Fix You: Bash and Olivia (6 page)

And tonight was the first time I questioned for even a second what the prize was.

Chapter Five

Olivia

The next morning came way too early, but considering I’d slept for maybe two hours, that was no surprise. Not that I had to get out of bed. There was literally nothing for me to do except think. Not ideal, since that’s what had kept me up until the sun had starting peeking through my window.

I lay in bed for another hour before giving up. There was no more sleep to be had for me whether I stayed in bed or not. I was too on edge. I didn’t have to face Andy for another five days, which was a relief, but my brain was still in overdrive. Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, I let out a long yawn. My phone rang before I’d even had the chance to rub the sleep from my eyes, and my stomach did a loop-the-loop.

Bash?

“Hello?” I sounded out of breath, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Hey, kitten.”

My pulse leveled off as I recognized my mom’s voice.
Okay. So not Bash.
No biggie. I’d said I would call him to talk about lessons before I started bawling and hung up the phone like an idiot. The odds of him contacting me for any reason were slim to none. All that remained to be seen was if I had the sack to contact
him
.

Again.

My ears burned at the memory of the night before and my humiliating string of text messages, but I managed to turn my attention back to the conversation with my mother. I should’ve glanced at the caller ID before I picked up. Now I had to either lie about being in Cabo to buy some more time, or tell her the truth.

“Hi, Mom.”

She let out a long sigh. “You didn’t go, did you?”

Leave it to my mother to smell a rat when I’d barely said two words to her. Either she was the next Sherlock Holmes or I was so bad at keeping a secret that she was able to sniff me out from a two-word sentence.

“No. But it’s okay. I have a huge paper due next week for my psych class, and I can really use the solitude.”

She didn’t buy it.

“Baby, you didn’t have to do that. A couple thousand dollars one way or another isn’t going to change anything. You should’ve gone with your friends.”

I wasn’t even sure I had any friends. Not here in Boston, at any rate. I thought of my bestie from high school, Cara, and made a vow to call her and make plans for over the summer. I missed her and although we e-mailed from time to time, she went to school on the West Coast. The distance made it hard sometimes.

“Really, Mom. I don’t want you guys worrying about anything. I’m doing great. I didn’t even want to go that bad. Andy and I have been arguing a lot lately anyway, so it’s probably for the best.”

It was a risky move. I didn’t want her to feel responsible for my missing the trip, but my parents were close with Andy’s family, and bringing up our troubles in order to support my decision to stay home could do more harm than help. Regardless, it was better to start easing her in now and prepping her for the breakup than to drop it on her cold turkey. There was no need to cause trouble by getting into the details. They had enough on their plates. Better to let them think we’d grown apart.

I made a mental note to tell that to Andy as well. If he agreed to talk to someone about his issues, and help Bash get his job back, I’d keep the rest to myself. Maybe that would placate him enough to make our breakup an amicable one.

My mother’s gasp of dismay made me second-guess the decision to mention him at all. “Oh, Olivia, don’t tell me that. You guys are perfect together. Promise me you’ll try to work through this. Becketts never quit.”

The last was said with a pride that rang false. Whatever front she was trying to put on, my mother wasn’t the best of liars either, and I could tell she was ready to quit herself. Quit what, I didn’t know. But she sounded brittle. At the end of her rope. God, I knew how that felt. The dread that had been dogging me all week since they’d first told me about their financial issues came back, hard.

“Any news on the house? Did something else happen?”

“No,” she said quickly. Too quickly? “Nothing you need to worry about. I just called to check in and see if you made it on the plane.”

I waited for her to tell me to at least come home for the week, but she didn’t. Part of me was relieved. As lonely as I was here, for some reason, I didn’t want to leave right now. Another part of me grew even more suspicious. They were definitely hiding something.

“Well, now you know. I’m still at school, and I’m fine, so don’t worry.”
And I’ll see you over Easter weekend,
I added silently. Once I’d squared everything away with Andy, I’d be in a better frame of mind to go down to Connecticut and get to the bottom of whatever was happening with my parents. One crisis at a time.

