I rolled my eyes.
Where the hell had he been the last five months?
“Yes,” I said. “Something in which I told Sophia, in front of you, three months ago.”
Sophia was Madden’s daughter. Madden’s adult daughter that looked too old to be his kid, yet that was something that I’d never dug too far into seeing as it wasn’t my business.
Madden was hot—and when I say hot, I mean holy cow I blushed when he gave me direct eye contact hot—but he wasn’t my current object of fascination.
The scowling, pissy man beside him was.
It’d only been two weeks, but that two weeks I’d obsessively focused on everything that had to do with Alessio Murphy Romano.
I’d googled him—and found out that he’d won the fucking lottery.
I didn’t know anyone that had won a scratch off, let alone the damn lottery where they won millions of dollars.
But that’d been all that I’d gotten out of Google.
The man was a ghost other than that. He didn’t have social media. He didn’t even have a business page.
There was no Yelp. No Google showing me his place of business or hours.
Hell, I couldn’t even find him on his old Myspace page anymore—and I know that he used to be there because I’d been one of his top friends, and him mine.
We’d been twelve and thought the world couldn’t touch us.
Oh, how wrong we were.
“Well,” Madden said, bringing me back to the present. “If you need accommodations…”
“I’ve already spoken with my doctor, as well as a trained prenatal coach,” I said. “If I need accommodations, then I’ll follow the guidelines for sure.”
Madden grinned and clapped his hands. “Everyone gather around the board. Let’s go over this awful workout.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing underneath a rope, staring up at it, wondering if this was a good idea.
I hadn’t done rope climbs in months. Definitely not since I’d gotten pregnant.
Technically, everything should still be exactly the same, climbing wise. My belly wasn’t big enough yet to be a hindrance.
I held onto the rope with both hands and was about to launch myself to get a good grasp higher up when I felt his presence.
“Should you be doing rope climbs?” he asked.
I felt my eye twitch.
“Should you be over here worrying about me instead of on your rope doing your own freakin’ workout?” I wondered.
Murphy sighed. “That’s not what…”
I climbed the rope just so I could dismiss him.
It wasn’t the same as I’d done it last, but it definitely wasn’t something I couldn’t do.
Yet, when I came back down, jarring a bit harder than I’d intended to due to his closeness, he scowled.
“You need to control your descent better,” he urged.
I snapped. “You need to control your annoyance!”
That was the best comeback you could think of, Mavis? Really?
I felt my face flush at the complete inadequacy at my comeback and narrowed my eyes when his lips twitched.
Instead of answering with his own comeback, he walked away, heading to his water that was in a gallon jug on the side of the room.
Sadly, when I’d set my own down, it’d been right next to his.
Dammit.
I waited until he took his water over to where he was set up before hurrying over to mine.
“Bathroom break and prayer time,” Madden yelled.
I snorted at his ‘prayer time’ and headed to the bathroom, hurrying through seeing as there were only two stalls in the women’s, and at least eight women in line to use it.
I smiled at Alma who took my stall.
“You know the new guy, Mavis?” Alma asked as I washed my hands.
“No,” I paused. “Yes. Kind of. We knew each other from way back when. His mother used to be a cook and maid at my grandmother’s estate when I was growing up. Her and her son, Murphy, lived in a house on the backside of our property before my grandmother showed her true colors and fired her.”
Alma made a sound of disgust—everyone knew I was a Pope, and they also knew my grandmother was a shithead—and flushed before moving to allow another chick into her stall.
I didn’t know her, but I did notice the look of interest on her face.
Alma washed her hands while I toweled mine off.
“He doesn’t look like he likes you,” she said.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t seem like it.”
Back outside, I went to my spot just as Madden came up to me and said, “How many more are in the bathroom?”
I looked up at him and answered as my eyes caught on Murphy’s across the room.
His eyes were on Madden’s closeness, and I twisted so that I couldn’t see over Madden’s shoulder—which in turn made me appear to be moving into Madden.
I wasn’t.
Though Madden was hot, he was just not the kind of guy that I was into.
Then again, there was no type of guy—at least I hadn’t thought there was until I saw Murphy—that I was into now that I was pregnant. I was officially off guys.