Out of Bounds (The Summer Games #2)(45)

Chapter Eighteen


Brie





The next few days passed in a blur. If I wasn’t at Seattle Flyers, I was working out on Erik’s property, going for runs, fielding my mom’s calls, or hanging out with the team. I was running on fumes and I barely had time to squeeze in basic hygiene, but it felt good. I was slowly starting to get more confident in myself, but the Olympics were quickly approaching and my routines still weren’t where they should have been.

“Again,” Erik said.

I glanced up to see him standing at the end of the beam, arms crossed over his chest and his eyes on me. I stretched my arms overhead to gain momentum for the sequence, but he shook his head.

“From the mount.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes and hopped off the beam, tired and wishing practice would end already. For the last few days, we’d both done our best to avoid one another. I gave him space and he did the same. We staggered our morning runs and generally stayed away from each other in the gym. Despite what he’d done to me in the front seat of his truck, he was still my coach, which meant I couldn’t avoid him forever.

“You feel that ache in your muscles?” he asked as I tried to catch my breath. I’d lost track of how many routines I’d completed that day, but Erik still wasn’t satisfied.

I reached up and massaged my arms. They were tired and shaky. There was chalk and sweat all over them, but Erik knew my limit; he knew how far to push me before I collapsed.

“Use it. You’re going to be exhausted when you get to this event. Your muscles are going to tell you to quit, but you need to override them. Make this routine just as good as the very first one you did today.”

I inhaled a deep breath and nodded, feeling strength building in my body.

Beam was mine. It came so easy to me.

I just had to own it.

Beam was made up of difficult skills disguised by beauty and grace. My years of ballet came in handy the most in this event. I finished my first pass: back handspring, back handspring, layout full connected to a Korbut. The Korbut was one of the hardest skills in my routine. It started with a backflip, but instead of landing back on my feet, I had to pause my momentum midway through and catch the beam with my hands, slowly lowering myself down to straddle the beam. If I didn’t slow my momentum enough or if my hands didn’t catch the beam in time, my thighs collided with the beam hard enough to make me see stars. I’d messed the skill up enough times to know I needed to stay controlled and nail it or I’d have bruises to contend with later.

I finished the Korbut and moved into my next piece of choreography, but Erik’s voice cut through the gym.

“Stop,” he said, cutting me off. I jerked my head up and stared at him. “You’re still not trusting your body. You’re hesitating on the layout, and the Korbut was weak. I could see you nearly falter at the end, scared to hurt yourself.”

My mouth dropped open in shock. “Of course I’m scared! Have you ever split the beam? It freaking hurts.”

He shook his head. “It’s too late in the game for that. Your routine has a 9.1 start value; that’s the highest in the world. You’ve done that skill a thousand times; stop acting like this is your first day in the gym.”

He didn’t give me time to reply before he walked away to help June on uneven bars; just as his back was turned, I flipped him off with both hands.

Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.

God, I hated him.





Later that day, after I’d showered and iced my aching muscles, I stood at the living room window, peering past the curtain and studying the hot tub that sat in the backyard between Erik’s house and the guesthouse. There was a plastic covering on top, but I wanted to try it out. The temperatures had dropped to the 50s now that the sun had set, and it would definitely feel good to sink into the hot water and let my body relax for a while.

“Wondering where Erik is?” Molly asked, coming up to stand beside me.

The windows of his house were dark. His car was gone, and yes, I’d originally peeked through the window to try to figure out if he was home or not. Generally, it was easy to guess where he was—running, working out, or coaching at Seattle Flyers—but it was late and the chances that he was still up at his gym were slim to none. There were other options of course. Maybe he’d gone to dinner with friends or maybe he’d gone to a bar for a drink. Just the image of him sitting alone nursing a beer made my stomach churn. How many women approached him in one night? A handful? How many would he smile at? How many would he ensnare with his good looks and smooth words?

And of course, there was the last option, the worst one of all. Maybe he wasn’t just out at a bar, trying to find a random f*ck. Maybe he already had his sights set on a woman, someone as beautiful and smart as the blonde he’d brought home the week we’d arrived. That thought didn’t just make my stomach churn, it made my blood boil.

“Brie?”

I shrugged, realizing I’d never answered Molly. “I’m trying to figure out if it’s worth the risk to try out that hot tub.”

She perked up. “I’d go with you.”

I grinned; Erik tempered his anger around Molly since she was a longtime pupil. It was settled.

We gathered Rosie and Lexi and brought them up to speed on our plan. Rosie protested, of course, but we insisted Erik wouldn’t care. He’d specifically given us rules to follow, and not using the hot tub wasn’t part of that list, ergo, it was free rein.