"Don't you want Sam to go?" Jessica asked her. "The sooner the onboarding's over, the sooner he's back in L.A., right? So why fill every hour of every day with whatever emotionally-stunted attempts to win you back he can come up with?"
"Jessica!" Trinity didn't know why she leapt to Sam's defense now, after using the term herself. "I'm not...he's not...give me that." She reached across the table for the muffin, but Jessica pinned the plate with her finger.
"Quit trying to distract me. You're the one who invited me out this morning insisting you wanted my advice. Well, I'm going to give it to you: don't let Sam back in."
Jessica levelled her sharp blue eyes at Trinity, but all Trinity could think about in that moment was Sam's eyes, and how—when you looked close enough—you could see that they had a little black ring around the outside that only made them glow more brightly by contrast....
"Are you still in love with him?" Jessica asked skeptically.
Trinity opened her mouth for easy denial, but suddenly found her throat was too dry to cooperate. She would take another sip of her Americano to work the words loose if it wasn't so damn hot. She pressed her lips together, swallowed, and tried again.
Silence.
"Oh my God," Jessica said.
"I have to go." Trinity shoved her chair out and rose. "This was supposed to be my day off, but now I have to call William about the workshop. The muffin's all yours."
"Who gives a shit about the muffin?" Jessica interrupted. "Trinity, I'm serious! Are you really considering giving Sam a second chance? This is so not a good idea!"
"If Sam can't prove to me that he's changed...if he can't even bring himself to acknowledge why our marriage failed in the first place...then I'll be done with him," Trinity promised her.
Jessica folded her arms and sat back in her chair. "Are you telling me that, or are you just telling yourself that?"
I wish I knew anymore, Trinity thought as she navigated through the tables toward the exit. "I'll call you after my class!" she called over her shoulder.
"You need to get laid!" Jessica shouted
back. Trinity doubled her pace to avoid the alarmed glances she was suddenly getting from strangers on all sides of the room.
God damn you Jessica...the last thing I need is for you to be right about that too.
Chapter Seven
Trinity
Dance class was meant to be an exercise in stress reduction for Trinity. She worked hard all day for the whip-cracking Jameson brothers, and she deserved a break to pursue some physical release...because she sure as hell wasn't getting laid.
"Damn you, Jessica," Trinity muttered as she scrolled through her texts. Cursing her best friend had become the day's mantra. Sometimes Jessica was too perceptive when it came to knowing the more intimate details of Trinity's nonexistent love life. What the hell was that about, anyway? Did she wear it on her face?
Would Sam know all her attempts to find a date since their divorce had ended in abject failure?
Trinity shook her head to dispel the thought. When had Sam ever noticed anything in the past? Moreover, why did she care now? She sighed as she pocketed her phone, and glanced around at the rest of her class. She had arrived early, and was now stuck waiting out on the sidewalk until the last class got out. It was important for her to attend these sorts of activities—at least, if the post-divorce blog her mother had forwarded her was to be believed. It wasn't healthy to throw herself wholesale into work and work alone.
Especially not when her ex-husband was also an employee of the same company.
For a moment, Trinity blamed her drifting thoughts for making her see Sam in the figure jogging toward her down the sidewalk. She had always known Sam to be a morning runner, so there was no chance of her seeing him out in the New York evening, no matter how she might—
"Trinity?"
"Fuck," she whispered under her breath. The jogger was Sam. He had stalled upon spotting her, but now trotted forward to join her.
He pulled his headphones from his ears and glanced around. She watched him take in the couples milling about, and saw his usual stony expression take hold. She pressed her lips together to keep from smiling too obviously at his clear disapproval. He was sure to voice what was bothering him any second now.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you," he said stiffly. She felt certain he would have bowed himself out were this a more antiquated era. "This looks like...well, it doesn't matter what it looks like. I assume you're meeting someone here."
"You assume wrong, Sam." She offered a quick correction before she could think to stop herself. "I always come to this class solo. I'm used to dancing as a single. Sometimes the partnered men even dance with me out of pity."
"I doubt it’s pity," Sam said. His eyes lingered appreciatively on the way her tights hugged her legs beneath the translucent fabric of her flower print skirt. Trinity didn't bother offering another correction to set him straight. The truth was plenty of men had offered themselves up to be her partner in the past. It was the permanence of the potential arrangement that scared her, and her fear of committing herself to letting a man take the lead had everything to do with her failed marriage to Sam. It was something she had been working to get over, but she was finding it a little hard to progress when the reason for her isolation stood in front of her looking as if he'd just walked off the cover shoot for a men's fitness magazine.