28. CHAPTER 28
Livia
Locke’s name isn’t on the sign-in sheet, but I’m not surprised. We’ve been doing a good job of avoiding each other.
All my instincts want to continue to push him, but he asked me to leave it alone, so I’m going to abide by that.
No matter how much it hurts.
I tuck the clipboard under my arm and move to the center of the turf. “All right, five stations. You know the drill.”
Boss raises his hand. “Is there a prize this time?”
“The prize is the same as last time.”
“Not dying of cardiovascular failure,” Rome says.
“In the third period,” Arch adds.
“See?” I say with a bright smile I don’t feel down deep. “You’re learning.”
The men disperse to various stations and I call the first rotation.
For the next forty-five, they sweat and bitch and moan.
Boss beats his sled time from two weeks ago and announces this fact to everyone within a hundred-foot radius.
There are high fives and tired smiles when we’re done, but most importantly promises to come to the next session.
And well, that’s at least progress.
I collect the agility ladders and do a brief scan to make sure everything else is picked up.
I pack everything away in the locked gear boxes and head inside.
It’s been a long day, and I want to go home to a hot bath and hopefully another full night of sleep that will put me one more day away from Locke Donovan and the way he broke my heart.
I’m just locking up my office when I turn and see Patrick walking down the corridor with one of the assistant coaches. He sees me and lifts a finger, indicating he wants me to wait.
I do so, not with impatience, but fatigue. I really want that bath and then my bed.
When he finally reaches me, I note he’s in training gear—dark track pants, a fitted long-sleeve charcoal colored shirt, running shoes.
“I was hoping to get in on your circuit training, but meetings ran long. Maybe next time.”
I blink at him in surprise. “I’d love to have you anytime.”
“I’ve heard they’re a bitch,” he says as we start walking toward the staircase. “You headed home?”
“Yeah… long day.”
“How are things going?” he asks as we start down to the lobby. “Generally.”
I don’t know that I’ll ever feel settled given how things ended with Locke, but I put on a cheerful smile. “The program is running smoothly, individual work’s been productive. It couldn’t be better, frankly.”
“And how are you finding the job? Outside of the operational. Are you happy here?”
The question is simple. He asks it the way he asks everything—like he wants a real answer.
I open my mouth.
And what moves through me in the half second before I speak is a feeling I have yet to process. I’ve been circling it at two in the morning when I can’t sleep and the most honest version of myself shows up.
I didn’t reach Locke professionally.
I have two sessions of real material and a third session that detonated, plus the man who was supposed to be the measure of my effectiveness in this role. That man is currently pretending I don’t exist in the corridors of the building I work in.
What’s worse is I crossed every line I swore I wouldn’t. I let the personal and professional blur past the point of recovery, and the outcome is that I failed at both simultaneously.
“I’m happy,” I say, but that’s not entirely true. I’m happy with certain things and so sad about others.
“I’m glad. I want my people to be happy.” Patrick glances at his watch. “Got another meeting, but I want to get together sometime this week to discuss Donovan.”
“Donovan?” I ask, my voice squeaking slightly.
“Yeah… I want to hear about the last session you had. Not the details, of course, but whether you think anything else is needed. I can lean on him to attend more if you need it.”
“Oh, um…” I stammer, not knowing what to say. I can’t ever force that on Locke. He’d hate me for it. “Actually, I think it’s all good with him.”
Patrick frowns at me. He hears me stumbling with half-truths and cocks his head. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
I clear my throat, stiffen my spine and put on a blinding smile. “It’s absolutely fine,” I lie to my boss.
Patrick glances at his watch again. “Okay… but check with Janine to set aside time to talk about Donovan.”
“Will do,” I say and then he’s gone.
I huff out a breath.
I am not okay and I need to be okay.
“Home,” I mutter to myself. “Home, bath and wine. Then sleep.”
It’s a good plan. It’s a good step one to make myself okay.
I wave goodbye to Jimmy as I exit the lobby. It’s dark outside and the parking lot is mostly empty. The only stragglers left are the ones who are going to eat dinner at the Blue Line, but most of the players have finished their workouts by this time.
My car is in the third row and I reach into my bag for my keys. I think about dinner and wonder if it’s a good idea to just cook up some ramen.
“Livia.”
I stop and the hair rises on the back of my neck.
The sound comes from my left, from the narrow corridor between the facility wall and the equipment storage structure that runs along the south side of the lot. The shadow there is deep, but I don’t need to see past it.
I know that voice.
Grant steps out of the dark. He looks worse than when I saw him in LA.
Thinner, the hollows under his eyes deeper, and the way he’s holding himself is slightly off center. He’s in a jacket that has a food stain on the front lapel and he’s looking at me with hope in his eyes.
My blood goes cold and my hand tightens on my bag strap.
“What are you doing here?” It comes out even and I’m proud of that.
He takes one step toward me. I take one step back and he stops, registering it. “I’m not here to cause a problem.”
