Page 99 of Anonymous Acts


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I chewed on my bottom lip for a second. “Okay, Mr. Professional. I don’t have gym clothes. What do you say aboutthat?”

“I say that I definitely asked you to put workout gear in the bag I had you to pack.”

“The bag you had me pack for the car, in case we had to go on the run?”

He smirked. “The bag I asked you to pack because I knew I wanted to take you to the gym after lunch.”

“Oh.”

“But, for what it’s worth, you shoulddefinitelykeep a bag with a few passports, at least two handguns, a hundred rounds of ammo, and a sturdy knife handy… in case you have to go on the run.”

I sucked my teeth. “You’re playing with me.”

“Am I?” he asked, wearing an expression that made it hard to tell if he was serious or not. “Anyway – the check is already taken care of, so we’re good to go.”

“What do you mean, it’s already taken care of? As in you paid it?”

“Yes, as in I paid it.”

“No one was expecting you to do that. I just wanted you to bring me, not to cover it.”

He shrugged. “I knew that. And if you’re about to go allindependent womanon me, save it. You can definitely pay me back if you want to, cause you and your friend went a little loose with those twenty-dollar cocktails, and the shit wasn’t cheap.”

“Uh-uh, Big Money,” I teased, grabbing my purse. “You got it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he said from behind me as I led the way to the front of the restaurant.

Once we reached the front doors, he amended our positions, keeping me just behind him, with a firm grip on my arm until we made it to his Tesla. Inside, the heated seats had the car comfortably warm versus the bitter cold outside, making it easy to settle in for the ride across town to the gym. There was quiet between us for most of the ride. I couldn’t say what was on his mind, but I was deep in thought, turning Blake’s words over and over in my head.

She was right.

Kellen’s deathdidn’t– or at leastshouldn’t –reset the proverbial clock on whether or not it was okay for me to move on from our relationship. Thefactwas that our relationship had been over for at least two years, that I knew of. Who knew what was really going on in Kellen’s head when we were going through the motions of counseling? When he was playing along with the purchase of a home he never had any real intentions of being the man of, or letting me believe that maybe we really could work things out?

He was already checked out.

It made no sense for me to be worried about if anything was “too soon”.

Hell, it probably wasn’t soon enough.

Maybe I was making too much of it. Timing aside, I was a single woman, and could do whatever the hell I wanted – including my temporary bodyguard. And that brought me to another thing I felt was being lost in all of the chaos – Wick had earned a place in my life before the nonsense even started.

It was funny that Blake brought up that trip to see her when she lived in San Diego – it was onthattrip that my online identity had been forged, and when I first found outNoRestForTheWickedeven existed. A simple response to a post on a message board – about where to get the best drunken noodles in the city – had ended up spinning off into a friendship that had helped keep me sane over the next five years, and something I’d treasured pretty deeply for the last two. He’d listened without judgment, soothed my tears, made me laugh… helped me sleep. All while the man I’d taken vows with was laid up with another woman.

And this was no one-sided thing.

As Blake had so easily noted, despite Wick’s cold treatment and harsh words when he was still fuming about his arrest, he hadn’t been able to stay away. Before he and I even spoke again, he’d dug in his heels and started the work of helping me, like the friend he’d already proven himself to be. Hadn’t been afraid to apologize, or express hisownhurt to me. And when all of this confusion came to a point of me needing to be protected, he’d been the first to step up – hadinsistedon it.

When it came to choices for “moving on”, I could do much,muchworse than Wick. And after four years of personal stagnation, while I allowed the dregs of my marriage to emotionally drain me, it was important – no…crucial– that I actively work to surround myself with people that made my life better.

Wick was qualified to be in that number.

“Aiight gorgeous, let’s get to it,” he said cheerfully, oblivious to the dissection that was happening in my head. “I think we’ll have plenty of time.”

Inside the gym, he showed me to a private area I hadn’t seen before – a series of rooms with padded floors, with heavy bags of varying size hanging from the ceiling. Looking around, I quickly noted that we were alone, with no sign of Naomi to be found.

“Um… are we early?” I asked, accepting my bag when he handed it to me. “And why is the class back here today, instead of that room up front?”

He sauntered over to a wall lined with boxing gloves and other gear, selecting a protective headpiece before he answered. “I didn’t say you were coming to class. I said we were having a session. There’s a partition back there where you can get changed.”

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