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“Nothing? Really?”
“Nope. Just the ushe.”
Glaring at her perfect arm formation as her elbows swung back and forth with every loping step, I lost my patience. I’d given her more than a dozen opportunities to tell me and she still hadn’t said a word. Enough was enough.
Stepping onto the unmoving tracks, I hopped off the rotating tread and stared at her. “That’s funny, because I heard you and Barrett pulled the old Ross and Rachel.”
She frowned. “What?”
“You’re on a break.”
Elle’s finger shot out and she dropped the speed of her machine, slowing down to a walk. “Who told you that? Did Barrett talk to you?”
“He’s going to be my brother-in-law, Elle. We do see each other on occasion.”
She frowned. “I told him not to say anything.”
“Why would you tell him that? We used to tell each other everything. Now you’re lying to me.”
“I wasn’t lying, Rayne. Don’t be dramatic.”
“Hey.” I pulled the plastic safety key out of her machine and it shut down. “Don’t gaslight me. I asked about your relationship and personal life a bunch of times and every single time you basically said you had nothing new to share. That was a lie. I think I deserve to know why you didn’t confide in me when we used to tell each other everything.” It occurred to me that this was no longer about her choices with Barrett but more so about her behavior with me. “We’re supposed to be best friends, Elle.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t want to cause any weirdness before your wedding.”
But now there was weirdness. “Why aren’t we communicating the way we used to? Even when I text you, it takes a decade for you to respond. What’s going on? Did I do something?”
“Nothing is going on.” I might have believed her if she didn’t sound so defensive and bothered by my concern. “We’re not allowed to carry our phones on the floor when we’re working.”
“Okay, but seriously, what’s going on in your life?”
Her frown deepened. “Nothing. I’m just working.” She hopped off her machine.
Were we done talking? What the hell?
A second later she was back to wipe the treadmill clean. No way was I letting her off the hook that easily. She was obviously keeping secrets from me. I needed to know why.
I followed her to the next row of equipment and climbed onto the step machine beside the one she selected. If she was trying to avoid me through physical activity it wasn’t going to work. I would just have to tap into some inner boot camp mentality and power through whatever routine she had planned.
I stared down at the cockpit of controls. “How do I use this thing?”
She leaned over and hit a few buttons and my dashboard lit up. Then the hydraulics kicked in and I was sinking.
“I’m going down!”
“You have to step.”
I pushed one leg and the other lifted, sort of like a seesaw. “Well, this is incredibly boring. How long am I expected to climb like this?”
“I usually do thirty minutes.”
“Thirty minutes? Of this?” Dear God, why?
I would be lucky if I could accomplish thirty seconds. I strained to bend my knees as Elle casually managed to climb like the bionic woman. Did she have lungs made of metal? Mine were on fire.
“So…” I panted. “Catch me up on your life. What’s going on?”
“Nothing much.”