“Okay, well, Dad and I love you and we’ll talk to you soon.”

“Love you too.”

I disconnected and a second later the phone rang again. I answered it quickly, assuming my mom forgot to tell me something. “Yeah?”

“Hey.”

Bash.
For real this time. I sank back onto the mattress, my legs suddenly weak. I thought I’d have hours to think of what to say before I talked to him again. Hours to work on witty banter, scintillating conversation, and, yeah, maybe even a few jokes. Now here I was again, at a loss, mouth opening and closing like a trout on a hook.

“Hello?” he said, a little louder this time.

I considered gurgling into the phone and playing the bad connection card, but instead I squared my shoulders and cleared my throat.
You can do this. He’s just a guy.
“Yep, I’m here. How are you?”

“Good. I was actually calling because I have a few hours free this afternoon and wondered if you still wanted some self-defense lessons.”

“Really?” My heart beat wildly in my chest and I stood because I couldn’t stand to sit for another second. He hadn’t seemed exactly keen when I’d asked him the night before, but something must have changed his mind. Especially if they didn’t even have any classes running and he was offering to teach me one-on-one. Either he was bored, or thought I realllly needed them.

Didn’t matter which. He was right, I did need them. Not for Andy. For myself.

“I’d love that. I can come by at like noon and we c—”

“No.” His tone had gone from warm to cool and clipped in an instant. “Can we do it there? Your dorm has a fitness center or something we can use, right?”

It had been a momentary blip and he seemed casual and friendly again a second later, but clearly he didn’t want me at his gym. Why was that? He’d mentioned he lived in the apartment upstairs. Maybe he had a live-in girlfriend?

The thought hadn’t even occurred to me until now, but once it had, I couldn’t shake it. Still, it would’ve been super weird to counter his friendly offer to help me with some self-defense moves by then asking if he was in a relationship. Like, what did that have to do with anything? Unless, of course, I thought this was a date.

Which I didn’t.

I tugged at the curl that flopped over my eyes and tamped back my irrational jealousy. Bash wasn’t my boyfriend and whether he had a girlfriend or not was none of my business.

“Yeah, here’s fine. We have a really nice gym, so come on over. Nobody’s here anyway, so we’ll have the place to ourselves.”

That hadn’t sounded nearly as suggestive in my head, but now that it was out there, it was all I could do not to fall headlong into a daydream about Bash and me sprawled on one of those soft blue mats—

“Sounds good. I’ll be there around noon.”

Fabulous. Three hours to obsess over what to wear…and work on my witty banter.

***

“Cold enough out there for you?”

I winced even as the words tumbled from my lips. The last time I’d heard that phrase it had come courtesy of my eighty-year-old uncle Ernie. Why my brain had bypassed all those “witty little banters” I had stockpiled and gone for that crusty gem, I’d never know, but Bash took it in stride and gave me a crooked half smile.

“Yeah. Pretty chilly.”

I shoved back my embarrassment, swung the door wide, and waved him in. The weather had taken another turn, and they were calling for snow, which at the moment sounded lovely. Maybe it would cool off my flaming cheeks. This really had to stop. Surely I had more game than this? But I still couldn’t quite believe he’d shown up. I half expected him to cancel or blow me off, and here he was, in the flesh. Now what to do with him?

My face got even hotter and I stuck my head outside to let the brisk wind cool it off before closing the door.

Bash turned to face me, waving me on to lead the way. His gaze traveled downward, seeming to linger on the narrow strip of bare skin at my abdomen between my yoga pants and my T-shirt. When he locked eyes with me again, his pupils were dilated and made my insides jiggle a little.

I headed toward the gym, very conscious of the fact that he might possibly be looking at my ass as he followed behind. “I have a couple bottles of water in there already for us,” I said, throwing a glance over my shoulder.
Busted.
He didn’t snap his head back to try to hide it, either. He just slowly let his baby blues travel the rest of the way back up my body. A thrill shimmered through me, but I made sure to keep my tone loose. “I wasn’t sure what else you might need, but they have a ton of equipment there.”

