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“Ameeeees,” Nina said. Even her voice made me feel homesick. Which was silly because I wasn’t that far away—a forty-minute drive—but I’d uprooted my whole life after the breakup. Not just because of Allie and getting cheated on—though those were two large factors—but because I’d been searching for a change for a while now. All my friends were finishing college or starting to pair off into serious relationships, and my path sometimes felt so different from the picket-fence futures they drifted toward.
“Ninaaaaaa.” I settled fully onto my bed, lying on my stomach, my feet in the air as I kicked them back and forth. “What’s up, girlie?”
“Tell me everything that’s been going on in your new life in Philly. You were checking out the gym today, right? Did you find a trainer who isn’t going to sleep with your future girlfriends?”
I snorted, even though the memory was still a raw rub in my chest. I planned on telling her everything. However, when I opened my mouth, the words froze on my lips. Something about my run-in with Sam felt a little clandestine, a little fragile. And I didn’t want to shatter the bond before it had even formed.
Besides, Nina had also been closemouthed on her sister. Maybe she already knew what was going on with Sam, and this was my chance to find out on my own.
“Yeah, the new trainer is great,” I said, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest. I wasn’t lying per se, but the omission was so fucking large you could drive a Mac truck through it. “I think we’ll get on real well.”
“Good, though I’m tempted to drive down and vet them myself. I can’t fucking believe Chaz pulled that on you.”
“I notice you didn’t mention Allie.” I picked at the hem of my shirt.
“Well, she had unfaithful stamped all over her forehead,” Nina said.
I wrinkled my nose. Allie had been a bad decision from the start, but I’d been so damn lonely at home. And she’d been hot and paid attention to me—at least until she got bored. Which had happened far earlier than our inevitable breakup. Hindsight, though. At that time, I’d kept trying to patch a gushing wound with Band-Aids. “Thanks for the heads-up there.”
Nina snorted. “Since when do you listen? I know for a fact if I told you she was bad news, it would’ve turned into a fight with you needing space to cool off.”
She wasn’t wrong. I had a bit of a stubborn streak and learned best by busting my kneecaps. Probably why I did so well with MMA.
If I mentioned her sister, guaranteed she’d have some choice words to say about that too—or worse, more silence. I never understood why Nina got so tight lipped about her, but whenever I had asked, she’d told me to drop it, and I’d respected her wishes.
“True,” I said, needing to brush off the dusting of guilt that had settled over my skin. “Chaz was definitely the bigger loss.”
And my sense of trust, though that wasn’t the first time I’d been cheated on. Just the worst outcome in losing my girl, my trainer, and my gym.
“You should be here,” Nina said with a huff. “The crew’s at McNulty’s Tavern tonight.”
I chewed on my lower lip. Part of me missed the familiarity, but the other part of me hadn’t fit in since we graduated. They’d been the people I had hung out with through high school, but our lives had gone in different directions. So many were in internships, some still partying hard in college, especially since a lot of us had recently turned twenty-one. However, I’d been dead-set on MMA fighting from the moment I graduated.
I did part-time data entry work to cover extra expenses, but I pretty much lived and breathed training and fights.
Allie had wanted to go out, to drink and party and be a normal twenty-one-year-old, and she’d said a dozen times over how boring I was. Well, fuck that. Nights spent drinking my face off could cost me a spot in a fight, and I’d worked too hard to slip up.
“Tell everyone I said hi,” I said. “You all can hop on the train and come here to drink sometime soon. I’ll even have a place for you to crash.”
Though it might be the floor, considering my ultimate lack of space.
“Don’t tempt me,” Nina said. “I can’t wait to visit. It’s not the same without you here, Ames.”
“Thanks, babe.” My chest tangled in knots. Omitting that I’d met her sister shouldn’t be a big deal. Except that felt like an excuse in my mind because my gut was telling me I should’ve mentioned it. “I’ll let you get to the tavern with everyone. Talk to you soon?”
“You can count on it,” Nina said before hanging up.
I clutched the phone, staring at the screen.
Fuck, I didn’t deserve a best friend like her.
Not after I’d just masturbated to thoughts of her long-lost sister, who was now my new trainer.
The guilt prickled across my skin, racing like wildfire. There was no way I’d be able to keep this from Nina for long. We were too close for secrets or lies. But I also couldn’t ignore the tremulous thump of my heart every time I thought about this morning. How goddamn hot Sam had looked, the calm confidence she emanated that had me internally swooning the whole session.
But even more than that, I couldn’t get out of my mind the way she’d frozen when she’d realized it was me.
The shattered expression in her dark brown eyes.
