Chapter Nine
E arly the next morning, I wave my swipe card against the glass door of the hotel gym.
It beeps merrily, and I haul it open. Inside, the ceiling stretches high overhead, and a polished row of treadmills lines a wall of windows offering a view of the beach.
After the incident with Rafe and his father on the boat, I hung out with Lan and Gabrielle while keeping my distance from Andy, no longer in the mood for any type of male attention.
The problem with a party boat is that you’re trapped. Thankfully, it started raining, and we were forced to return early.
When we docked back at the hotel, I went straight to my bedroom and locked the door before I called down to the front desk, begging them to find us another room. Still no luck. They also politely (but sternly) requested that I stop contacting them until they call me with an update. Next, I tried Belinda since she still hasn’t answered any of my emails, but I’m pretty sure she’s blocked my number.
Rafe was already gone when I emerged this morning. I’ve considered asking again if he can bunk with his dad, but now I’m not sure after witnessing their interaction on the boat last night.
Today, the sky is grey, and it’s still raining.
On my way down, I overheard some hotel staff telling a group of tourists to expect some unusual weather over the next few days—including possible thunder and lightning—which is apparently rare around here. It’s just my luck that it might happen when I’m visiting because storms have made me nervous since I was a kid.
Hopefully it will blow over.
My gym shoes squish against the rubber floor as I head towards the free-weight area. Coming to a halt, I let out a dramatic sigh because, obviously , Rafe is standing in front of the mirror with a giant dumbbell clutched in each hand. Is there nowhere I can hide?
I stand momentarily fossilized as I watch him work.
One. Two. Three.
He’s Hercules, biceps swelling, the veins in his neck straining, and the curl resting on his forehead practically waving at me with coy fingers. Of course he’s here. A man doesn’t look like that without some serious hours logged in the gym.
At first, he doesn’t notice me, which is surprising because it feels like the sound of my panting fills every corner of the room. My mouth has become sandpaper, and I hate that I intend to replay this moment in my daydreams until it disintegrates from use.
His fitted black tank reveals the caps of his rounded shoulders, the dips in his back, and the pronounced swoop of his collarbones. The thin material of his shorts clings to his ass and his thighs and his… oookaaay .
And that’s it—the very last stone has just been turned in the winding corridors of my filthy imagination.
This isn’t good. Despite that initial spark I felt, I’ve never considered Rafe an option for me. Sure, I always found him attractive, but that’s it. He works at WMC, and I cannot go down that road again. But now I’m experiencing all these strange thoughts and feelings, and they’re hurtling towards me at the speed of light, streaking across my vision in a blur.
I’ve been standing still for too long, and finally, he notices me, my phone clutched in my hands and my lips slightly parted.
“Tris,” he says, as if I’ve just shocked him with a defibrillator. “What are you doing here?”
My mouth snaps shut, and I plant a hand on a hip, trying to pretend I wasn’t just imagining him naked on a chaise as I feed him grapes with my teeth. “The same thing as you, Rafe. I exercise too, you know.”
Now he’s the one staring. I freeze as his gaze travels up the length of my body: my shins, my thighs, the hem of my shorts, the dip of my navel, the scoop of my sports bra, the strap curving over my shoulder.
With each beat, my heart pounds in my chest until it’s thrumming so hard I grow lightheaded. These are the same clothes I always wear to the gym, but when examined under the weight of Rafe’s careful scrutiny, it feels like I’m stark naked.
“Then, by all means,” he says, gesturing to the weight rack. “Don’t let me distract you.”
“Thank you for the permission,” I reply with as much sarcasm as I can rally. I move past him and select my dumbbells after putting in my earbuds and cranking up my music to drown out his presence.
I’m not the lithe gym type, but I like food and wine and the only way I can reasonably consume either of those at a rate I find acceptable is to work out at least four or five times a week. I’m not naturally muscular, tending towards softness, but I am healthy and fit and could lift a lot of weight if necessary.