“You’re standing in a dark parking lot at my workplace, waiting for me, hundreds of miles from your home,” I say, anger creeping into my tone. “That’s a problem.”
“Oh, come on, Livvy. It’s not like that. I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. You won’t answer my texts. You won’t call. I just need to talk to you, Livia. That’s all this is.”
I’m really scared right now, but I’m also really pissed. It’s the same thing over and over again and why can’t he accept it? “Jesus, Grant… there is nothing to talk about.”
“That’s what you keep saying but you haven’t heard what I—”
“Grant,” I yell, every bit of patience gone. I keep my eyes on him and I’m running the math on the distance between me and my car or between me and the lobby. “I need you to leave right now, because if you don’t, I’m calling the police.”
His expression tells the story. The reasonable quality doesn’t disappear exactly, but it thins.
“You’re going to call the police,” he says, his tone utterly flat. “On me.”
“If you don’t leave—”
“Livia, I drove nine hundred miles—”
“I know.” I struggle to maintain calm, but I can’t find my footing between fury and fear. “I know you drove nine hundred miles and I’m telling you it doesn’t change anything and I need you to get back in your car and go.”
He takes another step toward me.
I take another step back.
“I’m not leaving until you hear me out,” he says, and the reasonable quality is completely gone now.
It’s full-blown rage. “Two years. We were together for two years and you walked out and moved nine hundred miles away and you won’t even give me an hour.
” He steps closer and I’m considering bolting…
the lobby is closer, but he’s in the way.
“You don’t get to just erase people. You don’t get to decide someone doesn’t exist anymore because it’s convenient for you. ”
His hand shoots out and his fingers close around my wrist. It happens so fast he easily wrenches me forward. I stumble and almost go down, but he hauls me up with his other hand on my jacket.
Fury sweeps through me so blisteringly hot, I think I might black out.
I’ve been weighted by fear of this man but the moment he grabbed me, all sense of self-preservation and trying to talk him off the ledge dissipates.
Left behind is an unnerving need for me to not only defend myself, but to hurt him so he knows not to fuck with me again.
“You son of a bitch,” I scream and with my free hand, launch a round house slap to the side of his head.
It catches Grant off guard and he curses, but his grip doesn’t loosen.
He starts to drag me deeper into the parking lot and I dig my heels down into the asphalt, leaning all my weight back from him.
And then I hear footsteps… someone running toward us… and I have enough time to register Van Turner yelling sharp but undistinguishable words.
I twist around and see Locke and Van barreling at us.
Grant sees them too, eyes almost bugging out of his head and he releases me. I careen into a car just as Locke drives his shoulder into Grant’s stomach. The force of the hit lifts him clean off his feet and he slams backward into the front of a big truck.
Then Locke pulls him up, and his fist connects with Grant’s jaw. Van is at my side, taking my arm and pulling me back so I don’t get hit.
Locke punches Grant again and the crack of it echoes through the parking lot.
Grant goes down but not gracefully. His legs give way and he’s a crumpled, unconscious heap on the pavement.
Locke stands over him, chest heaving, jaw tight, fists still closed. He nudges Grant with his toe but he’s motionless, and then he turns to me. “Are you hurt?”
I stare at him agog, but the question registers and I shake my head. The adrenaline is whipping violence into my blood and although my wrist throbs where Grant grabbed it, I’m okay.
I hear Van on his phone behind us, steady as he gives the address to what I can only assume is a 911 dispatcher.
Locke reaches out, taking my wrist to examine. I can see there’s blood on his knuckles. “You’re bruising,” he murmurs.
I step back, tugging my wrist from his hand, and his eyes sadden.
“Don’t.” It comes out harshly. The adrenaline is still pumping through me and underneath it, a low buzz of annoyance. “Don’t do that.”
He frowns.
“You don’t get to show up,” I say, my words shaking now from both fear and anger.
“You walked out of my office and closed the door, then looked at me in that weight room like I was nobody, and now you’re here, and you’re—” I stop, heaving in a breath.
“You don’t have the right to be my rescuer, Locke.
You don’t have the right to show up and be the hero when you’ve made me feel like I don’t exist.”
To his credit, he winces, and I see the pain in his expression. I ignore it.
“You want to know what trust looks like?” The words are coming now and I can’t reel them back in.
“It looks like standing in my office and telling you that I was with you and meaning every word of it. It looks like trying to reach you and being shut out and still showing up in that weight room because I wasn’t ready to give up on you.
” My voice drops. “It doesn’t look like this.
Coming in at the last second and landing a punch and thinking that makes us square. ”
He absorbs that and his jaw tightens. “I know.”
Behind him Van is still on the phone, one eye on Grant’s unconscious form, the other on us, and I wonder what he makes of all this.
It’s a tomorrow problem though.
“Until you figure out what you actually want,” I say, “until you can let go of whatever Adam did to you enough to see me clearly and not as another person waiting to betray you, stay out of my life.”