He patted the beat-up khaki duffel bag I hadn’t noticed on his shoulder and gave a curt nod. “All set.”

We walked the rest of the way in silence, but my brain was buzzing like a bee in a sack. Bash was here to help me learn how to protect myself. That was it. Guys looked at girls’ asses all the time. It meant less than nothing. I needed to stop pretending it was more. Not just because he was totally wrong for me. But because the last thing I needed right now was more. If I could end the week with a few kick-ass moves that gave me some peace of mind, and a new friend of sorts, that would be my best week in months.

With renewed determination, I swiped the key card through the reader and shoved open the gym door.

As I had predicted, like the rest of the building, the room was still uninhabited. There was an RA who was required to stay in the dorm whether school was in session or not, but she only came here to sleep, and I’d yet to see her. We did, indeed, have the place to ourselves.

Bash stepped in and let out a low whistle. “Wow.”

I tried to see the gleaming, high-end machines and ballet barre along with the unattended smoothie bar in the corner through his eyes. It was all so…fussy.

I wrinkled my nose critically. “Too much?”

He laughed and slung his bag on the floor in front of the mirror that ran the length of the west wall. “For what we’re going to be doing? Definitely, but it works.” He was wearing the same coat he had on the other night, and this time, when he took it off, I thought I was totally was prepared.

And then I wasn’t.

The T-shirt had been bad enough, but the black tank top was the stuff of dreams. His shoulders were broad, with a thick cord of muscle running over the top. His biceps were round and defined even in rest, as he bent to lay his jacket on the floor next to the water bottles I’d left.

A dozen totally unwitty banters bubbled to my mouth in a frenzy of panicked nerves, and I swallowed every one.

Progress.

I set my key card and cell phone on the ground next to Bash’s stuff and faced him.

“Let’s start with a few quick stretches,” he said, straightening. He stood a few feet away from me and demonstrated quickly. Somehow, I managed to keep it together as he led me through a three-minute routine of standard toe touches and whatnot.

It wasn’t easy. Every move he made highlighted another section of his body I hadn’t fully admired yet. After the first minute, I decided to keep my gaze locked on the floor until this part was over. Surely once we got to the nitty and the gritty, I’d be too focused to notice the way his chest tapered down to a lean waist that surely led to one of those sexy V’s of muscle that I’d only seen on television.

When we finished, he took a second to dig through the bag and came up with some worn black mitts. “First thing I want to do is make sure you know how to throw a punch. Not because it’s your best defense. It’s not.” He leaned in and held out a clenched fist. “But sometimes it’s a gut reaction, and if you’re going to do it, you should do it right or you can really hurt yourself.”

I held my arm out and mimicked him, squeezing my fingers together to form a tight ball.

“Nope, loosen up a little.” He took my hand and the touch was electric. We both stayed there, frozen for second, but he recovered quickly and tapped my thumb lightly. “Not to the side like that. Cross it over your index and middle fingers.”

I swallowed hard and did as he told me, earning a low grunt of approval.

He let me go, stepping back, and I felt instantly bereft. I didn’t have time to think too hard about it, though, because then it got serious. He tugged on the mitts and patted them together, bending at the knee until he was almost my height. “Don’t punch hard for now. Just try to be accurate and fast, okay?”

I nodded, the nerves kicking up butterflies in my stomach. What if I sucked at it? I took a halfhearted swing, and hit his left mitt with a pathetic
thunk
.

He stood straight and gave me a deadpan stare before hunkering down again. “Be for real. Snap the arm out, and try to connect with your first two knuckles. They have the most structural and wrist support so you get more power from them, and those bones are also way less likely to break on impact.”

Well, that was an excellent tip, because the last thing I wanted was to punch someone who was trying to hurt me and wind up hurting myself.

I tried as he asked, still feeling self-conscious and tentative. A few minutes later, though, under his soft words of encouragement, I started to let it rip, just whaling away. It was both exhausting and cathartic and I loved every second of it. I would’ve kept going but he straightened and stepped back.