Chapter 35
“ABSOLUTELY NOT,” I SAY, retreating to the back door. “Nope. No thank you.”
“Ellie Hayes, don’t you dare,” Babs calls after me.
I turn back around. The entire Coffee Coup has assembled in the backyard. They’re dressed to work out, which was what I was hoping to do after Diego knocked on my door, inviting me to try a kettlebell set Grant wanted to test. It had been a ruse.
I level a glare at my roommates. Grant and Diego look appropriately abashed, though Alistair raises his head, defiant. Traitors. But while my roommates are at least impressionable enough to consider forgiving, Heather and Mark, who are also here, should really know better.
Heather raises a shoulder. “You’re not the only one who can activate a phone tree.”
Fine. I focus all my ire on Mark; he always breaks first, anyway.
“We haven’t shared any business that isn’t ours to share. But…” His shrug conveys some degree of remorse at least. “Come on, Ellie. We’re worried about you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Babs scoffs, hands on her hips.
“We’re here for some evening kettlebells.
So, I propose that we start moving these weights, and if Ellie decides to explain why she thinks she can simply vanish into the ether at the same time that Ian transforms into a complete ogre?
Well! We’ll just turn down the music to listen. ”
Helen frowns at her. “An ogre? Really?”
“He’s been grumpy,” offers Russ. “Mostly, he looks miserable. Lots of moping.”
I am dying to know more. But I’m not giving in to their manipulation so easily. I turn to Grant. “We warming up or what?”
“He misses you,” Helen whispers. I check my watch; she made it a whole four minutes.
I pivot my curtsy lunges to the opposite direction. It puts me face-to-bug-eyed-face with Bleu Cheese the Frenchie, who Jacob is using as a weight.
I scratch the dog’s chin and smile at his owner. “Thanks again for taking care of matting and mounting all those clippings,” I say, to get ahead of anything he might have on deck for me. “They look amazing. Are you sure the petty cash covered it?”
“I was happy to do it,” he blurts. “Firehouse means so much to me, and I think you did such a beautiful job. What you’ve done for the gym, and how Ian—”
I pivot again. This time I’m facing Maggie. She raises her brows.
Nope.
I’m about to circle back to my starting point when Grant calls time. The Coffee Coup spreads out, choosing from the kettlebells we have on hand and deciding who’s going to share which weights.
“I’m looking forward to these endorphins,” I tell Diego, because he’s the only person in the vicinity not actively watching me for some sort of performance.
“That’s good! Because… endorphins make you happy! And I like for you to be happy.” His eyes are wide and imploring. “And… for Ian to be happy?”
“Oh, Diego, I—”
The music cuts off suddenly.
Babs stands beside Grant. She’s taken his phone, her finger on the green Pause button dominating the screen. “Oh, I’m sorry. Ellie, dear, were you about to say something?”
Anger lashes through me. This is stupid.
I don’t owe anyone anything. I am well within my rights to go back to my room and ignore the meddlesome horde gathered in my backyard.
But at the same time… they’re my meddlesome horde.
They’re here because they care. And I care about them.
And now I’ve hurt someone we all care about.
“It’s my fault,” I say. “Ian being in ogre mode. Well, not my fault. His behavior is his own,” I amend, making eye contact with each of my roommates in turn because this is an important distinction to make.
“But I wasn’t honest with Ian about some things that I’m going through.
And when he found out, I downplayed our relationship.
” I sigh. “When we started seeing one another, I was treating it like a fling—”
“Ooh!” Diego crows. “Just being sexy.”
“Yes. But…” I throw up my hands. “It’s him. I don’t think there’s a way to keep things just sexy with him.”
Grant scowls, I assume, at the mention of the word sexy in conjunction with his brother. But then—“You love him!” He is belligerent with delight, his smile massive. “You love Ian!”
The backyard is a chorus of approving awws.
I sigh, the sound starting somewhere near my toes. I’m not admitting that to them. Not first, anyway. That’s for him. “I’ve really screwed up.”
