“Yeah, right. I’m not even a eight and my ass is twice the size of yours.” She shook her head. “Dude, you’re in deep shit. He’s making you wear stuff like this already?”
“No, of course not. He’s not making me wear it. I just wanted to get something…” Horrifically lame that I could never wear in front of him, ever. “Nice.”
She laughed so hard that she started hiccupping. “Oh my God. Take Carly with you next time. This is so bad. So bad.”
I blew out a breath and grabbed my workout clothes out of my bag. “You can stop laughing anytime now.”
“No, I needed this. Really.” She wheezed out another laugh and pounded on her chest. “I was about to lose it when you walked in.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m late. I didn’t mean to stop.”
She shoved the panties back in the bag and pushed it at me as if it were a dead animal. “That’s not why I was flipping out.”
I folded Tray’s jacket into my backpack as carefully as possible. I didn’t like not being able to hang it up in my locker while I was here, but it just wasn’t safe. “You always get pissed when I’m late.”
“Well, yeah, but this time I was pissed because you weren’t here and I was about to go apeshit.” She grabbed her purple Ked-clad foot and dragged it underneath her on the bench. “There’s a new sheriff in town and he’s a fucking dick.”
I pulled off my T-shirt and bra and swapped them for my sports bra. Amazing how little modesty I had in the gym when I had so much around Tray. Probably because all the chicks around me had the same equipment and I wasn’t in a hot body contest. With him, I was constantly worried about measuring up to the women in his past. The many, many women.
“We don’t have a sheriff in Brooklyn.”
“Jesus, Mia. Sarcasm is your friend. I meant here, at Mark’s. Haven’t you heard the buyout rumors?”
“Obviously not.” I pulled on my tank top and exchanged my work capris for shorts. “What’s going on?”
She ranted for ten minutes about the new owner of the gym, who apparently intended to take a more hands-on approach than the previous one. He’d swept through earlier and demanded to see all the trainers one-by-one, then rattled off a new list of policies. This was all secondhand info, since she hadn’t had her meeting yet. It was scheduled in five minutes.
“He’s tightening the screws, man. I’m not putting up with this. If he yanks my chain too much, I’m out of here.”
I stopped braiding my hair and frowned. “What about me?”
“What about you? You’re three-quarters in the bag anyway. You’ll be gone in a month.”
I didn’t say anything. Technically that was still the plan, but it had lost a lot of its luster. One guess why.
“Won’t you?” she pressed. “I thought you said your landlord was squawking about raising your rent.”
I resumed braiding my hair. “Yeah. He is. My building’s not rent-controlled and he says the neighborhood’s gone up in value recently.” I expected the final notice about the raised rate anytime now, which would put it above my means unless Carly got a great job.
“So? You’re still going, right?” She heaved out a breath. “God, Mia, not you too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I see it all the time. Girls with big ideas and firm plans of their own, throwing them all away just because some penis struts in and changes the landscape.” She dragged her other leg up to her chest and wrapped her arm around it. “That’ll never be me. Never.”
“It’s not like that. Besides, my firm plans were only about running away. That’s not healthy.” I bit my lip and forced the rubber band over the end of my braid.
“Who says what’s healthy? Who says what’s running away? You had a goal, and you were determined. Now you scored your big fight and you don’t even care anymore. You’re too busy buying crazy ass undies and getting all melty-eyed and—”
Someone rapped on the door. Once. Twice.
Kizzy stared at me, then bolted to her feet. “Who the hell is it?”
“Sutton Pierce.” Came the sharp reply. “You’re late, Cavanaugh.”
All at once, her face changed. The flush returned, blanketing her fair skin from throat to hairline. She was almost as pale as I was, although she never blushed from embarrassment, just anger.
Shooting me a look that said told you so, she marched to the door and yanked it open. I rushed up behind her just in time to get a glimpse of a tall guy in a white dress shirt and shiny dark shoes.