“Hi,” Avery said, walking over to Kova with her hand outstretched. “I’m Avery, Adrianna’s friend from back home.”
Kova shook her hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Avery.”
“Likewise,” she responded. “I was just telling Ria here how impressive your gym is compared to the one back home she used to train at.”
Ria. The voices faded away, leaving me falling into a black hole. She gave nothing away in her expression, but I knew what that one sentence meant. The beat of my heart thumped wildly in my ears as one word played on repeat in my head.
Ria.
All I could process was how I’d once told Avery my library “crush” was the only one who called me Ria.
Subconsciously, I knew Avery would never utter a word to anyone, but that wasn’t the issue. There were so many problems at the moment I couldn’t think straight on which one to tackle first.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed when I heard Avery mention how she calls me Ria. Dear God. I was going to be sick.
“Nice to meet you, Coach,” Avery ended with a megawatt smile.
“Same to you.” Turning to me, Kova said, “I have to get something from my car. Grab the wristbands and meet me back in the gym quickly.” I nodded blindly as he walked out the front door.
Lifting my apprehensive eyes to Avery’s, I prepared for the worst, but I came face-to-face with a Cheshire grin instead.
“You got some ‘splainin’ to do,” she said in her best Ricky Ricardo voice. It was terrible.
“Avery.”
She placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Shh,” she lowered her voice. “Say no more. Your secret is safe with me. But you can bet I’m going to wait until you break for lunch so we can talk.”
I gave her a thankful smile.
“Just one question,” she said.
My eyes widened. “Yeah?”
“You couldn’t go for that cutie, Hayden? You had to go for him? Are you trying to get your ass kicked in?”
A low chuckled escaped me and Avery laughed too. “It just happened.”
She hitched her thumb over her shoulder and gave me a blank stare. “That does not just happen. Hayden happens. Not fish lips.”
I pursed my lips together, feigning a smile.
Avery’s face fell. “Oh, God. What are you hiding?”
“Hayden may have kinda happened.”
Her eyes grew wide and she playfully backhanded my arm. “You have some serious ‘splainin’ to do now!”
The sound of a deep voice caused us both to look over our shoulders at the window. Kova was outside pacing back and forth on his cell phone. He stared at the sky furiously, gripping the phone as a string of Russian left his kissable lips. The only thing I could make out was the name Katja. My heart kicked up a notch and I was starting to sweat.
“I better get back to work. He can be a real dick when he wants to.”
Avery nodded and sat back down. “Go.”
Walking toward Kova’s office, I opened the door and made my way around his cherry wood desk.
Sliding out the center drawer, I fished around for the wristbands, moving pens and paperclips from side to side. I checked the drawer to the left and repeated my steps, but found nothing. Moving on, I opened another drawer, but something stopped it from opening completely. Bending down, I got eye level with the drawer and stuck my hand inside, trying to move whatever was in the way and pulled it open, shuffling things around the deep drawer looking for the wristbands. His drawer was a disaster and in dire need of organizing.
A lightly crumpled piece of paper caught my attention and I could see my name scribbled on it in thick, black marker. I debated whether I wanted to open it or not. I slowly stood with my back straight and the paper balled in my hand.