Page 26 of Pumped

“It’s my niece.” I show him my phone, as if the notifications will mean anything to him. “I think something’s happened.”

“You want to call them back?”

“I should, shouldn’t I?”

Willis nods with a sympathetic smile. “Yeah, you should.”

“But what about…” I glance at the other students milling around waiting for me.

“Don’t worry about us. I can do the cool down,” Willis says, already backing away.

“Are you sure?” I ask with my heart in my throat. Owen may think I’m a kid, but I take my job seriously. I don’t want to leave my class before it’s finished.

“Yeah.” He laughs. “I’ve done it a million times. We’re good. You go.”

“Thank you.” Gratitude sweeps through me as I rip off the mic and my hat goes tumbling to the floor. Someone swipes it up and hands it to me. “Thank you!”

I hit redial on my phone and hold it to my ear as I sprint to the staff locker room to grab my things. The call rings and rings before someone finally fucking picks up.

“Hello! Hi! I’m Everest Wheeler. Ivy’s uncle. You called me? What happened? Is she okay?” I squeeze the phone between my ear and shoulder while throwing all my things into my duffel bag.

“Mr. Wheeler, thank you for returning our call.” The woman on the other end of the line sounds way too calm.

I don’t need her to be calm. I need her to tell me why the fuck they called me in the middle of the school day. Slamming my locker door shut, I grab my duffel and race back toward the gym’s main entrance.

“There was an incident?—”

“Incident? What the fu—uh, what does that mean? Is she okay? Is she hurt? Do we need to take her to the hospital?”

“No, Ivy’s not injured. But there was an altercation with another student. When we couldn’t get a hold of you, we called Mr. Lambert.”

I screech to a halt in the middle of the front lobby. My heart is pounding, fueled by the high from my class and worry about Ivy. But at the mention of Owen’s name, it stops. My stomach twists into a giant knot. “You called Owen?” That must be why I had all those notifications from him too.

“Yes, she was quite distraught, so we thought it best to send her home.”

“He picked her up already?”Please say no, please say no.

“Yes. About ten minutes ago.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck. I was supposed to pick Ivy up from school today because Owen has a shift at that animalhospital of his. If he picked her up, it means he had to leave work, which means he’ll lord it over me and I’ll never hear the fucking end of it.

“I suggest you get in touch with Mr. Lambert.”

I shove down the urge to scream. “Yeah, yeah, right. Okay. Thanks.”

“Everything alright?” Logan asks from behind his juice bar.

I shake my head. “No, something happened with Ivy. I need to go.”

Logan’s expression of concern would be comical if I wasn’t so amped up on adrenaline and worry and dread. He makes a shooing motion with his hands. “Go. Go. I’ll tell Beau.”

I race out onto the street, my stomach threatening to empty its contents. I don’t know what I’m going to find when I get home, but it’s not going to be anything good.

CHAPTER

TEN

OWEN

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