13 - Aiden
Aiden
The bar hit my chest and stalled halfway up.
I forced it the rest of the way, arms shaking, then racked it harder than necessary. The metal clanged against the hooks and echoed through the empty team gym.
Six reps. I’d planned for ten, but needed to move on or I’d implode.
I swung my legs off the bench and sat up, towel draped over my neck, sweat running down my spine. The wall-mounted TV replayed last night’s game on mute. My line change flashed across the screen. I watched myself take the puck at the blue line, pivot, pass wide.
I didn’t remember that shift, or much of anything else that had happened.
I grabbed the remote and cranked the volume. The announcer’s voice filled the room, breaking down a play I’d executed on instinct. I stared at the screen, trying to follow the breakdown.
But all I could see was her standing in that booth, telling me she didn’t like me.
I dropped the remote on the bench and stood. The rubber flooring stuck slightly to the soles of my shoes as I crossed to the squat rack. I slid a plate onto each side of the bar, then another, telling myself I needed the weight.
If I was sore enough, tired enough, maybe she’d clear out of my system.
I ducked under the bar and lifted it off the hooks. The metal settled across my shoulders. I stepped back and lowered into a squat.
At the bottom of the movement, her face flashed again. The way she’d held my gaze while lying to me. The way her voice had strained on my name when she told me to leave.
I drove up too fast and had to correct my balance at the top.
Focus.
I dropped into another rep. My thighs burned in the best way. This was good. Wreck myself to recalibrate. An age-old method for healing, both physically and emotionally.
By the fourth rep, my form slipped. I shoved the bar back onto the rack and stepped away before I did something stupid.
Across the room, the treadmill lights blinked idle. I walked over and punched in a speed without thinking. The belt kicked to life under my feet, and I ran harder than my warmup required, breath pulling through my teeth, sweat dripping off my chin onto the moving rubber.
I told myself I wasn’t thinking about her.
I told myself she’d made it clear.
I felt her mouth on mine anyway.
I reached for the console and hit stop mid-stride. The belt slowed under me. I stepped off and grabbed a water bottle from the cooler, downing half of it in one pull.
The TV replayed my missed shot from the third period. The announcer talked about timing. About patience.
I snorted and grabbed a medicine ball instead, slamming it into the floor. It bounced back into my hands. I did it again. And again. My shoulders started to protest. I ignored it.
My phone vibrated against the bench.
I almost left it there.
Instead I walked over, chest still heaving, and flipped it face up.
Sage’s number.
The text read simply, “SOS”.
Underneath it, an address downtown I recognized from late-night drives and bad decisions.
I stared at the screen, convinced my brain had started inventing things. She wouldn’t be texting me. Not after what happened at Purple Rose.
It vibrated again before I could talk myself out of responding.
I wiped my hand on the towel and typed back: “I thought you don’t like me.”
Then I tossed the phone onto the bench and grabbed a kettlebell, swinging it up between my legs and driving it forward with my hips. The motion forced my focus downward, on form, on breathing.
My phone buzzed again.
I caught the kettlebell on the downswing, and set it aside before I cracked a tile. Negotiating with my better judgment was hell in this state. Part of me was convinced Sage knew that. Somehow, she knew the state I was in, and chose this time to do all this.
“Get over yourself and get your ass downtown.”
I barked out a laugh before I could stop it. That was just like her.
Do what I tell you. Ask no questions. Forget how I led you on and made you think there was something worth something happening between us.
I started pacing the length of the gym, phone in hand. If her goal was to weasel her way into my brain and fuck up my momentum then she’d succeeded.
“Busy. Can’t.”
The stretching mats called out to me, and I left it at that. My response was gonna piss her off, which was the goal. In the meantime, my workout wasn’t finished.
Lunges hated me almost as much as I hated them, but I breathed into the stretch anyway. Weight dropped low and slow through my front heel, hands braced on my thigh, I tried to clear my mind of everything that wasn’t controlled, even breathing.
