You and Everything After (Falling #2)(11)

Ty


I’m not sure what I did to deserve this fortunate run of luck, but I’m going to enjoy the ride. Cass just left for her personal-trainer appointment, and my first appointment is in exactly ten minutes. I’m pretty confident that isn’t a coincidence.

I pass through the men’s locker room so I can see if she’s the one waiting for me, and I actually bite my knuckles when I see her sitting there at my appointment table. With a quick “thank you” to the heavens, I push through the locker room doors and almost make it to where she’s sitting before she notices me.

“So, you must be…Cassidy Owens,” I say, flipping through the forms tucked on my clipboard, pulling the cap from my pen with my teeth. I’m doing my best to keep my grin in check. Her entire body flushes the second she sees me—the light shade of pink taking over her skin, even brighter next to the yellow blonde of her hair.

“Tyson Preeter,” she says, her eyes closing just a little while she puts it all together.

“Well, this is going to be easy; you’ve already heard about me,” I wink and hand her the check sheet to go through her goals and objectives for our first session.

“It was in the email. And now I feel…well…pretty stupid that I didn’t put that together. Ty…Tyson,” she says with a slight wince. Her eyes stay on me for a few seconds as she taps the pen to the top of the clipboard. “This…is weird now, isn’t it?”

“It’s only weird if you make it weird…Adrianna,” I tease, wanting her to know that yes, I in fact remember every little detail from our first encounter last night. Hell, I remember every detail from the first time I saw her—even the smell of the gum she popped when she walked by my booth at Sally’s. And, not just remembering all of this shit, but obsessing over it? Yeah, for me, that’s a little weird.

“Right…Adrianna,” she laughs, whipping through a few items on the check sheet, pausing at the goals section, and looking up at me through a few wavy strands of hair that she quickly pushes back behind her ear. “That…uh…that was an experiment. You know, just to try out being someone else. Just for an hour or two.”

We stare at each other for a heartbeat longer than normal, and I can feel this tiny shift in the air between us. “Yeah, I get that,” I say. No joke or jab, just me getting it. And I do. She has no idea how much I get that.

“I don’t really have any goals,” she says, pushing the barely-filled-out checklist back at me.

“That’s fine. We’ll come up with those together after today,” I say, giving a quick glance at her history. My clients are all supposed to be working through something—injuries, disabilities—but she didn’t write anything down. “You rehabbing something?” I ask, my pen hovering over the line to fill it in for her.

“No, I’ve got nothing. I mean…my joints pop from years of soccer, but that’s about it,” she answers fast, and now I’m worried that she’s not supposed to be working with me.

“You…sure you’re supposed to be my client?” I ask, hoping like hell that even if she’s not, she’ll stay.

“Oh, I’m yours; I requested you,” she says, her eyes flashing wide quickly with embarrassment. I pounce on this.

“Ohhhh, I get it,” I say, turning around and filing her paperwork in the lock drawer.

“Get what?” she asks, her eyes squinting with hesitation.

“You’re a stalker,” I smile, just in case she doesn’t realize I’m bullshitting her. “I mean, it’s understandable. This happens all of the time.”

“What does?” she asks.

“Me. Stalkers,” I say through a feigned sigh. “I’ve had…many.”

“Oh, I’m sure you have,” she says, folding her arms up in a challenge. I like this. I like this a lot.

“Oh yes, there’s an entire cellblock at campus police for the women who have tried to get to me in the past and failed,” I say, grabbing my gloves and urging her to follow me to the bench for some basic weightlifting. “You’re the first one to completely make up a name and sign up for my…ahem…services, though.”

“I did NOT sign up for your services!” she chokes, half playing and half real. I can tell she’s a little offended.

“Uh…” I start, looking at her—taking in her entire body, which is wrapped perfectly in those tight-ass workout pants and a matching tank top. Then I turn to the side and gesture to the sets of weights on either side of us. “You sort of did.”

“Well, yes, I signed up for your personal training. But I’d hardly call that services,” she says, straddling one leg over a workout bench and positioning herself in a way that has me feeling a lot less like working out. I’m staring; I’m staring and I’m thinking and I’m…not hearing a single thing she’s saying right now.

“Sorry?” I say, suddenly aware of how f*cking creepy I must look.

“I said I actually thought I could learn a thing or two from you. I want to get into rehab work,” she says, and for some reason, her purpose for being here, for choosing me, makes me…sad. She wants to learn from me. And I know it’s not because I’m some rehab workout king. It’s because I’m disabled myself, and that makes me unique. A novelty. I’m fascinating to her, but not the same way she’s fascinating to me.