5. Daisy
Chapter 5
Daisy
I used my key card to get into The Gym — I still thought it was ridiculous that it was called that — and was surprised to find Locke waiting for me.
One of the things I liked most about the place when I’d signed up was that it was open 24/7. It was only staffed during the day, but members were given a key card to access the place any time of the day or night, and there had been more than a few mornings when I’d been living with Cassie when I’d been the first one in.
Now it was barely light out, sunlight just begging to creep across the sky, and Locke was already here, muttering under his breath as he re-racked some weights near the wall of mirrors. He hated when we didn’t re-rack our own weights, and I didn’t blame him.
Rude.
“Hey,” I said as the door swung shut behind me.
“Hey.” He didn’t bother lifting his head, and I realized he’d been expecting me.
“Wait… are you here for me?” I asked, crossing the lobby and stepping deeper into the surprisingly large space.
At the back, a boxing ring was set up for members who liked to spar. An assortment of machines and other equipment stood at the ready between the ring and the front door, the free weights racked against the mirrors that lined the walls.
He straightened and came toward me. “Yep.”
He was huge — at least as big as Jace had been (ouch) — with a full head of graying hair and a matching beard. His arms and chest — partially visible under his black tank top — were covered in ink.
“But how did you…” It didn’t take me long to put it together: the early morning wake-up call from Otis, the waiting smoothie from Wolf, the two of them insisting on driving me into town. “They called you.”
“They’re worried about you.” Locke’s gaze raked my body, but not in a suggestive way. More like a mechanic surveying the damage after a horrific car accident. “Now I see why.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said.
He shrugged. “You’ve lost muscle mass. Not going to blow sunshine up your ass.”
“I’m not sure anything’s going to help me right now.” It felt good to say the words out loud, especially to someone like Locke, who I didn’t really know that well.
I’d talked to Cassie and Sarai, but that had been almost as hard as staying quiet. They were so obviously worried, so clearly out of their element. They had no idea what to say or do and I didn’t blame them.
The situation was epically fucked.
Willa had reached out, but I hadn’t returned her calls or texts. She was eight months pregnant now, almost ready to have the Kings’ baby, a reminder of the life I might have led if Jace had lived.
I knew Wolf and Otis were there, that they’d let me talk about Jace as much as I wanted, but it felt wrong to fall apart in front of them again and again. Jace had been like their brother since they were kids. They were hurting too. It didn’t feel fair to keep laying the weight of my grief on their shoulders.
But Locke was different. Aside from a few training sessions at the gym, we’d hardly spoken, and even then, he was more grunts and gestures than conversation.
“You’re wrong,” Locke said.
“About what?” I’d lost my train of thought, drifted off into the abyss of my mind, something that had happened more often since Jace’s death.
“You said you don’t think anything can help you,” he said. “You’re wrong.”
“You think working out is going to help me?” He might as well have told me to click my heels three times like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz .
“Yes.” He eased my gym bag off my shoulder. “Grief — like every other emotion — is stored in the body. You need to move it out.”
I looked down as tears stung my eyes. “I don’t want to.”
Moving it out meant it was real. It meant accepting that Jace was dead. That I was moving on.
And I would never, ever do that.
“I know.” I thought I saw sympathy in his blue eyes, but I couldn’t be sure. “But it’s not healthy to let it sit in your body, in your psyche. You won’t be any good to anybody until you clear it.”
I didn’t want to be any good to anybody. I just wanted to sleep.
He crossed his arms over his chest, a pose that made him immediately look ten times more imposing, and that was saying something. “Listen, I got my ass out of bed at the crack and so did you. You going to tell me you don’t want to work now that you’re here?”
I sighed. He was right. I’d done the hard part by getting to the gym. If nothing else, it would make Wolf and Otis happy.
“Fine,” I said. “Let’s work.”