Hawke (Carolina Cold Fury Hockey #5)(42)

“Oh, okay. Well, I’ll just get going.”

She gave a wave of her hand. “Have a good practice today.”

As I stood outside her apartment door, I had to question what in the hell had been going on. Was she using me as a means of escape from a shitty situation? Or did she still truly care for me and gave me her body to show me that? Or did I misread everything and take advantage of her last night and now she’s just too polite to be rude about it?

Fuck. What a mess.

And now I’m stunned to see her in the workout room with Max, as I figured she’d be at the hospital all day. It’s barely two P.M.

Max is on the treadmill running with a VO2 mask on to measure his volume of oxygen. Vale stands beside him, her back to me, a clipboard in hand and her other poised above the buttons on the treadmill to increase the speed and incline.

I had intended to work with weights today, in particular my legs, but I cut across the room to the treadmills and take the one beside Max. My movement catches Vale’s attention but Max keeps his eyes straight ahead, breathing hard at seven miles per hour and an incline of eight. When Vale’s eyes meet mine I ask, “They let Dave out of the hospital?”

She shakes her head and turns back to look at the numbers on the VO2 machine. “No, but he chased me out of there for a bit. I’m going to train a client at Xtreme Fit after I’m done with Max and then head back to the hospital after that.”

“How’s he doing?” I ask as I start the treadmill and inch the speed up to a fast walk for warm-up.

“Great,” she says while not looking back at me, her attention on Max and his performance. “Said he can probably come home tomorrow.”

She’s not giving me the cold shoulder exactly, but she’s not engaging either. In fact, she steps up closer to the machine, more to Max’s front so he can see her and says, “Let’s bump the speed up to nine for another sixty seconds and then we’re done.”

Max nods and Vale pushes at the button several times to up the speed.

I grit my teeth, trying to figure out just where we stand. The obvious thing would be to just ask her, but f*ck if I’ll do that. Especially not with Max in the room. So I push my speed up, break into a jog, and concentrate on running.

By the time Max is slowing to a walk, I’m on an eight-minute mile pace, which is just perfect for a short run to warm up. Max removes the mask and hands it to Vale, who sanitizes it and packs it away. She stands next to him, going over the results in low murmured tones. He asks her a few questions, she responds, and then he’s heading out of the workout room.

Perfect.

Except Vale walks out right behind him and my opportunity for conversation, surely stilted, starts to wither away.

“Hey,” I call out as my hand hits the Pause button. I’m hopping off before the belt comes to a full stop. “Wait.”

Vale stops dead and turns to look at me curiously. “What’s up?”

I walk up to her, a glance to the open doorway of the locker room revealing it’s empty. When I come to within a foot, I lean in a bit closer just in case someone’s lurking. “Want me to pick you up after your training session…grab some dinner and we’ll head to the hospital together?”

What in the ever-loving f*ck am I doing?

Vale blinks at me in surprise, but then schools her features into a bland mask of ambiguity. “Um…thanks, but I think I’ll just head over there myself. But maybe I’ll see you there.”

A f*cking brush-off, and now my hackles rise.

“What the hell is going on here, Vale?” I grit out, stepping in closer.

Her eyes flash hot but her tone is calm. “What do you mean what’s going on?”

“Last night, you’re clinging to me in desperation, accepting of the great f*cking I gave you, and today it’s the cold shoulder.”

Vale gasps in outrage but doesn’t respond, instead spinning to leave. I reach out and grab her arm, spinning her back my way. She jerks loose, and rather than fleeing again, she steps up to me and pokes me in the chest. “You might be right, I may have been clinging to you last night in desperation, and yeah, that was a great f*cking, but I seem to remember you’re the one that jetted out this morning faster than lightning.”

“I had to get to practice,” I say lamely.

“You had to escape me and your feelings,” she sneers. “Don’t deny it. I saw it written all over your face while you were giving me that good f*cking. You may have given me your dick, but that’s all you gave me last night, and that part really, really sucked.”

I’m the one who blinks in surprise now that she was actually that perceptive. I figured she was caught up in the passion of it all, the escapism. I didn’t think she was reading me that clearly. Which is stupid, now that I think about it. Of course Vale would read me clearly. She knows me better than practically anyone.

I try to come up with an excuse but it’s equally as lame. “Come on, Vale…we have a history…a bad one.”

“No, Hawke,” she seethes in anger. “We have a great history. We had one bad moment. But it’s clear that’s never going to be forgiven, so let’s just call a spade a spade and realize that you and I are not meant to be.”

Why those words almost cause my knees to buckle is beyond me, but I push that aside. This is getting way off the track I had hoped to take. I put my hands on her shoulders and rub my thumbs back and forth in an attempt to calm her.