Chapter 7 #3
Ronan and I had plans to work out the next day, Saturday, so I got up early and cranky and drove to my apartment.
Taylor and Kiya had a serious mess going at their condo and I was glad to get back home where everything was neat, clean, and mine.
There was no one else here to leave dirty dishes in the kitchen (their sink had been full) or piles of clothes on the floor (their living room had contained actual mountains of those, and I had pushed one off the couch to give myself a place to sleep).
I wondered if they resented each other for creating that havoc, like I had resented my dad.
At the moment, I resented life in general.
I was tired and still cranky but I did put on my gym clothes and I went outside to wait in the parking lot until Ronan showed up.
He had texted me the night before, making sure that I got in safely, but we hadn’t shared any information about the people we’d left with.
“Good morning,” he called out of his window as he pulled to a stop. “Why are you sitting on the curb?”
Somehow, my apartment had felt too constraining. No, it had just felt strange. “I wanted to be in the sun,” I said gruffly.
“You ok? What happened to your voice?” He yanked open the car door.
I had been screaming at several bars the night before, mostly informing different guys that I wasn’t interested no matter what my friend had told them. “Nothing. What happened with Channing?” I asked as we started off.
“I think he’d been drinking before we met up with them,” he told me.
“A minute after I forced him into his house, he threw up on his floor. Then he told me that he was an asshole and I agreed, and I said that he needs to apologize to Kiya. But he fell asleep before that happened. I stuck around to make sure he was ok and now I’m tired. ” He yawned.
“Me too,” I admitted. “I slept on Kiya’s couch.”
“Did she drink herself sick, too?”
“No, I just didn’t want to go home for some reason,” I heard myself admit. “I don’t know why. My apartment is so nice.”
“Yeah, you have all those good pillows now.” He had helped me choose a few new ones for my couch. “Is that why you were sitting outside?”
“Maybe. Yes,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“You sound grumpy,” he pointed out.
“I am not!” I huffed. “I am. Let’s just do an easy workout.”
“Or we could skip it,” he suggested, but the Woodsmen tryout was too close. I said no, that this would make me feel better, and he shrugged and agreed. I checked my phone a few times on the ride but didn’t hear anything from Kiya about Channing’s apology, which I hoped was groveling enough.
Instead of driving to the practice facility to hang out with the toy dog-sized mice, we went to the gym that I belonged to and he had joined.
Eddie had sworn that the rodent population out there was decreasing (even in the epicenter), but exterminators were coming shortly, anyway.
That wasn’t to help the Junior Woodsmen, though—it was a sign of how close the Woodsmen preseason was.
They would be in the practice facility soon enough, and of course it needed to be perfect for them.
I planned to be there and let the rodent experts know that there were two sides of the building that needed to be cleared and not to forget that mice weren’t stopped by padlocked doors, like football players were.
That line of thinking only made me grumpier.
I was muttering under my breath as we went into the gym and my mental state didn’t improve when I looked over from the treadmill I was on and saw Ronan in the free weight area.
He wasn’t lifting, but he was involved in a conversation with a woman.
I could only see the view of her back, which meant I could see her butt and it was incredible.
How did she get an ass like that? I thought about increasing the incline but it wouldn’t have given me what she had.
Then I watched her put her hand on his arm and I hit the red stop button.
I went equally as fast as I’d been moving on the treadmill toward where they were standing but about ten feet away, I stopped.
Judas Priest. Was I going to charge over and grab her by the hair?
Push them apart? Yell that he better get away from her?
No, none of those things. I swiveled and went into the women’s locker room to try to get control over whatever emotions were making me act so out of character.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror above the sinks and I saw two swipes of angry red on my cheeks. That was ridiculous—what was I doing?
Ronan was loitering near the locker room door when I came out.
“I don’t know what happens in women’s bathrooms but I have to think it’s more interesting than men’s rooms,” he commented.
“I never go in one of those to chat, for example, and I don’t think I come out looking better than when I went in. ”
I definitely didn’t look better but I was hoping that I didn’t look quite as red as I had when I’d entered.
“There’s no one to talk to in there,” I told him.
Other women had come with friends and I had, too, but mine had been busy picking someone up.
Which was totally his right, I reminded myself. Why was I acting like this?
“Cate?”
I looked up at him and he actually seemed concerned.
“I’m worried about Kiya because I haven’t heard from her yet. And I’m tired,” I said. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
That was all it was. Also, I felt a little confused and I didn’t enjoy that. I was a person with plans and a future. I let everything roll off me like a duck. I never acted like this, like—as if—
“Cate?”
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, and we left.
I brought the confusion with me, though.