Chapter Twelve #2
The manager at the gym is pretty cool and doesn’t mind if we check our phones on occasion, and he even lets us study when it’s slow, but it’s still a bad look to be caught distracted when I’m supposed to be working. Especially since I’m overdue for restocking the bathrooms.
As soon as I open the supply closet and grab a couple rolls of toilet paper and a stack of paper towels, someone walks in behind me and snakes their arms around my midsection.
I would be startled if I wasn’t expecting it.
A pair of lips latches on to my neck, and I tilt my head, welcoming the soft, wet kisses. My polo is pulled from where it’s tucked into my pants, and a cold hand presses against my stomach, making me hiss.
“Hey.” Trinity pulls away when I turn, her hair cascading down her shoulders from underneath her knit cap. Judging by her pink nose, rosy cheeks, and freezing hands, it’s clearly gotten chilly outside. That’s October in New York, I guess.
“Hey yourself.” I lean back in, and we hover just like that, lips pressed together and the taste of her peppermint gum on my tongue. “You’re early.”
“I wanted to see you.” She slips her hands in my back pockets and pulls me to her. “So here I am.”
“Here you are.” I push my hands up the back of her fancy-looking shirt and press them flat on her back, reveling in the softness of her skin.
“You look nice. Did you wear this for me or for Vic?” She laughs, and I kiss her jaw.
Vic, her personal trainer, is gross, and it’s clear he only gives her a discount because he wants to sleep with her.
“Neither. I had a meeting with some people at the agency earlier today.”
It doesn’t surprise me. Usually, she comes to the gym in sweats or leggings, but she likes to dress up when booking gigs or coming from shoots.
“How about after training, I let you bring me home and take it all off?” She frees the top button of my polo and winks.
I turn back to the supplies. “We’ll have to go to your apartment.”
“And miss the chance of your roommate walking in on us fucking in your twin-size bed again? I don’t know, that sounds kinda hot.”
I give her a look. I forgot to text my roommate once, and Trinity hasn’t let me live it down in the three months we’ve been sleeping together.
She laughs and grabs my chin, pulling me in for another kiss. “You’re so cute when you’re irritated.”
She follows me into the locker room, sauntering into one of the changing stalls, and flashes a seductive look over her shoulder.
It’s a silent question. I want to follow her in—in fact, a few times, I almost have—but I need the money from this job, and I’m not about to be fired because I can’t wait a couple of hours to pin her to the wall.
“Hey,” she calls out once she realizes I’m not following her inside. “Are we still on for Saturday night? Rafi needs to know how many to expect.”
“Tell him three. Me, Jules, and Chloe. And yeah, we’re still on.”
“I’m excited to meet your friends,” she says.
“Yeah. Me too,” I tell her.
Trinity’s heard stories about us growing up together and knows how close we are. What she doesn’t know is that Jules and I slept together five months ago. And I’d really like to keep it that way.
As for Jules, well, she knows about Trinity.
Sort of. She knows she’s a fellow NYU student who I met at the gym and that we’ve gone out a few times.
Which, despite being true, isn’t the full story.
I’ve yet to tell her that we’re a little more serious than that.
It’s just, every time I try, the words seem to get caught in my throat, and I’m not sure why.
We haven’t mentioned our night together since that afternoon up on the mountain. We just went on with our lives like it never happened. Like nothing changed.
Except things have changed.
There was more space between us when we watched movies.
And not nearly as much touching. No heads on shoulders or hand holding or even bumping shoulders.
Just space. Miles and miles of space. And the absolute worst?
Jules and I haven’t talked as much since she went back to school in July for field hockey.
Our constant thread of texting has slowed to sporadic bursts.
Our almost nightly phone calls have turned into twice a week.
The thought that she may be seeing someone makes my chest tighten. Even if I know how hypocritical that makes me. I remind myself that our night together was an experiment between friends. That I’m moving on and so should she.
The door to the changing room opens, and I watch as Trinity shoves her bag into a nearby locker.
Where Jules is beautiful in every sense of the word, soft curves and even softer skin, Trinity is hot.
Defined muscles and an “I model fancy underwear” type of body.
Both attractive, just in different ways.
The chime of the door opening reminds me that I need to get back behind the desk. “It’s probably Vic,” she teases.
I groan. I really can’t stand that guy.
She looks at me in the mirror with a sideways smile. “The sooner I can get my session done, the sooner we can have our own workout.”
I shove the paper towels into the dispenser and mutter about how he’ll probably make her lift extra weights, and she’ll be too tired.
She kisses my cheek. “Don’t worry, I’ll save some energy for you.” She grabs her water bottle and heads out of the locker room, leaving me alone.
My phone buzzes, and without thinking about it, I pull it out of my pocket to find another text from Jules.
It’s a selfie of her taking a bite of a greasy burger with the caption cheat day.
She must’ve just finished practice because she’s still wearing her headband, and there’re wisps of hair sticking all over the place, and her face is all flushed.
Trinity laughs, and the sound is enough to bring me back to reality.
I try not to think about how the color of Jules’s chest matched the flushed red of her cheeks as I worked my way back up her body all those months ago.
Or how she pulled me into a toe-curling kiss, moaning when she tasted herself on my tongue.
I let out a long breath and lean against the sink. Moving on would be a hell of a lot easier if I could stop having those types of persistent thoughts about my best friend.