Page 126 of Ace My Heart

Amanda sighed. “You’re in love, Mel. Just admit it – you love Joel Herbert. You’ve been in love with him for years, but you’ve been in denial.”

I continued to shake my head.

“You need to tell Joel. You need to be honest with him. Believe me, I think you’ll be surprised by his response.”

I gave her a withering look. “Amanda, I know Joel. I know what he’s like. I know that he’s not interested in love. Not with me anyway,” I added, remembering that he’d told me he’d been in love but that the girl hadn’t been interested.

“Just tell him.”

I shook my head. “I’m not telling him something when I’m not even sure it’s true! I’m not going to say,‘I love you’to him when I don’t even know if that’s the way I feel!”

“You’ve never been in love before, have you, Mel?” Amanda asked, leaning back into the lounge.

“What’s that got to do with it?” I snapped.

Amanda shrugged. “How do you know you’renotin love, if you’ve never felt what it’s like to beinlove?”

I had no answer for that.

“Even if you don’t tell him you love him,” Amanda continued, “you need to at least tell him that you’re interested in more than just sex with him. Take it slower and see how things go.”

I groaned. “I can’t fucking do that. I just can’t. I won’t.”

Amanda stood. “Be honest, Mel. It’s scary, but it’s the only way you’re going to get past the way you’re feeling now.”

She walked calmly to the door. I couldn’t get up – I was paralysed with fear at the thought of doing what she suggested.

Amanda turned at the door. “Just be honest. And if you can’t be honest with yourself, or with Joel, at least be honest with Brad. You owe him that much.”

She closed the door quietly, the muted click as the latch clipped into place giving emphasis to her departing words.

No, I wasn’t in love with Joel. Maybe I wanted to have sex with him exclusively, but I wasn’t in love with him. Maybe I wantedhimto have sex withmeexclusively. But that wasn’t love. Was it?

I just couldn’t go for five minutes without DJH being in my brain. I stood and walked to the door, lifting my bike from where I had left it leaning against the wall.

I’d go to the gym, work out like a fiend, and hopefully forget about it all for an hour or so.

I love the feeling of a really hard workout; when I feel the burn in every muscle in my body and the endorphin high is intense.

I wished I felt like that today. But nope.

For starters I hated the way everyone looked at me out of the corner of their eye. They knew who I was and they just wanted to stare at me, but they knew it was rude, so they didn’t. I would have preferred them gape openly at me than sneak surreptitious glances my way.

I was sweating a hell of a lot too, and that wasn’t an attractive way for curious people to be seeing me. I imagined them going home to their friends and loved ones:“Guess who I saw at the gym today, smelling like the north end of a south bound camel”…

And yet for all of these bad things, working out at the gym was infinitely more preferable to being with DJH at the moment.

Yep. Definitely not able to go for more than a minute or two without thinking about him.

I finished my workout and went to take a shower. The hot water was soothing on my skin, washing away the slickness of workout sweat. I towelled briskly and dressed in clean clothes to head home, my hair wet and tangled around my shoulders.

The girls at the reception counter gave me a pair of giant grins and asked shyly if I would pose for a picture with them. I smiled mechanically and dropped my bags. One of the girls called a PT over to take the snap. He winked at me, reminding me of another PT who I was supposed to be keeping out of my head.

Like that was even possible. The trainer handed the camera back to the girls and turned to me.

“Hey, Melanie, can you tell Joel that Andrew said hello? He’s coaching you now, isn’t he?”

I nodded stiffly. “I’ll tell him,” I promised, leaning down to pick up my bags. A child was squatting beside them looking up at me curiously, his brown hair flopping around his blue eyes.

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