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By the end of the last week of June, I realized maybe it wasn’t so much anxiety as it was intuition… And I thanked God I listened to it.
That Friday morning, Claire marched up to the office lobby with a determined look on her face.
“You do not have to stay here until I finish every day. It’s weird, Duke. I can take care of myself,” she said.
I forced myself not to say, ‘that’s what she said’ and fought off a grin. I was damn happy she finally decided to talk to me again, even if it was just to yell at me.
“I know you can take care of yourself,” I told her plainly.
She narrowed her eyes at me in annoyance and placed her hands on her hips. I forced myself to keep eye contact and not stare at the skin exposed between her crop top and her leggings like a lovesick puppy; it would 100 percent break my resolve.
“Then why the hell are you still staying here?” she demanded.
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Just because you can take care of yourself doesn’t mean you have to.”
She looked taken aback by that. She stood there stumbling over what to say. Her dad finally saved us by popping his head in and telling me that Grey needed me out on the ice. I could practically feel her gaze on me until I entered the cool rink.
The rest of the day, every time my eyes wandered to her, she was already looking at me. She’d quickly snap her neck to look away, but even from across the rink, I could tell that her cheeks would start turning a cute shade of pink.
By the time the rink started to clear out, I was dead tired and set on chugging an energy drink to stay alert.
Claire and Jackie boy were practicing lifts in the lobby– something that no longer made me as nervous. I was getting more used to seeing her body thrown in the air. When we were kids, she had kid partners who couldn’t really manage throwing her very high, so there wasn’t much danger there… Now, she was doing more advanced throws with a man double her size and she had to be coming down with a shit load of force. I was shocked her knee held up; then again, that’s why she worked out so much. She was trained in technique, but her athletic prowess made up for any human errors, and she rarely messed up. That was true when it came to her individual skating as well– while some girls mopped up the ice with their bodies, Claire rarely fell. She was like a cat: always landing on her feet.
But for some reason, today was a bit different… and I rubbed my forehead, wondering if maybe I was to blame. While I felt confident about our little morning interaction at the time, now I worried I accidentally messed with her focus. During her individual skating session today, I could tell she was either not thinking enough or overthinking, because she kept pulling into her jumps a bit too hard and over-rotating, making her land hard on her left hip. She did it so many times that Igor made her stick a butt pad in her pants to cover that hip. The butt pads were just pieces of foam– I knew because Sav used to use ‘em all the time when trying new jumps. But Claire wasn’t trying anything new. She was just having a shit day…
It wasn’t until I was comfortably seated back in my chair in the office and eating a snickers bar that I allowed myself to watch Claire and Jackie boy in the lobby.
He bent his knees, held her waist, and powered her up in the air. She hit the peak of the throw and pulled in to spin, but something went a bit wrong. She came spilling down at a weird angel. Her stomach slammed into his shoulder, her chest fell on his forearm, and he struggled to grab hold of her body to stop her from hitting the ground.
I immediately stood to get a better look at her.
Claire took a couple steps away from him and hunched over, holding her knees and breathing deeply. I knew that look… She had the wind knocked out of her. It used to happen every time she took a hit to the chest when we played capture the flag or dodgeball.
Jacques shook his limbs out and demanded, “Again.”
Claire held up a finger, seemingly struggling for air.
I had my eyes trained on her, waiting for her to look over at me and let me know that she was okay.
“Again,” he demanded as he moved into position.
His cold voice infuriated me. I was grinding my teeth so hard they could crack. Couldn’t he tell she needed a fucking minute?
Claire’s watery eyes flicked over to me briefly. I immediately began moving toward them.
As soon as Jacques realized I wasn’t walking past them, he put his hands on his hips and studied me with an unimpressed expression. “What are you, her boyfriend?” he asked snidely.
“No.” I shook my head calmly. “But Iwillrip you to shreds if you touch her again,” I growled in a deep voice.
He snorted like it was funny. “Well, that’s definitely going to happen. It’s her job, dumbass.”
It looked like something finally snapped in Claire. She sucked in a deep breath before saying, “No it is not my job, Jacques, and you are most definitely not my boss.”
I felt like chiming inhell yeah,but kept quiet.
She chewed her lip for a second, then said, “This tryout is over. I’m done.” She started walking away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go that easily. He grabbed her forearm, and roughly pulled her back, jarring her a bit.
Her gaze landed on his hand, then her eyes met mine. My heartbeat kicked up a notch. I trained myself to look only at him. I’d handle the situation, but the panicked look on her face would send me over the edge.
