Chapter 16 #2
“Is there protocol for moving the victim of potential testicular trauma?” Helen asks.
“Too bad Maggie’s out,” says Russ, referring to another regular. “She’s a doctor.”
I nod, not sure what to do, either. “Diego, can your class work around him for now?”
“Way ahead of you!” Diego holds up a stack of the little orange cones we use to mark distances in running drills. “These will keep him safe. People here respect the cone,” he says, and busies himself outlining his fallen comrade. It looks like a crime scene.
He nods at his handiwork, then claps for the attention of his class. “All right! We will leave Alistair to recover. Let’s take the warm-up to the turf outside! Follow me!” he hollers, and jogs out the open bay door, the class following him obediently.
Russ joins the departing ranks. “Good luck with your balls!”
Grant is still replaying the video. He holds it up so I can see, advancing to the final seconds, backtracking to when Alistair pulled ahead—
By literally pulling ahead. I reach for the screen and expand the image of Alistair’s outstretched arms. The ends of his fingers appear to vanish just before his biceps bunch in a curl.
“The flooring!” I hop over Alistair’s crumpled form, finding the spot where a trace of the chalk I used to highlight it my first day still lingers.
The corner is raised a little more now than it was then.
I kneel down, wriggle my fingers into the space, and am able to wedge under it to gain purchase. “It was up just enough.”
“Dude!” Grant brays. “You cheated and got wrecked for it!”
“You lost your shorts,” Helen reminds him.
“Yeah, but, like, honestly.”
Alistair just groans. He’s rolled onto his back, ice pack still over his crotch. Poor guy.
“What’s going on?” Ian’s voice buzzes in my bones. “Is that Alistair?”
Ian strides toward us, brows low under the rim of his baseball cap. By the time he gets to us, no one has said a word, though I suspect that I’m alone in being gagged by the memory of having fantasized about him until battery-assisted completion last night.
Ian looks at us expectantly. Still silence.
Then Penny approaches him, cracker cup extended in offering.
His face relaxes, and he takes a knee, palm raised as she shakes out a few Goldfish. My heart gives a little flutter at the sight. “Thank you,” he says. Rising, he adds, “Is anyone going to tell me why Alistair is on the floor?”
“We wanted to try a new warm-up activity,” Grant chirps. “It was pretty effective. My quads are burning! But, um, Alistair got racked in the nuts.”
“There’s video, if you’d like to see,” Helen offers.
“Banded tug-of-war,” I say, finding my voice. “The band slipped off and snapped into Alistair. But! That was after he pulled himself forward with this!” I point down at the raised spot. “It’s up again.”
Ian comes closer, enough that I feel his body heat. My breath catches. That element had come into play in my nocturnal imaginings.
“Do you think it’s the humidity?” I ask, hoping to overwhelm the screaming inside my head that last night’s masturbatory session was not only wildly inappropriate but has also made this interaction about a thousand times more difficult for me, because my imagination went off with this man.
“Making the tiles expand and contract? Or the foundation settling? Or maybe the installer just screwed up…”
“I’ll deal with it. I’ve fixed it before, I can fix it again.”
“Like you did last time?”
The question comes out of me innocently enough, but I can taste the judgment. And based on the sudden furrow in Ian’s brow, he can hear it.
“It’s probably just a mistake made when it was installed,” I add, aiming for diplomatic.
He tugs on the brim of his hat, eyes on the flooring. “Oddly enough, I installed it.”
Goddammit, anyway.
“Oh, yeah!” says Grant. “I remember that. It took you forever! You had to measure a bunch of times.”
“I did,” Ian agrees, and looks at me. “And yet.”
“It could still be the foundation,” I mutter. “Or… something.”
“Sure,” says Ian. “Or something.”
The words are heavy with self-reproach, and a twinge of guilt goes off in my chest.
“All right,” he says, and nods to Grant. “Let’s at least get him off the floor.”
Alistair groans, but when Grant and Ian each offer a hand, he lets them pull him up to standing without further complaint. Once upright, he leans into Grant like a crutch, and the two hobble toward the lounge. Penny joins them, Goldfish at the ready.
Another sigh, and Ian leaves, too.
I glance over at Helen, who cringes sympathetically. “I didn’t know he did the flooring,” she says quietly, but whether in apology for not warning me or genuine surprise, I can’t tell.
We’re almost to the lobby when Ian stops. “Hayes,” he says, darkly. “Did you do something to the lost and found?”
Oh, hell. That.
“I had an extra laundry basket after Saturday,” I say, and while I’d known that I’d been on point when I named the “last and least likely outcome,” I can’t help being disappointed that we’re on course for Ian responds poorly / I can be indignant.
I hold my chin high. “That box is actively decomposing.”
“It’s fine. A little weathered—” he starts, picking up the box. One corner of it remains adhered to the floor, the rest of the cardboard collapsing as limply as if it were one of the towels I pulled out of it earlier.
He frowns, glaring at the box, and tugs more firmly. The corner releases with a wet, peeling sound, leaving a pale ring of torn cardboard… and revealing a cockroach roughly the size of a cell phone. Ian and I jump, retreating reflexively as the bug scrambles in circles.
Penny darts forward, and before anyone else can react, upturns her snack cup and uses it to cover the roach. When she steps back, the cup shudders with the activity of its occupant. Ugh.
It is not without a sense of vindication that I raise my brows at Ian. “Still calling that fine?”
He sighs, looking oddly defeated as he eyes the flaccid cardboard still in his hand. “I’ll put this in the compost bin,” he grumbles, and heads out the door, his usual stride more of a trudge, the former box flapping at his side.
My stomach falls. This wasn’t part of any of the scenarios I ran last night.
The cup scrapes against the floor, moving along with the massive bug.
Helen cringes. “We’re never using that cup again.”