Page 16 of Up All Night

I almost said goodnight, but for some reason that felt too personal, so I tried to keep things more detached. “See you in the morning.”

“Oh, and West?”

“Yeah?”

“Nice try on the loud video games,” she said. “But you’ll have to do a lot better than that to annoy me. Maybe even be loud past nine. Gasp!” Her laugh was the last thing I heard, slowly fading as I assumed she got in her bed.

Okay, so I wasn’t the best at being a bad neighbor, but I was counting her dis on me as a compliment. I’d have to think of a different way I could annoy her.

That would have to wait until later though because it was now 9:15, and I had an early appointment with my irritating neighbor.

When I walked into the gym the next morning Halle was waiting for me. Today she was wearing a matching mint colored workout outfit, and the color looked really good on her—so good that I worried she’d noticed me staring for too long, if the smirk she had on her face was any indication.

“Good morning,” she said in a professional tone. “Sleep well?”

I nodded, knowing she was referring to our conversation last night. “Pretty good. I had a noisy vent that kept me up later than I hoped, but other than that I slept well.”

“Ah, yes, vents can be noisy sometimes,” she said, playing along. “If it gets too bad, you might want to consider moving.” She gave me a fake smile, and I tried to not be amused by her.

“I think I’ll try ear plugs before I do that.”

“Pity,” she said, before moving on. “I thought we’d focus on your chest and arms today. Unless you wanted to do another leg workout.” Her eyes had a mischievous glint in them.

My legs were still sore, if not even more sore today, so I put on a smile and said, “Chest and arms sounds great.”

Surprisingly the workout had started out on a good note, but it hadn’t taken long until we were arguing.

“It’s notjustriding a bike,” she insisted. “A spin class is way harder than that.”

“All it looks like to me is a bunch of people riding bikes,” I said. “I don’t see what’s so hard about riding astationarybike. You aren’t having to deal with different terrains or outdoor elements like heat or wind. You’re in an air-conditioned room, for goodness’ sake.”

“You work out in an air-conditioned gym and had a hard enough workout yesterday that you can’t even walk properly,” she pointed out.

“That’s only because you did that on purpose.”

“Or because you had a hard workout. Which is exactly what a spin class is.”

I finished a bicep curl set and turned to face her. “I still think it’s easier than lifting weights or going on an actual bike ride.”

“How can you know that if you’ve never done it before?”

“You don’t have to do everything in the world to understand things. I’ve never burnt my hand on a stove, but I know that it will hurt.”

The irritation on her face was unmistakable. I may not be able to drive her crazy by being a loud neighbor, but I could definitely annoy her with having a difference of opinion, and we had plenty of those to go around.

She crossed her arms, giving me a defiant look. “If you’re so sure it’s easy, why don’t you come to one of my spin classes one day?” she challenged. “You can even wait until your legs aren’t so sore. That way you will have no excuses when you crawl out of the room.”

I scoffed. “There is no way I will be crawling out of the room. That’s ridiculous.”

“What’s that?” She held a hand up to her ear pretending like I’d said something she couldn’t hear. “You can’t go up stairs or sit down?”

“Again, you knew what you were doing to me yesterday,” I said with a deadpan look.

She pushed her shoulders back, holding herself with confidence. “And I know what I’m doing when I teach a spin class.”

She obviously wasn’t going to let this go. And I was more than positive I could handle aspinclass. I wasn’t scared.

I let my arms go out to the side. “All right, fine. I’ll go to one of your little spin classes.”

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