The Price of Inertia (The Seven Sins #4) - Lily Zante Page 0,57
embroiled in some weird and sordid fantasy.
“I wanted you to get some closure. Let’s face it, who else is going to give you that kind of advice? You don’t have anyone,” Rob reminds me lightly. “I don’t want you to fall back down that hole again, and it looked like you were starting to.”
“I’m making progress not just with my writing.” I flex my muscles. “Can you tell?”
He nods approvingly. “I noticed straightaway. I noticed it from the moment I saw you. No hair growth on your face either and you finally got a haircut.”
I rub my hand along the smooth skin along my jaw. “It was getting too long and knotty.”
“You look ten years younger.”
I nod.
“You look like a new man. Well,” Rob clears his throat, “You look like you did when we first met.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Like I said, ten years younger. How many pounds lighter?”
“Enough.” I run a hand over my arm, over the biceps and down. Am I pleased with the result? Hell, yeah. It got easier when I started to see progress, much like writing. When I could write for two minutes and it didn’t read back like word vomit, I’d write more. Soon, I got to a point where the story poured out of me. It’s the same with exercise. At first I was driven because remembering Trevor’s jibes spurred me on. Then I didn’t want to give Jamie anything about me to laugh at, with her.
Then I reached a stage where I could feel the difference in my body. Could feel it getting hard, not so pillowy. Could see the way Mari looked at me sometimes when I caught her staring.
It was enough to motivate me.
“I saw you fall apart once before, Ward. Saw you unable to write, or function. Saw you reduced to a shadow of your former self. I didn’t want to see your brilliance wasted.”
“I managed to turn it around.”
“In time you did. You were also younger, more of an unknown, just starting out. There’s more pressure now.”
“I had a glitch.” I play with my food, not really in the mood to eat.
“You have a gift, Ward, and I don’t want you to waste it.”
“I don’t intend to.”
“I have to say, I didn’t expect such a dramatic transformation and so quickly. Mari said you were working out.”
“Yeah?” I’m curious to know what else she said.
“You look thinner. Fitter. Better. It’s a miracle that you’re on target with the book, but the exercise?” He cracks a grin. “I wasn’t expecting miracles, and yet, you’ve confounded everyone.”
“Everyone?”
“Mari said you’d been in the gym a few times on your own, before the second guy started.”
Those were the times that made me notice her. Hard not to notice her on her yoga mat in her various poses. “That was early on,” I reply. “When I was procrastinating. Sometimes, hitting the gym is easier than writing.”
“And lying around like a couch potato must have been even easier. She says you don’t do that anymore.”
“Have you been interrogating my housekeeper?” I cry out in exasperation.
“If anyone’s going to know what you get up to, it’s her.”
What else did she tell you? I want to ask him, but I don’t. It’s better not to turn the conversation around to Mari because then I won’t be able to get her out of my head.
“What’s the hold up with the first draft?” he asks.
“I’m stuck on a plot point. I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry, I’m working on fixing it.”
“I’m not worried now. Not anymore.” We eat in silence before he asks, “Have you visited your old house?”
I’m about to take another bite of my burger, but I don’t. “No.”
“Any plans to?”
“No.”
“Fair enough. Maybe you don’t need to.”
“I never needed to.”
He drops me back home after coffee, but declines my invite to come in. Says he needs to get back otherwise Sally will start to worry.
When I walk through the door, Mari is in the hallway about to drag the vacuum cleaner up the stairs.
“Here,” I stride towards her. “Let me help you.”
“I can manage,” she insists, one hand on the long pipe and the other grabbing the handle of the machine. Of course she can. She’s no wilting flower. And even if she struggled with it, she still wouldn’t want my help.
Our gazes lock and hold. An image flashes past of where we were before Rob turned up. She won’t look away, and neither do I. Will she speak first? Will she allude to what happened