Picking Up the Pieces (Pieces, #2)(85)

“Old man, what the hell are you doing?” Lily’s shrill yell pierced through my happy moment.

I ran to catch up with her, barreling into her from behind and wrapping my arms tightly around her. “Letting you drag me to your gym.”

Her arms wrapped around mine as we moved awkwardly, but lovingly, down her hallway. “I let you drag me out with your friends, so you’re going to CrossFit with me and you’ll damn well like it,” she said with mock seriousness.

“You don’t like it when I make you go out with my friends, so why do I have to like it when we go to your gym?”

“Touché, Mr. Carter. But I do pretend to like them. At least to their faces. Most of the time.”

I laughed into her shoulder. She was right, she did try to put on a good show. We’d been out with my friends a few times since their disastrous first meeting, and Lily always went in with a smile and a good attitude. That’s not often how she left, but at least she tried. It still bothered me that she didn’t get along with them, but at least the effort was there.

I had tried asking her what it was that she didn’t like about them, but she didn’t really have a solid answer. “We just have nothing in common,” she had finally responded.

“But you and I have things in common. And I have things in common with them. So, I don’t get how that works.”

“They have different things in common with you than I do.”

“Wow, I must be pretty common,” I joked.

She swatted me on the arm, but then turned serious. “They don’t like me either, Adam. Did you question them too?”

Truth was I had, and received similar answers. They just didn’t mesh, and I doubted they ever would. It was kind of how I felt about her friends actually. Granted, there wasn’t a palpable tension between me and the Lily Brigade like the one that existed between Lily and my crew, but my interactions with them were stilted and forced all the same.

Lily and I finally made it down to her car, and started for her gym. I had been actively avoiding this trip for months now. It’s not that I didn’t want to participate in something she clearly enjoyed, but I, well, I just didn’t want to participate. I was fine at my own gym where I was able to do my own thing. The class structure to CrossFit didn’t appeal to me. But she had been hounding me about it, so I finally agreed to go and see what it was all about.

I regretted it instantly.

I walked into the warehouse-converted gym and was greeted by blaring rock music and twenty people dripping sweat everywhere, while about fifteen more watched and waited for their class to start. We stood there for a couple of minutes while the previous class ended and the drenched exercisers limped toward their belongings. I saw Shane walking toward us and plastered a smile on my face.

“Hey, guys,” he greeted us as he stretched his hand out toward me. “You ready for this?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Shane, I swear to God, I'm going to kill you for the mess you've made in that office. Lily, Adam, is it six already?”

We all spun toward Amanda as she walked up to us and gave us each a quick hug.

“Yeah, it’s six. I didn’t think you were going to be here tonight?” Lily inquired.

“Me neither, but I’m still trying to get this doofus’s books in order. Did you know he has all of his accounting in ledgers?” She uttered the last word as though it were dirty. “Ledgers, Lily. It’s going to take me weeks to get that shit all sorted out.”

“Oh stop,” Shane admonished. “It’s not that bad. And you offered to do it.”

“Not that bad? Have you been huffing your creatine? It’s a trainwreck in there.” Her voice elevated as she thrust an arm toward the office. “And excuse me for wanting to get our finances in order before we get married. I should’ve never encouraged you to take over partial ownership of the gym. ‘Go for your dream,’ I told him. Well this shit is no dream; it’s a f*cking nightmare. I don’t even know how you can be sure these people are paying you every month for their memberships.” Amanda was ranting a mile a minute. I actually found it hard to keep up.

“They’re probably not,” Shane smirked.

I couldn’t understand what he got out of goading her all of the time, but it seemed to work for them. . . if fighting all of the time really worked for anybody. Lily tried explaining it to me once how this banter was fun for them, but I couldn't understand how that was possible. To each his own, I guess.

“Oh, so this is like a charity, then? Kind of like what you are to me.” Amanda's lips quirked up at the corners.

These two are so f*cking weird.

“Exactly like that,” Shane replied, moving toward Amanda and wrapping his arms around her. He leaned down and pecked a kiss to her cheek. Then to her nose, then her other cheek.

“Stop pecking me. You know I hate chickens.” But she couldn’t hold in her laugh as he kept up his assault.

“Okay, dirty birds, can we get class started? Some of us would like to exercise.” Lily started pulling on Shane’s T-shirt.

“Really? Who? Surely you aren’t talking about yourself because I don’t think anyone would consider what you do here exercising.”

“Fuck you, Shane. Come on,” Lily whined. “I wanna see Adam cry.”