Page 62 of Gigi and the Gym Rats

And did it?

It did. It felt amazing. It felt like something more.

I’m so fucked…

* * *

Inside Ink and Shadows, I find Ryder sprawled in one of the reception armchairs, scowling at nothing. He has an unlit cigarette in one hand, tongue toying with the hoop in his lower lip, and with that distant stare…

I nod at Cole who’s sitting behind the reception desk. “Is he okay?”

A shrug. “He’s been like this all week. Ask him yourself.”

“Later.” I glance around the studio. “Where’s Grey?”

“Another one who’s been in a mood for days.” Cole jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “He’s at the back, mopping.”

“A mood, huh?”

“He looks sick,” Cole says and my stomach twists. “Probably some bug. Lots of that going around these days.”

I cross the studio in three strides but don’t find Grey. Then I notice that the back door is open a crack—like the bathroom door behind which I found Casey—and I push it open wide.

He jerks away from the wall where he was leaning, a mug falling from his hands and crashing to the ground, fragments flying.

“Jesus,” he says, wiping at wet coffee stains from his faded jeans, “you scared the shit out of me.”

“Grey…”

He looks defeated and shaky, and that feeling in my chest is familiar, that painful clench, that urge to grab him, haul him into my arms and protect him from the world.

“What do you want?” He gives up on the stains and drags his hand through his hair instead. He won’t meet my gaze. “If it’s a fuck you needed, sorry, can’t fit you into my schedule right now.”

“Dammit, Grey.”

His eyes flash, brows gathering, and finally he gets angry. I prefer that to the empty look he gave me when he first saw me. “Sorry to disappoint you. Didn’t realize I had to always be available.”

“You didn’t…Fuck.” I kick at a shard of ceramic from the shattered mug. “That’s not what I came here for.”

“Figured,” he says. “You got Gigi for that now.”

“For what?” Then I get what he’s saying. “Oh, for Christ’s sake. It’s not like that.”

“Right. You only wanted me for sex, but with her it’s different.”

“Stop twisting my words. Let me explain?—”

“Explain what? You left with her, and you come here two days later toexplain?”

It annoys me that he’s right. “I was busy.”

“Busy fucking Gigi?”

“That’s none of your business.”

He swallows. “I see.”

“This arrangement, you agreed to it.” I don’t know why I feel so defensive. “We never said we were exclusive, that it was going anywhere.”

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