As I work, the music does nothing to distract me, and my gaze keeps wandering back to Rafe. I get lost in the flex and bunch and flex of his arms and his back and his stomach, and who turned up the temperature in here? It would be a shame if his shirt suddenly melted off his back.
This is insane. I need to leave. Rafe might be single, but he is still bona fide WMC stock, and I refuse to do this to myself again. Rafe is still Rafe. He’s arrogant and full of himself, and we hate each other. I’m literally the one person in the world he refuses to smile at.
He was so turned off by the idea of working with me that he kicked me off his team.
Shaking myself off, I move through my routine: shoulder presses, upright rows, flys, and lateral raises. I try to tame my eyes. To get them to cooperate, but they’re drawn to Rafe like flowers to sunshine.
More than once, I catch him staring, too. At the moment, he’s looking at me like he’s trying to see straight to the very essence of my soul. My stomach loops on a roller coaster, the air in the room thinning.
He said he broke up with Hannah, but she wants to reconcile. They’ll probably get back together, and then I can stuff these feelings into a tidy compartment where I can keep them secured forever.
I picture Rafe and Hannah in their perfect little house in one of Chicago’s most elite gated neighborhoods, raising their attractive children, who attend private school in miniature navy blazers as Rafe follows in his father’s footsteps.
Why does that image make my stomach hurt?
After I’m done with my weights, I cast one more look at him. I’m becoming messy and unwound, spiraling like threads at the end of the spool, and I don’t like it at all.
I hop on the treadmill, hoping to sweat this anxiety out through my pores. I watch the ocean churning through the bank of windows, but I am aware. I am so aware of the man I’m trying to forget behind me.
At the end of my run, I jump off the treadmill and grab a chilled bottle of water from the mini fridge in the corner. Rafe approaches, wiping his forehead with the hem of his shirt, revealing a set of carved abs and a trail of dark hair that disappears into the waistband of his shorts.
Suddenly, I can’t breathe. I wonder what it would be like to run my tongue along those tight lines and grooves. Then I give my head a vigorous shake as if anything could dislodge that image. I hope he attributes the flush on my skin to my run.
“You heading back upstairs?” Rafe asks, and I nod, replacing my now empty water bottle with a fresh one. “How was your workout?”
“It was fine,” I say in a clipped tone, annoyed with myself for being a fool and annoyed with him for existing at all.
“About last night,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to go all caveman on you like that.”
I take a long gulp of my water and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. “So why did you? Why are you so opposed to Andy?”
His gaze hardens, a muscle feathering along his jawline. “I’m not.”
“Really? Because your behavior would suggest otherwise. What do you have against him?”
“You just deserve better than an asshole like that.”
I raise an eyebrow. “I do?”
He blinks as if surprised by my question. “Of course you do.”
“You hate me, Rafe. Why do you care who deserves me?”
The corner of his mouth trends north. And it’s not exactly a smile, but it’s something that might exist close to one. I take a step back, overwhelmed by the force of the dimple that imprints on his cheek and the way his shirt stretches over his chest like it’s grateful to have been chosen from his suitcase this morning. He lifts the hem to wipe away a line of sweat, exposing a swath of golden skin, and I’m so close to passing out it’s pathetic.
Rafe moves closer, and even after a workout, he smells so good that I kind of want to lick him like a chocolate-dipped cone. Another step and my back hits the wall with an audible oof .
With his eyes shining like polished copper pennies, Rafe moves so close that nothing but atoms vibrate between us. I suck in a breath, my breasts ghosting against his chest with the barest brush. He plants his elbows on either side of my head, leaning so close it compresses the space in my windpipe until I’m breathing lead.
His head dips, his mouth a phantom against the shell of my ear.
“I do hate you, Tris. I hate you very much.”
My mouth parts. My thoughts are coated in mud. His head pulls back, and then he does it again. That lift of his lips that borders on the edge of… something.
After giving me a prolonged once-over that would corrupt a demon, he walks away, disappearing into the changing room.
My knees have become water, and I slide partway to the floor. With my heart galloping in my chest, I press my hand against it, knowing only one thing for sure: Rafe Gallagher is giving me some very mixed signals.