Reckless Retribution (West Warriors Book 1) (21 page)

I stared at him in disbelief. “What?”

“I’m saying it shouldn’t have happened. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his hands over his face roughly. Why was he saying that?
His poker face was on, and I couldn’t tell whether he was being truthful or not. After him being so hot and cold with me, last night he made it seem like he’d finally made the choice to ignore Kal, and now he was telling me he wished it had never happened. That hurt.

“Why are you doing this again?” I shouted angrily.

He didn’t respond and just stood there with a stony look on his face.

“So you didn’t enjoy last night?” I glared at him.

“I was drunk.” He started to pick his nails rather than look at me.

“No, you weren’t.” He wasn’t drunk at all. He’d had a bit to drink, we both did, but he was in no way drunk. I would definitely not have slept with him if that were the case. I did have some self-respect, although I was starting to doubt that at this moment in time.

He folded his arms and tensed his jaw in annoyance. “You don’t know me well enough to judge.” His whole stance was obnoxious and arrogant, and any feelings I had for him evaporated in seconds. I didn’t know him well enough to judge him? Was he serious? I narrowed my eyes at him, but his expression didn’t change. Again, he was being a head-fuck, and I willingly let myself go head first into it thinking I could cope when he changed his mind. I started doubting his so-called feelings for me and wondered if it was all a ploy so he could sleep with me.

I took a step closer to him and he watched me warily. I wondered for a second if he thought I was going to slap him. I bet he’d had a few cracks across his cheeks for doing this before. “You disgusting waste of a human being. You think you can treat me like I’m worthless? Well, you’re wrong. I deserve way more than you,” I seethed.

His eyes widened and he swallowed. That was harsh, but I didn’t care. Who the hell did he think he was? I grabbed my purse and opened the door, and he finally spoke, “This is why I warned you. Girls always cry and make it difficult.”

I turned back to him. “First of all, I am not crying, nor am I going to. Second, maybe you should stop fucking around then. You’re nothing but a disgusting dirty slut.” I stormed out of his front door and slammed it shut behind me. The truth was I did want to cry, but I’d be damned if I was going to do that in front of him.

The rain dripped slowly on me as I walked home, alone, in the dress I wore the night before. I didn’t even have a coat. Last night, I presumed Jamie was driving me home in the morning, but no, all that had changed. Here I was, trudging home in the cold rain, looking like some dirty skank, crying over the disrespectful asshole. I really didn’t expect him to react as badly as he did. I’d already steeled myself for getting some kind of reaction from him, given his recent indecisiveness, but actually going out of his way to be downright cold and nasty was something else. I knew there was no way I’d be able to move past this; it was unforgivable and I was cursing myself for making the naive decision to just go along with it. Making matters worse, I was going to have to suck it up and face him every time I was at work, and try to hide my hatred toward him from Kal.

The dark, cloudy morning I woke up to did nothing for my exhausted and overworked mind. As soon as I opened my eyes, the same dread I felt about going into work yesterday resurfaced, and I really didn’t want to go in again today. Ringing Kal yesterday and lying to him about being sick made me feel horrible, especially because of how good he’d been to me, but I just couldn’t face going in.

I hoped I hadn’t put more stress on him because he would have had to cover the desk while juggling the guys’ training. I wondered if they had noticed I wasn’t in. They probably would have; I was always there for my shift. I hoped Jamie hadn’t told them what happened between us, especially Cam, but I knew the chances of that were slim, because of how close Cam and he were. I didn’t need to feel scrutinized by Cam. My stomach lurched at the thought of facing Jamie. I hadn’t heard from him at all since Sunday, and when I didn’t show for work, I thought he’d get scared in case I was planning on telling Kal, but I still heard nothing, and the fact he’d not even been decent enough to send me an apology was insulting.

