Page 62 of Puck to the Heart
“The construction next door had to do work on the water lines, so they closed the building.”
“Ah.” Releasing the bar, I straightened.
“Polly mentioned Pilates, but now I’m realizing she set us up.”
“You don’t have to stay.”Stay stay stay.Please. But I kept my face indifferent.
She tapped a finger on her chin, her brows twitching into a deep v. “If you’d rather I left, I will. But I wouldn’t mind working out. I’ll stay out of your way.
This was our whole week; she was here but avoiding me at the same time, and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.Stay, please stay. I don’t want to be stuck here in my own head. But, for fuck’s sake, stop looking at me like a broken toy you can’t put back together.“Yeah, okay,” was what I said instead.
Olivia grinned and stuck Bluetooth earbuds in her ears. I would put money on her listening to a smutty audiobook rather than the thumping bass I had playing over the speakers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her, but she completely ignored me as she went through her workout. Moving in the same space without interacting with her was strange. Each time she crossed my path she was overly courteous and gave more than enough room when she passed. Every few minutes she’d pause for water or to check her phone, but she treated me the way she would any other random guy in a gym—with complete indifference.
Was this the end? Were we over now—whatever short-lived thing we had? Did it die like this—in polite silence only interrupted by the ringing clank of iron hitting the floor? I wanted to be in this with her for good, but if she was so tense after seeing my flayed center, maybe not.
And we continued, stiffly moving past each other, until I paused for water, watching Olivia’s set.
“You’re doing that wrong.”
She kept going. Earbuds, right.
“Barnes.” Still no response, so I crossed the room to stand behind where she bent over a bench with her arm extended. I waved to get her attention.
Halfway through the movement, she paused, arching an eyebrow at me in the mirror.
“Can I show you? You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep doing it that way.” She rolled her eyes but stayed in place, lifting the other brow at me as if to say ‘well, go on’.
“Right. You’re arching your back too much when you lower your arm. May I?” I waved my hands over her back, and she nodded.
Several inches of soft bare skin lay between the hem of her bra and the waistline of her leggings, and it was precisely where I needed to put my hand.
Shit. I wanted to touch her and couldn’t bear it at the same time. I kept it to the smallest amount of contact possible and tapped her back with one finger.
“Here. You’re dropping your back. You should keep it flatter, like this.” I mimed a straight line in the air above her back.
Olivia did the exercise again, this time keeping her back straight, but her hips swung too far from side to side.
“Better?” she asked.
“Um. Not quite.” I moved my hands to bracket her hips, trying to keep them still as she did the movement again. “You need to keep your core tight.”
I heard the words as I said them, and somehow, despite being a whole-ass adult with my hands on a woman whosecoreI had intimate knowledge of, blushed.
“Oh, my core, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Personally, I think my core is fine as is.”
“Umm. Well. You—your hips were—umm?—”
“You okay, Ash?”
“I’m gonna… go over there.”
“You don’t want to teach me a lesson?”