Diego nods, sagely. “You told him about just being sexy. And that hurt him.”
“That’s—” I look to Alistair, who shrugs. “Yeah. More or less.”
“Less,” Alistair grumbles.
I glance at Heather and Mark, who smile encouragingly. It’s mine to share. And even if it’s been pulled from me semi-unwillingly by a crew of well-meaning busybodies, I think I want them to know. Because they’re my people now, too. Not just Break Me, but… me.
“This is going to take time to explain. Should we—” I indicate the porch, where we might all take a seat, but Diego and Grant plop down on the ground, sitting crisscross applesauce, and look up at me as if ready for story time.
After a moment, the others follow suit, arranging themselves around the yard.
“Should we still keep working out?” Diego asks. “While you tell us this?”
“Crunches!” says Grant. “Ellie, you continue, we’ll do crunches. Everyone, ready? Go!”
I crunch, too. “When I met y’all, I could only see out of one eye,” I begin, and lay out the saga of my un-diagnosis, from that first cycloptic morning to the day it cleared up. “I’m fine for now,” I conclude. “But it’s a waiting game.”
“That’s why you wanted the lease to be six months,” Diego surmises. “Next exercise?”
“Air squats?” offers Jacob.
I look around as everyone stands up, though I avoid catching Maggie’s eye; if there’s any opinion I don’t want, it’s that of a medical professional.
There are frowns, some confusion. Babs and Helen watch me with the same sad wariness I got from folks when I’d first share about my eye and what it could mean.
I see it for the care it is, but part of me hates it, too. Back to being broken.
It’s quiet as we begin our squats, the only sounds the errant pop of ankles and knees as we lower ourselves to parallel and stand back up again.
“Ian got upset because of Mom,” Grant says. “He’s talked about that. How unfair it felt, not knowing how sick she was.”
A fresh wave of guilt washes over me. “I get that. And I get where she was coming from, too. There’d already been such a disruption to your lives the first time she’d been ill, I can see how she wouldn’t want to subject y’all to that a second time.
Especially when there wasn’t anything you could do about it.
” I grimace. “But it was also an unkindness. It was unfair. And while my situation isn’t the same—”
Alistair clears his throat.
“—it treads on some of the same sensitivities. And not disclosing about my eye was also something that could have been bad for the gym. I hadn’t considered that, but mostly…
” I shake my head at myself. It had been really dumb of me not to think of that, but my vision wasn’t the real issue.
It never was. “I was afraid to tell him.”
It is a mercy that no one asks me why.
“Would…” Grant’s voice is tentative. “Would you like some cheese?”
I laugh. “No, but thank you.”
“Do you want to cook him something?” Diego asks. “I read that the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. It was in the margin of a cookbook.”
“Good call,” I say. “But I think that a simple apology might do the trick.”
Diego stands, shaking out his legs. “I don’t know. If his blood sugar is low, he might not be receptive. That wasn’t in a cookbook. That’s just true with him.”
A number of others mutter in agreement. I smile.
“So…” Helen sits back on her heels. “Are you going to go over there?”
My smile twists into a grimace, but I nod.
I’m the one who hadn’t been honest. I’m the one who’d known better.
I’d admitted as much to Ian the afternoon he introduced me to the taste of colors.
That however flawed my relationship with Cole had been, my not being honest with him about my pain had damaged what we had.
I’d given Cole reason not to trust me. And now I’ve done the same to Ian. If I go to him now, he’ll have every right to turn me away. But I have to try. Because I love him.
“Good.” She lifts her chin, like she’s shooing me off. “Go.”
“What, now?” I shake my head. “What about my endorphins?”
“You can run!” Grant suggests.
“We can all go!” says Babs.
“But… just on the run,” Diego adds. “You need to do the talking on your own. And the sexy.”
I look around the yard. A sea of beaming faces—plus Alistair, who just looks smug—shines on me, awaiting my verdict.
I hold up my palms in defeat. “Let’s go.”