Page 166 of Break the Ice
Last time I saw her, she handed me the photos—Jayden, Finley, and me. Ryker and me at the community rink.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she says, looking between us. “Here are the tickets for the team, plus food vouchers. I’ve included the player meet-and-greet itinerary. We’ll send the jerseys once sizes are confirmed.”
“Thank you. The kids will appreciate it,” Ryker says, sliding the small envelope into a larger manila one he pulls from his back pocket.
DO NOT BENDis emblazoned in red on the corner. Same as on mine.
What the fuck?
I look at him. He gives me nothing as Cecilia excuses herself.
Accusations climb my throat, but the pinch behind my eyes slows me. What would he gain from stalking me, Finley, or Jayden? From sending photos? To what end?
Plenty of people use those envelopes.
Still, I step back and make it plain. “Stay away from me. Keep Jayden’s name out of your mouth or I swear to God, I will ruin you.”
“Sure,” Ryker scoffs, tossing a look over his shoulder that stokes my anger as I stomp to the locker room.
Whatever game he’s playing this time, I won’t be a part of it.
Coach and Docleft half-way through my training session, and since then, it’s taking everything in me not to think the worst.
My head was still all over the place from my encounter with Ryker, and it fucked with me. I just couldn’t ground myself. That’s the whole point of the biofeedback training. To teach me to deal with my shit so that it doesn’t overwhelm me.
I failed.
Coach left with nothing but a “Meet me in my office after your session with Dr. Armstrong”.
The session that I didn’t show up to because I didn’t have it in me to hash more shit out with her today.
“Fancy bumping into you here.” I pause mid row to find Connie standing by the bench press. “I thought you might have overslept after last night’s party, so I was going to put our session to good use and workout.”
While I figure out what to say to her, she traipses through the weight area in her fancy athleisure.
It’s obvious she has no idea what she’s doing when she picks up different weights, testing them out before she decides to move on only after a few seconds.
Meanwhile, I go back to rowing, knowing full well that it’s not going to fix the wreck in my head. Only problem is, now I can’t focus on distracting myself with her loitering around me with her passive aggressive energy.
When she starts touching the big weights, I know I have to say something, so she doesn’t hurt herself because of me.
“Step away from the weights.” Connie looks over her shoulder at me with a cocked brow.
Even in her athleisure clothes, she looks so out of place in here that I’m uncomfortable for her.
Getting up from the rowing machine, I wipe myself down, so I’m not covered in sweat when I grab an aerobic step platform from the stack in the corner and take it to the matted area. She’s watching me while I pick out a couple of five-pound dumbbells and take them to the mat too.
“You always start light with weights. Light weights and more reps. When one goes up, the other comes down. Try this,” I wave her over, picking up a weight in each hand and showing her a basic step-up routine with alternating dumbbell curls.
Stepping to the side, I hand her the dumbbells as she fidgets awkwardly. “I’m a runner,” she tells me.
“It’s always good to expand workouts so our bodies don’t get used to?—”
“Not what I meant,” she chuckles, shaking her head as she turns away from me and tries out the step-up routine. After a few seconds, Connie looks up at me, impressed with herself, “Not bad. I could do this for a while, no problem.”
“Good. You do ten alternates and then you should add a lunge.” I show her what a step with a lunge would look like in front of her on the mat, before I add, “Do ten with lunge and then you repeat the routine. Maybe try five reps, then take a two-three-minute break, and go again.”
“Okay, how about I work out, and you talk?” She asks, continuing with the step-ups.
