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I crossed my arms. “Look, I know you all care, but my ego as a trainer can’t handle the whole gym being aware I had a breakdown.”
“Fair. I’m a fan of backdoors anyway.”
I let out a groan and rolled my eyes. They were leaning into the humor hard for my sake, and I appreciated it. Way better than them acting like I was some fragile thing that needed to be fawned over.
Footsteps pounded down the hall outside of the storage room, which stopped me in my tracks. A second later, the door creaked open.
“She just showed up here, and I had the feeling you’d want to talk,” Emmit said, a little breathless. They must’ve jogged over from the front desk. He stepped aside, and an all too familiar woman appeared.
The sight of Ames struck me speechless, and any sanity I’d collected off the floor fled.
Brooks shot me a knowing grin. “I’ll leave you two to work things out.”
Right. My throat went dry.
Emmit and Brooks exited, and the door clicked shut.
Ames crossed her arms. “You left.”
“I did.” My heart thudded so loud it was all I could hear.
“We’re going to talk about us, right here, right now,” Ames demanded. With the fire flashing in those gorgeous blue eyes, there was no way on earth I could deny her.
This conversation was coming, whether I liked it or not—I only prayed I didn’t end up even more broken in the aftermath.
Chapter Fifteen
Ames
Once I saw Sam, I knew I’d made the right call.
Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed, tear tracks evident down her cheeks. She looked wrecked in the worst way, and my heart leaped out of my chest. All the fears, the worries circulating through my brain from the second Nina appeared at my place this morning faded away.
This was proof positive that Sam cared.
If she’d been consumed by anger, ready to ditch me, she would’ve been lobbing punches against a heavy bag or shutting down. Instead, she was tucked in a back room, distressed over what had happened.
“Do we have to have the talk here?” Sam waved her hand in a wide circle.
I shook my head. “Where do you want to go?”
“I know where. Follow me.”
My heart thudded hard as she led us past stacked boxes, mats, and heavy bags toward an industrial door. Sam pushed it open, and the bright sunlight flooded in. It wasn’t even nine a.m. on a Sunday—too early for all this shit to be descending.
Silence stretched between us as we looped around to the front of Knockout, and Sam headed to the right. The longer we remained quiet, the more the tension between us grew. Had I misread the situation? Maybe her tears had been for Nina, not me.
Yet last night had been transcendent. I’d never had a partner show their care like she had after I had a fight. Normally, my exes left me to fend for myself, realizing I wouldn’t be great company. Sam had not only fed me and made sure I was hydrated but had also given me some of the best orgasms of my life before we passed out together. She was everything I wanted in a woman.
At the end of the block, we took a turn to the right, and a moment later, I realized where she led us to.
“Are we going to Rail Park?” I asked.
Sam gave a small nod. Did this mean something? Was she taking me here for a reason beyond convenience? I barely dared to hope.
We clattered up the steps leading to the Rail Park. The motion soothed some of my nerves, despite the ache of my muscles, the way my body was beat to shit from the fight last night.
The city spanned out before us in breathtaking glory. The buildings rose in the distance, those skyscrapers making their mark on the horizon. The view during the day was so different from night—teeming with chaos and movement from every direction. And somehow I got swept away in the beauty of it, how the harshness and brilliance of humanity all coalesced in this place.