A vibration broke through my best intentions, and I set my jaw. Ignoring Sage’s persistence, I deepened the stretch and breathed through the tight pull in my hip flexor. As long as I kept my focus on the burn instead of the annoyance crawling up my spine, I’d be okay.
But that goddamn vibration came again, and another followed quickly after. My ankle wobbled, and I groaned out loud, stomping over to the bench.
“Aiden.” That was it.
And the next ones read: “Are you for real right now?” and “Are you there?”
Yeah, I was here and being very real. “As real as you were when you told me to take a hike.”
The three dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again. When next they disappeared, they stayed that way. I was only vaguely aware of the fact I was holding my breath as I clutched my phone, staring at the screen as if a look at the right temperature would compel a reply.
Three dots again, and relief left me in a shaky sigh.
“Are you coming or not?”
Fuck.
I was showered in sweat, heart still hammering from trying to outrun her. To outrun what she’d said. Outrun the way I’d felt walking out of that shop. As though I’d lost something I never really had in the first place.
My thumbs flew across the screen: “Give me ten minutes.”
Of all the things I should’ve been thinking, the one thought looping in my head as I made my way out was how fast I could make it downtown without looking like I’d dropped everything to be there for her. Especially after how things had ended between us.
The drive was worse, because I hit every red light, which gave me ample time to add several more useless points to complement that one.
What was wrong? And if something was wrong, why’d she think to text me about it?
What would she be wearing? Should I have changed out of my workout clothes?
Maybe I should’ve splurged on that lady-killer cologne Seth was always going on about.
Did Sage even like cologne? She struck me as more of a natural, earthy tone kinda woman.
Not that any of it even mattered. Because we were more done than an overcooked turkey at Thanksgiving.
Sage’s location pin took me farther than I’d expected, past the clean glass storefronts and into a stretch of the city that never bothered to dress itself up.
The buildings grew older the deeper I drove, brick faces exposed where paint had given up, windows fitted with mismatched blinds.
Even in the light of day, everything pressed flatter, quieter, more watchful.
I eased my truck toward the curb and idled for a beat before killing the engine.
The sudden absence of the motor made the outside rush in through the window.
Somewhere down the block, sirens threaded through traffic and faded again, not close enough to chase but close enough to remind me where I was.
My hands stayed on the steering wheel while I scanned the street.
Graffiti climbed the exposed brick across from me, layered color over older color, tags stacked on tags until the wall looked like it had stories that didn’t need repeating.
A narrow stairwell cut into one of the buildings, its metal door dented and painted over more than once.
A pair of people drifted past, heads angled toward each other in quiet conversation, then disappeared around a corner without looking up.
“Where the hell are you?” I muttered under my breath, phone at the ready. But I wasn’t going to text her just yet. Not until I knew what I’d been dragged into.
Reflections bounced off parked cars and the windows of the apartments above. I noted the rhythm of movement, the way someone crossed between poles, the way another figure paused near a doorway and stayed there too long to be casual.
I stayed put behind the wheel, deciding I wouldn’t move until this last-minute plan had a little more structure. Namely, an answer to what the fuck I was doing here.
Sage’s only explanation had been the cryptic SOS. Did I search the shadows in alleyways, or check for her silhouette in the windows rising up around me.
The block didn’t give me much reassurance. A trash can sat overturned near the curb, contents scattered by wind or someone careless. A couple of windows on the second floor glowed with television light, while others stayed dim, or in some cases, boarded up.
I checked the rearview mirror, then the side mirrors, taking in the street behind me.
No one approached my truck directly. A man lingered near the corner store entrance, hands tucked in his sleeves, eyes moving across passing cars.
A cyclist rolled through the intersection and disappeared quickly.
Nothing felt urgent, but nothing felt relaxed either.
I listened to the city filtering in, and weighed whether to call Sage, or text for clarification. But the idea felt unnecessary. If she’d brought me here, she would show herself.
Just then, a flash of movement flickered in my periphery.
At first it was only a shift in shadow near the sidewalk. Then the shape resolved into a person stepping closer, one arm lifting in a wide wave. The motion repeated, more definite this time, and recognition loosened the knot of tension in my gut.