Page 44 of Come in with the Rain
I do a quick scan of the parking lot. Adam’s truck is nowhere in sight, and I’m at once relieved and disappointed, my pulse skittering out of control at the mere possibility that he could be here. It’s been a week, and there hasn’t been so much as a text from him. My chest starts to pull tight now, that anxiety settling in under my ribs, like something that I was trying to hold on tight to has just been taken out of my hands.
I drop my keys into my purse and go inside. It’s early, the sky still a little grey, so the gym is mostly quiet. Anyone who uses the gym before work is already gone, but there’s tell-tale grunting coming from every corner nevertheless.
Dani leans against the doorway leading into the front hall, waiting for me when I walk in. “I wasn’t sure you were ever going to come in,” she says with a smile in her voice.
“I wasn’t sure if I should.”
She glances over at where Ford is still chin-deep in his conversation at the front desk and then takes my hand and pulls me into a quiet corner filled with medicine balls and portable weight racks. “You’re always welcome here,” she says, wrapping her arms around a standing punching bag like it’s her best friend.
“Did Adam tell you what happened?”
She shakes her head. “He hasn’t been around. He mentioned a few things to Ford but then…” She glances over at him again and clears her throat before looking back at me. “They got in a fight, and we kicked Adam out. He’s banned from the gym.”
“Banned?” I knew about the fight of course, but this?
She shrugs, but it’s anything but casual. “It’s policy. If anyone starts a real fight, plays dirty, that sort of thing, they get tossed. Never thought it would be Adam though. He’s always had a temper, but he’s always been able to control it.”
I lean my head back against the wall behind me and sigh. “Well, we broke up, if that wasn’t obvious. He got mad because I took a job working for Mickey.”
She has a weird, twisted expression on her face. “He handles fear like a stray dog.”
I lift one eyebrow in her direction. “What do you mean?”
“Strays guard food with their teeth because they’re afraid it could be their last meal. They’ve had to fight to survive for so long that it’s all they know how to do. You put a plate of food in front of Adam and then you told him Mickey was just on the other side of the door.”
At first, it’s sadness. Unbearable sadness that turns into a lump at the base of my throat, but then that vanishes and it becomes something else. Anger so acute that I feel my face go hot and my limbs start to tremble with it. Everything that I’ve been shoving down for the last week rises up inside me, like someone has lit me on fire, the flames rising up all the way to my chest. Without thinking, I take a step toward the punching bag beside me and punch it, again and again and again, until Dani reaches out to stop me with a hand on my wrist.
“You’re going to hurt yourself.”
“What an absolute fucking idiot!” I shout, and the exclamation seems to bounce off every wall until everyone in the gym is turned in our direction. My back hits the wall behind me, and I cover my face with my hands, feeling that tug in my chest again, the anxious feeling I’ve had there since last week that keeps me askingdid I make a huge mistake?
When I pull my hands away, Dani is watching me closely. “I’ve known Adam for a long time,” she says. “When he realizes he fucked up, he’ll be back.”
I’m already shaking my head by the time she’s done talking. “I’m the one who ended it. I’m the one who told him to leave. He’s not coming back. Why would he?”
Dani lets out this little huff of a laugh, like I’ve said the dumbest thing she’s ever heard. “Because he’s in love with you.”
Whatever was pulling tight inside my chest, stretching further and further, snaps entirely in half. “What? No, he isn’t.”
She crosses her arms and levels me with a look. “He may not have ever said it to you, but that boy was telling Ford all about you before you’d even looked in his direction back at Mickey’s place. He’s absolutely crazy about you.”
I can’t process that information right now, so I file it away to examine later. “It doesn’t matter. I broke up with him. He’s not going to come crawling back.”
Dani shrugs. “Maybe not, but I’ve never known Adam not to right his wrongs. It’s kind of his thing.”
I hate the hope that sprouts inside of me at her words. I don’t want to hope anymore. I don’t want to spend time wishing for things I have no control over.
“Come on,” Dani says, shaking me out of my thoughts. “Let’s get you some gloves.”
CHAPTER45
ADAM
It’s been two weeks. When Stella kicked me out, I stopped taking side jobs, little things that were still rolling in even as I was working on Stella’s condo. When I posted photos of her condo to the website, I got a slew of new calls, real live business, but every time I consider calling a client back, going to their house and doing work, it’s like my body is made of mud.
The phone calls have slowed, and so has this feeling inside me that feels like it could kill me. I just don’t want to do it without her.
Laying on my couch, having a beer at nine in the morning, the time every morning that Stella is most likely arriving at her job at Mickey’s company, I open my email. Answering emails is easy. You don’t have to be verbal with anyone or look them in the eye.
