Kallie

“You shouldn’t be doing this, Kallie.” Rolling my eyes as I head across the parking lot, I set my sights on the building nestled between the laundromat and a secondhand store. “Now I’m talking to myself—totally losing it.”

My feet stop and I stand on the edge of the curb, peering into the windows of the gym. The early morning sunlight shines through the glass. Cross is standing in the middle of a stretch of blue mats in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. A short, caramel-haired woman in all spandex stands in front of him. She’s facing me, her hands running through the air as she tells Cross a story. He’s watching her, his arms folded in front of him, one eyebrow cocked in the air.

My skin suddenly feels too tight, too unforgiving as I try to draw air into my lungs. When her hand rests on the curve of his bicep, I squeeze my car keys so hard that the alarm goes off behind me.

“Shit!” I mumble, twisting around and shoving the keyring toward the parking lot. “Stop it. Stop it!” Pressing the button repeatedly, the frantic beeping finally stops. “Sorry,” I call out to a woman and her child as they climb into the car next to mine. She gives me a look like I’m crazy before speeding off.

I take a deep breath as I feel a gaze on my back. Turning around, I see Cross and the woman in the gym are watching me. I contemplate saving some face and fleeing, but Cross is stalking toward me before I can make a break for it.

He shoves the door open, the muscles in his arms flexing as he holds it. “You all right out here?”

“Yeah.” I wince, tucking my keys in my pocket. “My alarm is faulty. Probably a recall or something.”

“I bet.” He tries to hide his amusement, but fails. “Wanna come in? I mean, I’m assuming you weren’t coming this way to do laundry.”

Blushing, I walk past him and into the gym.

“Do you know Megan McCarter?” he asks.

“I don’t think so. I’m Kallie Welch. Nice to meet you.”

“You too,” she says in a way that lets me know she doesn’t think there’s anything nice about meeting me at all.

“Wait, McCarter? Are you related to Molly?”

“She’s my older sister,” she says, eyes glued to Cross. “Want to show me that move one more time? I think I forgot it already.”

“If you forgot it already, you aren’t going to remember it next week either,” he replies. “I think that’s it for us today. Good work.”

“I…” She looks at me, then back at Cross. “See you next week.”

We wait as she takes her time gathering her things, including a glittery pink water bottle, and heads out. Once the room is free of her noxious perfume, Cross speaks.

“What brought you down here?”

It’s the question I asked myself on the car ride here, the one I still haven’t answered. All I know is I thought of him all evening and dreamed of him last night. There was no awkwardness in my dream, no feelings of anything other than happiness. I woke up wondering how much of that was just the dream and how much of that was reality. It was hard to tell the two apart.

Shrugging, I look around the room. One half is set up like a gym with treadmills and free weights, and the other has mats and a makeshift boxing ring elevated in the corner. The walls are white with posters of motivational sayings hanging here and there. It’s impressive.

“Guess I just wanted to see what you were up to,” I say finally. “Is this place yours?”

“Yeah. I opened it a couple of years ago. Have another one in Fairview too.”

“Really?” Turning a small circle, I take in every little detail. “That’s amazing. Is it just a gym?”

“Just a gym.” He snorts, heading to the mats. “It’s definitely not just a gym, thank you.”

“How do I know?”

“You don’t, until you ask.” He winks. “It is a gym. People pay a membership fee to use the facilities, but I also train a couple of amateur fighters and have a boxing program for kids. That’s really my favorite thing. They love it for the love of the art, you know? Not because they can whip ass in a bar or flex around town.”

“You used to do both things,” I point out, moseying my way toward him.

Leaning against a wall, his face sobers. “I did. I still do, if it’s warranted, but that’s not what I’m about anymore.”

The way he speaks the words, the level of sincerity in his tone…it has my heart swelling in my chest. It’s a reminder that I don’t quite know this man anymore and it raises a host of questions, including how different he just may be now than he was when I left.

“What are you about these days, Cross?”

“I’ve settled down some, I suppose. Don’t interface with the law much these days.” He grins. “I work a lot, either here or over at the Fairview gym. I do some online coaching and personal training sessions.”

“Like with Megan?”

He shoves off the wall, a twinkle in his eye. “Like Megan,” he goads. “Did that bother you?”

“What? Megan? No,” I insist, brushing it off. “Why would it?”

“Just an inkling.”

“Your inkling would be wrong. How is it my place to have any feelings about what you do in your business?”

“It’s not.”

It’s a simple statement, two little words that pack so much of a punch. It’s not. It’s not the words that irritate me so much; it’s the reason for needing them. Even as I stand here inside his gym, even though I feel this link to Cross and have since I saw him yesterday inside Crave, he’s nothing more to me than somebody I used to know.

“I don’t train many women,” he says, picking up a couple of towels along the mats. “I only agreed to three sessions with Megan because someone bought them for her birthday. She has one more next week and then it’s over.”

“You aren’t training her any more than that?”

“Nah. She knows it. It’s ridiculous, really. She doesn’t want to know how to box any more than I want to know how to bake a cake.”

Laughing at his analogy, I grab a few dumbbells off the floor and put them back in the rack. “I’m glad you found something to do with your life that makes you happy. I always worried you’d float around and get stuck doing something you hated.”

“Come on,” he teases. “You were really worried I’d end up in jail or on your couch.”

“True.” I giggle, turning to face him. “But I like this version of you, all grown up.”

“Well…” He blows out a breath. “You can thank yourself for that. If you’d have stayed here, I don’t think I ever would’ve realized what a punk I was.”

“You weren’t a punk.”

“I was. I did whatever I wanted and had no plan for going anywhere. Then you left and I realized…” He looks at me and then at the floor. “I realized I’d already lost the best thing that would ever happen to me.”

There isn’t a reply to that. I just hold a breath and watch his beautiful eyes soften.

“So,” he goes on, “one night I decided I was going to do something with myself, and if you ever came back, maybe I could show you I wasn’t a loser.”

“What if I never came back?”

“Honestly? I’d have been a little relieved.

“Gee, thanks.”

“What?” He chuckles, motioning for me to follow him. “Is it wrong that I would’ve found relief in knowing I wouldn’t be falling in love again?”

I stop walking. “What if I did come back?”

He pauses too and turns around. Running a hand through his thick, silky locks, his cheeks redden. “Then I’d fight like hell to get you back.”

“You’re just being charming again,” I whisper, knowing it’s a lie as soon as I say it. There’s no denying the stripped-down emotion on his face, the crinkle in his forehead just between his eyes. The corners of his lips flicker, almost pulling into a smile, but not quite.

“Come on,” he says, turning away. “Let’s teach you how to throw a punch.”