.” That and Roger. The familiar aching pain expands in my chest and I force myself to breathe through it.

“So you quit your high-powered bank job and became a spin instructor.”

“That’s right.”

“How old were you then?”

I count out the years in my head. “Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”

“I’m twenty-six.”

I tilt my head to the side. “See? You still have plenty of time.”

His pout is back. “Still feels like I’m running out of it.”

He sounds so dejected, like things are so utterly dire. It’s such a mid-twenties reaction that I’m simultaneously smitten and annoyed. Oh, to be that young again when everything feels so big and consequential. Where every decision seems so final and the fear of getting it wrong is very real.

Connor really is a lot younger than I am and in that moment, I feel quite old. Worn and weathered with decades of life experiences under my belt that he doesn’t share, that he might not understand.

Does that matter? Beau and Gavin seem to think it might. Me? I’m not so sure.

“If you and Wyatt stop working together, would you still be eligible for the grant on your own?”

Connor’s brow furrows as he thinks. “I don’t know. Even if I am, I don’t think Wyatt would let me just take over the whole thing.”

I nod. That makes sense. “Okay, so if you don’t go ahead with the grant, do you have other projects or scripts you’re working on?”

He scrunches up his face. “Sorta. There’s a bunch of half-baked ideas on my hard drive, but none of them are any good.”

“But they’re there. And you’ll think of new ideas.”

“I guess.”

“You can still write scripts and make movies after you turn thirty.”

“I know.”

“It’s not like we shrivel up and turn into stone after thirty.” I point to myself because, hey, I’m not called Donnie, The Spin Instructor, for no reason.

Connor throws me a glare with a grin tugging at his lips. “I know. It’s just that there’s a lot of competition out there. There’re so many thirty under thirty genius directors already and I’m… I’ve got nothing.”

---