Puddin'(29)

“Okay?”

She smiles. “So Friday afternoons are on the slow side for us. Well, to be honest, almost every time of day is on the slow side for us at the moment. My uncle Vernon and aunt Inga own the place. Uncle Vernon is pretty chill and has been okay . . . through all of this, but Aunt Inga . . . well, you could say she holds on to things for a little longer.”

“Inga?” I ask. “What kind of name is that?”

“She’s Russian.”

“Right,” I say. “So avoid the bitter Russian lady.”

“Well, I never said bitter.” Millie smiles stiffly. “But yes.”

“Okay, what else?”

“Well, when members come in, they give us their card and we file it in this little box while they sign in on the clipboard.” Millie holds up what appears to be a small recipe box. “And when they leave, we hand them their card back.” She goes on to explain the procedure for when someone forgets their card and how to sign up new members.

“So you guys are just a boxing gym?” I ask.

“Well, under the franchise we were, but we’re trying to expand now and just be a regular . . . gym.”

I look around. It’s not like the dance team did this place any favors, but it wasn’t exactly nice to begin with. We have another gym in town, Rick’s Total Body Fitness, which is undoubtedly the nicer of the two. Bryce and his dad have a membership, and Bryce added me as their permanent guest.

“Maybe you guys should get some tanning beds like they have in the locker rooms at Rick’s? Or what about some spin classes or Pilates?” I feel my eyes growing bigger. I could make this whole damn place over. That would be some do-gooder stuff that would make my mom happy and maybe even get me back on the dance team. Shit, I’ll make over Millie while we’re at it. She could be my pièce de résistance or whatever.

“We don’t want to be that kind of gym,” Millie says plainly. “Uncle Vernon wants this to be a no-frills kind of place, where you come in just the way you are.” Her gaze travels over the unoccupied machines and the rows of punching bags behind the boxing ring. “There’s nothing wrong with being tan and going to Pilates.” She shrugs. “But that’s not our thing.” She grabs a bucket full of cleaning supplies. “Now’s a good time to sanitize the weight machines.”

Deflated, I yank the all-purpose cleaner from the bucket and tuck a roll of paper towels under my arm. This is what I get for trying to find the bright side. Note to self: the only bright side I’ve got left is Bryce.

Later that afternoon as I’m following Millie to the back room, my arms weighed down with some seriously foul sweat towels, I ask, “So do I, like, get a break at some point?”

“Oh!” squeaks Millie. “Well, it’s usually just me, so I hadn’t really thought about that, but yeah, I guess you should. What do you think, like fifteen minutes or—”

“I was thinking more like an hour.”

She opens the lid to the washing machine, and I nearly gag as the whiff of BO hits me one more time as I release the towels from my arms.

“How about we call it a compromise and say thirty?” She glances down at her cell phone. “We close in an hour anyway, so letting you go for an hour-long break would just be flat-out silly, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That would be super . . . silly. You think I could borrow your phone?”

She doesn’t even take a second to think about it before handing it over and leaving me there in the back room.

I know only two phone numbers by heart: 911 and Bryce. I punch his number in as quick as I can.

The line rings and rings and rings. “Come on,” I whisper. “Pick up.”

On the eighth ring he answers. “Hello?” His voice is slow and sleepy.

“Babe!” I almost scream. “Babe! It’s me. I’ve got thirty minutes right now, but you’ve got to come to me.”

“Hello?” he asks again.

“It’s me, Callie. Were you sleeping? I’m sorry to wake you up, but I’ve been on lockdown for days.”

He clears his throat. “Sorry. I stayed out last night and totally missed school today. Last night was wild.”

“You had a wild Thursday night?” I ask. “You know what? Never mind. Can you come get me? You gotta hurry, though. I only have a little bit of time.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” he says. “And whose number is this?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“I’ve been trying to call you for days. I even swung by the house, and your stepdad made me leave. Did you really trash that gym? Why didn’t you tell me? Patrick’s telling people you must have been high as hell.”

“Just get here, okay? I’ll explain everything.”

It never takes more than ten minutes to get anywhere in Clover City, which is why I’m all kinds of ticked off when Bryce’s ten-minute drive takes twenty. By the time his tires squeal to a stop in the parking lot, I’ve already wasted most of my break sitting on the curb.

As I get in the car, I slam the door shut behind me.

“Hey, babe. Gentle on the door? This girl is fresh off the lot.” He leans over and kisses his way up my neck. “You wanna grab some tacos or something?”