I tossed cash on the bar, got up, and glanced across the room at the blonde. Her back was to me, her ass encased in tight jeans, and I gave it two beats—taking her in, trying to find some sort of interest.
Nothing.
Not a damn twinge.
Blonde turned into shiny dark brown and I knew I was more fucked than I was ready to admit.
Goddamn, Adalynn Walker.
3
“What happened with Trey?” my sister Hadley asked over the phone.
My step faltered and my purse slid down my arm. I shifted, caught the strap in the crook of my elbow, and fumbled the high-density foam roller, recovering the cylinder before I dropped it. I did all of that as I balanced my phone between my shoulder and my ear.
I did not want to talk to Hadley about Trey. Actually, I didn’t want to talk about Trey to anyone. It had been nearly a week since our blow-out, and in those six days, all I’d thought about was him. Would he find another therapist? Would he continue his PT? Was he okay? Why did I care? Why couldn’t I get his wounded, vulnerable expression out of my mind? Did I give up on him? And again, why in the heck did I care?
“I’m late, Hadley, I don’t have time to get into this.”
“You’re not late. You’re never late. It’s five after ten which means your first session doesn’t start until eleven.”
Of course she’d know that; I was Addy Walker, the predictable one. The boring one. The one who lived by a carefully timed schedule.
“It’s five after ten, which means I’m five minutes late,” I told her and stopped ten feet away from the double, sliding glass doors of the veterans' affairs building I worked at two days a week.
“Addy,” she snapped, frustrated.
“Hadley,” I returned just as irritated.
This was the point in our conversation that, had we been face-to-face and not on the phone, my twin would’ve initiated a staredown. Instead, silence befell but that didn’t mean I couldn’t picture her pinched lips and creased forehead. A disapproving look she’d perfected over the years. A look she gave me when I declined to go out with her and her friends for a night of shenanigans. It was a variation of the one she gave me when I did agree to go out yet turned down invitations to dance with random guys who approached our table.
Hadley was the fun one. I was the shy, cautious, lame twin.
“Can we please not talk about this?” I broke the silence when it became evident Hadley had nothing better to do than wait me out.
“I’ll drop it if you promise to call me later and tell me.”
“That’s not dropping it, that’s postponing it.”
“Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll postpone the conversation if you promise to call me on your way home and tell me what happened. Trey’s miserable and being bitchy to the guys at work and he won’t even look at me. I know I didn’t do anything to him, which makes me think he doesn’t want to see me because when he does he sees you.”
I didn’t need to know that.
I also had to get into the gym and set up for my class.
“What Trey is going through has nothing to do with me. Besides, I haven’t seen him since last Thursday.”
“Thursday? It’s Wednesday. Is he ditching PT again? I thought you saw him—”
“I told him he needed to find a new therapist.”
“You did what?” Hadley screeched, and I wished my arms weren’t full so I could’ve pulled my phone away from my ear. Unfortunately, I didn’t have that option so I almost went deaf when she continued on in a high-pitched squeal, “Why would you do that, Adalynn?”
“Like you said, he blows off his sessions more than he shows. Obviously, he doesn’t take his PT seriously. He needs to find someone who can motivate him. We’re not a good fit.”
“You’re a perfect fit,” she argued.
“Don’t go there, Hads. He and I don’t mix well. He doesn’t respect me or my time. A man like him needs to be pushed, and let’s just say he made it clear I was not the right person for the job.”
“What’d he say?”
“I don’t have time to talk about it. Heck, I don’t want to talk about it. He’ll find someone new. In the meantime, the guys will have to suck it up and deal with him. I’m sorry he’s avoiding you, but that’s not my problem either.”