Chapter 5
Carter
I’ll have to teach her class today. There’s no way she’ll show up after last night.
She was so… angry.
I was devastated we were breaking up. She was furious.
Sometimes I just don’t understand her.
It’s four forty-five a.m., and I’m unlocking the door of Barbells. I’m exhausted, drained. I didn’t have the heart to tell John and Mary what had happened, so I just waited, watching from the back garden as Sasha packed her things.
Through the window, I saw her face when she spotted what awaited her on the dresser. The look of disgust was so clear. In that moment I knew this breakup was for good. That the Bachman lifestyle would never be for her. She stormed out the gate and was gone.
The room was trashed. Her ring sat on her name on the strap.
I bought the brown leather beauty months ago. Hid it in the back of the closet. Restrained myself—so many times—from taking it out and lashing her behind. Thinking she wasn’t quite ready. Had I waited too long to present it? Or had it been too soon?
My heart told me it wasn’t the when of it all—it just wasn’t meant to be.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty. If I’d known then what I know now, perhaps things would have ended differently. But there is only one thing I’m sure of in this whole mess—it’s over.
I’ve barely slept.
I walk into the gym and my breath catches in my throat. Sasha is curled up in a ball, sleeping on a mat. Her bags are everywhere. The duffle she’d packed last night is resting under her head. I step closer. Her face is tearstained. Her closed eyes look puffy. Her nose red.
She looks so pitiful, I long to carry her home. Wrap her in her favorite quilt. Make her hot chocolate. The kind with the whipped cream and rainbow sprinkles on top that she loves so damn much. Her lower lip pouts if I forget to put them on.
My baby girl.
My gut tightens. A pang zings through my chest. She’s not mine anymore.
She’s just another employee. I nudge her with my foot. I growl, “Get up.”
She startles at my abrupt wakeup. Her eyes blink open. She sleepily yawns. “Carter?”
The way she says my name, it’s like nothing’s changed.
I want to hold her. Take her. Right there on the mat. Put her on her hands and knees, dig my fingers into her hips and fuck all this nonsense right out of her. Instead, I flick all the switches up. The room floods with bright light. “Get the hell up. You have a class arriving in ten minutes.”
I don’t even look at her. I leave her in the gym. Head to my office in the back of the building.
I slam the door. I sit at the desk. I put my head in my hands.
She wasn’t supposed to be here today.
I wasn’t supposed to have to see her again.
It’d been stupid of me to assume she wouldn’t come to work. She has no other job, no connections in the city.
And now, she has nowhere to stay.
Pain rips through me. My baby girl slept on the floor.
Not in our bed, piled high with the feather pillows and comforters she was so fond of.
Me not there to gently wake her, my hand on her side, caressing her, whispering in her ear, time to get up.
Her, snuggling in deeper and telling me, one more minute.
I won’t let it happen another night. I’ll have a hotel room arranged for her. Just until she can get on her feet.
Nothing more.
The thump of her favorite warmup tunes fill the quiet building.
She’s getting her room ready for spin. She may be running on little sleep, but one thing about Sasha—she delivers a killer class no matter what her nights have been like.
I can attest to that. When we were dating, we’d go out all night.
Drinking, dancing, fucking. Then, before the sun, we’d be in the gym, sweating it out.
The women come from all over the city to take her classes.
Sasha has an exotic beauty and a lithe body, her muscles long and lean.
Her dark hair is always tied back in a ponytail, swishing against her bronzed skin as she pedals.
She yells at the women, “Faster! Harder.” You’d think the women would dislike her, be envious of her, avoid her.
But she has such a disarming way with them, they all love her.
And so do the Bachman women.
I groan. My hands run through my hair. I’m going to have to tell them that Sasha and I are over. That she’s left the Village. They’re going to blame me. Why didn’t you just take her over your knee sooner? It would have fixed everything. Now we have to lose her, too.
When their anger melts away, that’s when the casseroles and cookies will start rolling in.
Because they know better than anyone—it’s completely Sasha’s choice. The women have all the power. They decide if this is a relationship they want.
They chose yes. She chose no.
There’s laughter, joking. High voices carry through my closed door. The ladies are arriving for class.
Time to work.
The day is grueling. Sunday is our busiest day.
I teach a couple of back-to-back CrossFit classes, filling in for instructors who are out of town.
I interview two job applicants, hire them both on the spot.
I place their paperwork on Sasha’s desk for processing.
Funny how even that small gesture has me finding it hard to breathe.
