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“Thanks, Dom. I’m good.” I stood up and tossed the rest of my smoothie in the trash. “I’ve got this.”
“You do got this,” he said, saluting me with his cup.
An hour later, my confidence had worn off, so I was back to faking it. Echo hadn’t said a damn thing when she’d walked in with her perfectly primped squad.
The promised mats were here, and all I wanted to do was drill my team on tumbling, now that we could. Obviously, if someone didn’t have a standing back tuck by now, they weren’t going to be nailing it in two weeks, so the goal right now as just to polish and tighten things up.
The new mats were gorgeous and big and still thick and had lots of bounce. I didn’t know where Cam had found the money in the budget, but I didn’t care.
“Okay, individual tumbling, let’s go.” I had each of my tumblers do their respective passes in the routine, stopping and critiquing and talking about technique as we went. Dom still had all his skills in his back pocket, so he was a better one to go to for this, so I let him take the lead sometimes. I could talk about body position until I was blue in the face, but Dom was the only one who actually knew what it was supposed to feel like in your body when you did a layout.
We worked late, and so did the other squad. I knew they had sleep and homework to do, but I needed to get a certain amount of things accomplished.
“I know you’re tired, but you’ve got to dig and find it for me. Do one more full out and then I’ll let you go.” The looks I got in response led me to believe some were plotting my murder, but after a few seconds, they got to their feet and went to the opening formation. I held up my phone to tape, doing my best to ignore the volume of the music behind the curtain. I knew theirs as well as ours by now. I think I’d also absorbed their routine by osmosis. I liked it, they were doing a cute 90s theme. I wondered how much of the routine was input from Echo, and how much was a choreographer they’d hired and paid a bunch of money for.
We didn’t have that kind of money, so Dom and I had done everything ourselves, and I was pretty proud of that. My little Easter egg was hidingEye of the Tigerin every single one of our routines. This year it was part of our tumbling section.
The full out went okay, and I was pleased with them for pushing through.
“Good job everyone, go home, sleep, and then we’ll be here tomorrow. Ice if you need to, and take it as easy as you can.” They all waved and shuffled from the gym.
“They’re going to sleep good tonight. Good job pushing them. They needed it,” Dom said.
“Thanks. Sometimes it’s hard to see the line until it’s too late.” I picked up some jewelry that someone had left and put it in my pocket. I’d find out who’s it was tomorrow, or via text message later.
The other squad started putting everything away, and they looked as worn out as mine was. Dom and I hung around and waited for them to leave.
“You can go,” he said. “I’ve got the keys.”
“I know, I know. I just . . .” I trailed off, unable to come up with an excuse for why I needed to stay in the gym right now.
“Don’t do it, K. Just don’t do it.” He glared at me.
“What? I’m not doing anything.” I had definitely been watching Echo packing up her bag. No smoothies today.
“Go home, K,” he said, pushing into my shoulder. He was saying it as a joke, but I could tell he was partially serious.
“Okay, I’m going.”
“And no texting,” he added, pointing at me. “I mean it.”
“Okayyyyy,” I said, but it wasn’t a promise. I would just do my best.
My best wasn’t good enough when I got a message from Echo.
Hey Kiri
She always had to say that. She always did.
I ignored her and went back to work. I was burning the midnight oil in hopes I could get ahead on work for when I was going to be out in a little over a week and a half. We were hurtling toward Nationals and I was helpless to stop time, the runaway train that it was.
What do you want?
My tiredness got the best of me. I shouldn’t have responded, but it happened anyway. This time I didn’t use my cat to send the message. I did that all on my own. All three cats dozed on the thick cream and black patterned rug on the floor of my office.
Right now? A massage, a glass of red wine, and someone to talk to.
My blood froze in my veins. Was she fucking with me, or was she being serious? There was no way to tell the tone from the message, so I had to think about a response for a little bit. She sent another message before I could come up with something.
