I snort despite myself. “Generous of you.”
Ducking back under the bar, I line it up on my shoulders then lift it and start another set of squats. A moment later Blair mirrors me, dumbbells tucked against her chest. The garage suddenly feels even smaller, the air thick with the scent of her perfume mixing with sweat and metal. Every dip in my peripheral vision throws my focus off, and it’s doing things to my concentration I can’t afford.
“So this is where you come to hide from the world?” she asks between reps, slightly breathless.
“I don’t hide.”
“Right. You just happen to have built yourself a fortress of solitude in your garage.”
There’s teasing in her voice, but also understanding. Like she gets it. The need for a space that’s yours alone, where you can strip everything back to its simplest parts.
“Something like that,” I admit.
With a groan, she sets down the dumbbells then watches me while I do a few more reps. “Trying to keep up with you should come with a warning label,” she complains.
I smirk. “That was barely a warm-up. Besides, you’re still standing, aren’t you?”
“For now. If I collapse, you’ll have to carry me out.”
The mental image that conjures up—Blair in my arms, her body pressed close—nearly makes me drop the bloody bar. I carefully lower it back onto the rack.
“Just trying to stay in shape,” I mutter.
The music changes, and suddenly Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On” fills the garage.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I lunge for my phone, fumbling to skip the track. “Bloody algorithm,” I mutter, heat crawling up my neck. “Never plays what I want. Christ knows where that came from.”
Blair’s trying not to laugh, I can tell. Her lips are pressed together but her eyes are dancing with amusement. “Technology, huh? So unreliable.”
“Aye, well...” I clear my throat and select something more appropriate. Something without lyrics about getting it on. Foo Fighters, that should do. “Better?”
“Much.” She’s definitely smiling now.
We work in comfortable silence for a few minutes, the tension easing. But then she pauses between sets, catching her breath, and murmurs, “So, about hiding from the world...”
I glance over at her. “Aye?”
“Guess I’m hiding too.” She gives me a quick, shy smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “From New York. From... everything, really.”
I set the bar down. “What happened?”
So she tells me. About her dream job in children’s publishing, about a storytelling app that went sideways, about how she took the fall. I let her talk, don’t interrupt. She finishes with, “So, I wanted to come somewhere I didn’t think anyone would know about the app. Or about me.”
I nod. “Aye. That makes sense. Only thing is... that story? It reached us even here.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “You’re kidding?”
“Nope. Struan sent me a link to an article about it a while back. I think I said...” I get my phone and check. “Aye, my exact words were, What pillock thought this was a good idea?”
She gulps. “You . . . you actually said that?”
I show her the message, unable to hold back a grin. “Sure did. But folk lap up a scandal, don’t they? From all you’ve said, sounds like you got dealt a shite hand.”
Her shoulders loosen a fraction but she studies me uncertainly. “So... you’re not going to fire me for being publishing’s public enemy number one?”
“No. You’ve more than proved yourself. Mind you, if you’d told me all that at the interview, I’d never have hired you. Maybe it’s just as well you kept it to yourself.” I pause. “And if I ever meet your old boss, he’s getting a black eye.”