Jamie aside, yesterday actually turned out to be quite productive. I managed to spend the day studying for finals at the campus library, and when I logged on to my emails, I’d received the contract for my new job at Roysten Elementary School, which was surreal, because the realization that I was actually going sank in further. I had a start date for the 20th of August, and with how things were going at the minute, it couldn’t come quick enough. On the back of that, I managed to find myself a nice one-bedroom apartment with reasonable rent near the school. I was worried what the area was like around it, and since I couldn’t afford to fly over and look myself, I emailed the principal to ask her advice. So I was hanging on for her opinion before putting a deposit down to secure it.

Pushing my bed covers back, I reached for my cell, contemplating ringing Kal. Finding his number in my contacts, I hovered my thumb over the call button, but I couldn’t find it in me to press it. Deep down, I knew the reality was that I just had to face Jamie. I needed to get it over with so I could just move on, even if I was feeling anxious about the reaction I would or wouldn’t get from him when I walked in. I didn’t know if he was going to act like nothing had happened, ignore me, or be a total ass. He was unpredictable and my tactic today was to pretend he didn’t exist. I didn’t want anyone finding out we’d had a fight, especially Kal. He would fire me for sure if there was any chance I would interfere with one of the guys and his training.

I left for work and took my time walking there, trying to put Jamie at the back of my mind. When I rounded the corner of the club, the sight of his truck made me want to turn back and run home. Taking deep breaths, I told myself I could go through with it.

Kal was sitting at the desk when I entered the building. I nervously looked around the place and saw the guys were all there training. Seeing Jamie jolted me, my anger toward him still raw. Thankfully, he was engrossed in his workout at the weight bench and hadn’t seen me come in.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” Kal asked as I approached the desk.

Guilt lay like lead in my stomach. “Better, thank you.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.”

“Busy, isn’t it?” I noticed there were more customers in the club than usual. It was a huge warehouse he’d converted, and it certainly was a popular gym, but it seemed almost full to capacity. Luckily, the guys had sole use of the cage and a few other separate pieces of equipment, but the customers knew that if one of the guys needed to use other machines, they had to move. That was something Kal explained to every new customer during their induction. I wondered if the sudden influx was the result of some recent promoting we’d been doing on social media.

“Yeah, think I may need to expand.” He chuckled before standing to leave the desk.

I put my things away in my locker and made myself a coffee. He was gone from the front when I came out, so I sat down to look through the emails to see what had been happening since I was last in. I hated being out of the loop.

After finishing his training, Cam came up to the desk and set two shake bottles down on to the countertop. “Hey, how are you?”

I was instantly on my guard and suspicious of why he was asking me. I couldn’t return his smile. “Fine, thank you,” I said, avoiding eye contact with him. I couldn’t bring myself to be nice to him, even though it wasn’t his fault his friend was an asshole. I carried on looking through the emails, ignoring the two empty shake bottles he had put on the desktop.

“What was wrong?”

“Migraine,” I lied.

“Hate those.”

I hate your friend more!

“Can you be ever so kind and make me two protein shakes?” I glanced up at him and was met with his pleading green eyes. Holding back a sigh, I nodded and took the two bottles from the desk, and he walked off to the bathroom. I filled them up and set them down on the counter for him to take when he returned. “Thanks, Lauren.” He picked them up, shaking them vigorously as he walked away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched him go and do what I thought he was going to—he handed the other shake to Jamie as he finished his set on the weights. If I’d have thought better, I would have put salt in it. I watched Cam speak to him, and Jamie responded through mouthfuls of his shake. He stood up, and they both made their way over in my direction. I returned my eyes back to the computer screen. I didn’t want to look at him; I couldn’t. As Jamie approached, a tornado of emotions swirled around inside me, consuming me.

Do not cry!
I scolded myself.

“Just going for our break. Tell Kal we’ll be back later.”

I swallowed the lump that was in my throat and nodded at Cam, acknowledging he’d spoken to me. Jamie didn’t even glance my way. It was like I wasn’t even here. He walked past me, taking both their shake bottles into the kitchen, and I held my breath. I didn’t want to inhale any of him. He came back out and wasn’t in there long enough to wash them, which meant he had left them for me to do. They both walked out the door, and I was left feeling broken again.

