Page 35 of Waiting Game

She wasn’t sure how to act, and neither was I.

It shouldn’t be this awkward between us. Her being with me was the most natural thing in the world, at least that’s how it had always felt. Before everything changed between us, we were best friends. I was probably closer to her than I was to Toni. When we grew up, the feelings of friendship morphed into something deeper.

Then she left.

Now neither of us knew how to be around each other. We were no longer friends, we were no longer lovers, but it was impossible to act as if we were strangers.

I sighed, plastering on a smile and trying to act as normal as possible.

“Come on then,” I bumped fists with her, “since your brother’s too scared.”

She couldn’t help but smirk.

“Don’t go easy on me,” she narrowed her eyes.

I laughed, “wouldn’t dream of it.”

We sparred for a while, it was tense at first, and I could tell she was still trying to keep her distance from me. But after some encouragement and being taught some new moves from Rome, she loosened up further.

“So,” I panted, jumping up and down, “you’re obviously still training?”

“What?” she asked with wide, innocent eyes, “did you expect that you’d be able to take me down easily?”

I laughed, “Icouldtake you down easily, Val. I’m just surprised that you’ve kept it up now that you’re anormie.”

She smirked again and threw a punch towards my jaw, “yeah, well you never know when you’re gonna need to knock someone out.”

I chuckled, shaking my head at her as I easily dodged her attempt on my face, “you do realise that you’re five-foot-fucking-nothing, right?”

Her eyes darkened and she swung again, this time clipping me on the side of the face.

“Do you remember that time I busted your lip?” she asked, dodging one of my swings, “and your Dad thought it was Toni and you both got in trouble for fighting?”

“Yes,” I laughed, “and I still had to apologise tohim.”

“We took a lot of the blame for your bullshit growing up,” Antoni chuckled from the sidelines, cuddled close to Rome.

She threw another swing towards my jaw, reaching high to make up for the height difference, and I ducked under her arm, tackling her by the waist and taking her to the ground. I ended up on top of her, both of us laughing until we locked eyes and she heard Antoni whisper something to Rome.

Something in her expression changed. The playful glint in her eyes hardened and she pushed me off of her.

“Get off me,” she said flatly as she scrambled to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” I stuttered, “did I hurt you?”

“No,” she snapped, taking off her gloves and throwing them to the ground.

I knew what had happened.

She had realised that she let her guard down, and in an instant, it was back up.

The brick wall that she had been building between us had returned.

“What did I do? I’m sorry, Val,” I tried to get close to her.

“Just stay away from me,” she said, storming out of the gym.

Rome gave us both a smile and a shrug, before following Val outside.

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