Page 51 of The Weight Of Falling
My jaw drops. “You’re seeing things,” I say faintly.
“The only person who’s blind here is you.”
“Men give me looks?” I repeat in wonderment. “Really?”
“Really,” he confirms. “And every time they do, I want to punch something. Preferably them.”
Our eyes lock. Am I imagining the hint of longing that sweeps into his expression before he shuts it down? The moment stretches wide with everything we’re not saying.
“I was watching you train,” I say quietly, desperate to change the topic and clutching at the first distraction I can find. “You looked...intense.”
“I do everything intensely,” he says in a low voice.
For a second, I forget how to breathe as my imagination runs riot.
“You should hydrate,” he tells me softly. “You’re looking a little flushed.”
“Right. Yes.” I fumble for my water bottle and take a long sip.
Joel is silent, watching me. The heat of his gaze is unnerving.
I lower the bottle, only to realize how close we’re standing. Close enough to smell the salt on his skin, the faint trace of whatever cologne lingers beneath it. It makes my pulse do something reckless.
I clear my throat, trying to steady my voice. “Can I ask you something?”
“If you must.”
“Why do you train like that?”
“Like what?”
I hesitate. “Like you’re not just working out. But...like you’re working something out,” I finish in a rush.
Silence meets my words. Shadows flicker in his eyes. “Sometimes I train to clear my head,” he says at last.
I swallow. “Is that what you were doing today?”
“No.” He looks past me, then he settles his eyes on my face and murmurs, “Today, I was trying to forget what it feels like to want something I can’t have.”
The air between us shifts instantly, his words charging the space with heat and tension. Time folds in on itself as the gym carries on around us. It’s his first admission that I might be affecting him as much as he’s affecting me.
I can’t say a single word back. I’m too afraid of what I might admit to. And it feels like too much truth for this moment.
Just then a scream rips through the gym.
We both jolt. Joel places a hand on my arm and pulls me protectively to him as he scans the room.
I see it the same time he does. In the weights section, a man is writhing on a mat, a group already forming around him.
“Don’t look,” Joel warns swiftly.
But it’s too late. I glimpse the man’s arm bent at an unnatural angle, bone poking out of the skin.
“Kenzie.”
Joel’s worried voice sounds far away as my vision begins to blur. Black spots dance in front of me, and my knees buckle. The last thing I feel is Joel’s hand gripping my arm before the world falls away.
20
