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At least with me, there’s no one else at home to interrupt my relaxing sequence.
Except Boots.
“So what’s your problem with it?” he asks.
“Same as why you’re annoyed, I guess. I have to do stuff twice a day for it.”
“But you’re getting paid. And it’s helping you, right?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
He waves a hand to cut me off. “Go talk to Ethan about it. I’m done with pysch studies for the day.” He stalks off toward the locker room.
Mia stops her punching and rips off one of her gloves, then grabs a towel off to the side to wipe her face on. “Ignore him. He got a bad grade on a test today and he’s been in a pissy mood ever since.” She gives a small smile. “Not that he’s a ray of sunshine to begin with.”
No, he’s not. But he’s at least gotten infinitely better since he started bringing her around more. “Maybe he needs some meditation.”
She claps her hands together in front of her, grinning. “Oh, I have to tell him that later. He’ll be so mad.”
Right.
“Well, you’re not dropping out of the study, are you?” she asks. “Tessa will be crushed.”
So her name is Tessa? I was hoping I could find a roundabout way to ask that.
“No, I just wanted to give Tyler a hard time.”
“Mission accomplished, then. Oh, and I was the one on the phone with Tessa during, um… When she said…”
“Yeah, I know.” She doesn’t need to say it aloud.
She gives me a sympathetic look. Great. Now I’ve got girls everywhere pitying me. Plus, if she knows, then she told Tyler, who probably told Ethan… which means the whole gym knows.
“She felt awful about it.”
“She already apologized.”
“I know, but I don’t think it had anything to do with you personally.”
“She said that, too.”
She glances around and steps closer, lowering her voice. “Did she tell you why?”
Uh… “No. Just a comment about big guys scaring her.”
She nods conspiratorially. “I won’t say too much, but she had something traumatic happen to her as a kid. And maybe you remind her of it.”
What the hell happened to her? And what do I have to do with it?
Her brows pinch together as she bites at her bottom lip. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.”
Forget it? Yeah, right.
“I should go find Tyler,” she mumbles, leaving me standing there, more confused than ever.
What was it Tessa said last week in the laundry room? She wasn’t scared of big guys because of a sexual thing, but as a safety thing. Was she assaulted or something? By someone that looks like me? Is that it?
Now the question is, will I leave it alone… or try to find out?