How had things gotten this bad? Why did any of this have to happen and spoil things? We’d just become really good friends, or so I thought, and now we couldn’t even look at each other. We’d completely severed our friendship. I didn’t want to sit and think about it, so I numbly went about wiping down all of the equipment in between the customers using them. I got to the weight bench and knew Jamie was the last person to use it. It usually grossed me out that I was wiping their sweat off things, but not today. Memories of the beads of sweat that had formed on his forehead when we slept together came to the forefront of my mind. The night I’d had the most amazing sex, ever. Before he went and ruined it all. Despite how it ended, I still had feelings for him, and I couldn’t just switch them off. Even though I desperately wanted to.

“You okay, Lauren?”

I startled at Marc’s presence and glanced up to see him looking at me, concerned. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You were staring into space.”

“Just tired.” I forced a smile.

“You sure you’re okay?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m fine, honestly.” I shooed him away with my hand, and he put his up in front of him playfully.

“Okay, just checking.” He gave a small shrug and walked toward the shake bar, wiping his sweaty face with a towel then slung it over his shoulder.

I finished cleaning the bench and walked to the bar behind him. “Let me do your shake,” I offered, taking the empty container from him. I took the red lid off and filled it with a scoop of powder. I had gotten used to what they needed and when. He smiled gratefully at me then looked to Leon, who came over.

“You going now?” Marc asked.

“Yeah, I’m pretty beat.” Leon rubbed at his shoulders and neck. I hated it when they looked so tired. Sometimes, it seemed like they pushed themselves too far. But I knew that despite how he felt, Leon would be back at the club again in a few hours for more training. Making Leon’s shake for him too, I held it out and was met with a very tired “thanks” and another grateful smile. I’d come to love these guys. Well, most of them. I watched as they too left for their break.

After taking stock of new deliveries and sorting out gym memberships, I was busy for the better part of two hours. After finally wiping down the shake bar, I sat back down at the desk, where I wanted to put my head down and sleep. I hadn’t slept much again last night.

I was soon fully alert when a sweaty-looking man in his forties approached the desk and hung around a bit longer than necessary. He started to make me feel nervous because no one ever just hovered. His pale eyes seemed to be assessing me. But for what? I ignored him the best I could, but I felt vulnerable being on my own without Kal or the guys around, so I moved back over to the shake bar, away from him. Unfortunately, he followed and requested a protein shake.

“The name’s Max.” He gave me a cheesy grin, displaying a set of yellowing teeth.
I nodded politely, putting a scoop of powder in his cup, and set it down on the counter. “Can you fill it and shake it for me?” He licked his bottom lip creepily and held the cup out for me.

I tried my best not to grimace and shudder. “That’s not my job. The water’s over there,” I said sharply, pointing to the water machine. He set his shake down rather heavy-handedly on the countertop, making me flinch. From his aggressive reaction, my body began to tremble. I was willing him to just go away or for another customer to come over and distract him.

“Are you single?” he asked, walking around to the entrance of the bar. I backed up as far as I could. I couldn’t believe what he was asking me while I was trying to work. What the hell was he playing at? What was he going to do? Touch me? Horrible thoughts ran through my mind, and again, I nervously looked around at the other customers, but they were all busy completing their workouts. I desperately wanted one of them to see the predicament I was in and come help me. I folded my arms across my chest, contemplating which self-defense move I was going to have to use. With him standing so close in front of me, I knew a knee to the balls was the best option. Lifting my right leg, I bent my knee ever so slowly so he wouldn’t realize what I was doing or what was coming his way.

Then by the grace of God, Cam and Jamie came walking back into the club, and I had never been more relieved to see them. Cam’s head almost spun off his neck as he clocked the creepy guy standing inside the shake bar, where he shouldn’t be. He halted on the spot and hit Jamie’s chest with the back of his hand, muttering to him. Jamie instantly looked over at me, and then his gaze went to the sweaty man standing intimidatingly in front of me. His features darkened and a murderous glare glided over his face as he began to stalk toward us.