I give ten tours to potential members. Sign up seven.
More paperwork delivery, my chest tight.
I’ve managed to avoid seeing her, even once, all day.
Now it’s time to close. I just want to pick up Chinese and take it home. Have a long, hot shower, then watch cheesy romantic comedies and eat the food. It’s Sasha’s and my ritual to end the week. Just thinking about it makes my gut twist in knots.
I’ll be going home alone. I’ll skip dinner and pass out in my empty bed. I just hope the word hasn’t gotten out to the women of the Village yet. I’m not up for company, their chatter, their condolences, or their casseroles.
I start the shutdown process. I’m turning off lights, doing a final walkthrough of the men’s locker rooms. I pick up a discarded NYU Law sweatshirt for the lost and found.
It’s probably Jake’s. He’s been asking around about our Village and recently got a membership here.
Good kid. Has potential. And you can never have too many lawyers on your side in this business.
I throw the shirt over my shoulder. I close a locker door that’s hanging open.
Sasha’s already left, and it’s usually her gig, so I do the woman’s locker room too.
The women are so much neater than the men. The cleaning crew will have half the work to do in here. I unplug the hair dryers, pick up the mats for the janitors to buff the floors.
I hear a sniffle.
“Hello? Anyone in here?” I call.
Sometimes we’ll have a member who’s taken too long of a shower, lost track of time, and is dawdling in the locker rooms. That’s why we always walk through before locking up. No member left behind.
No one answers me.
The bathroom is in the back of the room. I head back there, calling again, “Barbells staff. Anyone in here? We’re closing up now.”
There it is again. The tiniest little sniffle.
I look underneath the stalls.
Sasha’s black sneakers with the hot pink swoosh.
I ignore the tug at my heart and tell myself I’m not in the mood for her games. “Sasha. I know you’re in here. Come out, now.”
The stall door unlocks. She steps out.
She’s a wreck.
Her hair is falling down around her shoulders. Her face is red. Her eyes puffy. When she holds her left hand up to wipe away a tear, the sight of her ringless finger makes my gut clench.
I keep my distance. I cross my arms over my chest. “What are you doing?”
“Waiting for you to leave,” she whispers.
“Why? So you can sleep on a mat again?” I ask.
She won’t look at me. “All my friends are… in the Village. You know I can’t go there.”
I say, “I’ve already booked you a hotel. I was going to text you the details as soon as I locked up.”
“Why didn’t you just tell them to me in person?” she asks.
I don’t answer.
Her gaze searches mine. I can’t hide my sadness as I look back at her. She replies with a soft, “Oh.”
“Let’s go. I’m ready to go home,” I say.
Home.
The word hangs in the air between us.
Every night before we leave, I say, “Let’s go, baby girl. I’m ready to take you home.” But I can’t say that now. And, I realize what I’ve just said is… just too close to that. “I meant…”
“I know what you meant,” she says.
“I’ll take you to the hotel,” I offer.
“It’s alright. I’d rather stay here. I don’t want to spend your money,” she says.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You aren’t staying in the gym. Sleeping on the floor,” I say.
Her eyes lock on mine, cutting me. “What does it matter to you? We aren’t together anymore.”
I want to say, let’s stop this. Call in our order of sweet and sour chicken and wonton soup to Chang’s and get the hell out of here. I’m ready to take you home, baby girl.
Instead, I say, “You will take the hotel. And that’s final.”
She gives me a long look. What choice does she have? I own the gym. She has nowhere to go.
“Fine. But I can get a cab,” she says.
Like hell.
“My driver will take you.” I give her such a hard stare that for once in her life, she doesn’t argue with me.
We make our way silently through the dark halls.
I toss the sweatshirt into the lost and found bin.
I walk her to the side door, the one that leads to the street.
I press my thumb on the pad. The doors open.
We wait together in the outdoor vestibule.
A place where we’ve stumbled home on drunken nights and couldn’t wait to get home before we put our hands on each other. A place we’ve kissed, fucked.
The very same place she got the phone call that her grandmother passed away. I held her as she cried, my back pressed against the stone wall. Her face buried in my chest. My chin resting on the top of her head.
An awkward, heavy silence sits between us. Part of me wants to grab her. Kiss her. Part of me wants to scream at her, Why are you choosing this? Why are you ending us? Why can’t you be the woman you’d promised me you’d be?
I stand silently. Keep my distance. My driver pulls up and I give him the instructions. I open her door. She mutters a thank you.
They pull away.
My heart goes with them.