Feeling a grin fill my face for the first time in hours, I opened the door to find Fran standing on my doorstep with a paper bag in her hand that smelled like it was filled with food.
Then I remembered that she’d invited me over, and I cursed.
“I’m so sorry,” I apologized. “I completely forgot about you.”
She batted her eyes as she held the bag out to me. “I am a very understanding person, Taos.”
I grinned and took the bag from her, taking in her attire.
It being cold as fuck outside and alternating between rain and snow, she was much more appropriately dressed now in sweatpants and a sweatshirt.
Both of which looked like they’d once again been doused on her mad dash toward the door.
“I just wanted to bring you something to eat.” She paused. “And make sure that you’re okay.”
I swung my door open and gestured for her to come inside, but she shook her head.
“No,” she said. “I think you need some time. I just really wanted to bring you dinner.”
She was the sweetest fuckin’ girl on the planet.
So different from my ex that it was unreal.
My ex would’ve thrown a walleyed fit at being forgotten.
As in, she would’ve called every single person in the town until she found me. Then made such a huge stink about everything that I would’ve been forced to go see her just so she could ‘make sure I wasn’t dead.’
Truthfully, when we’d finally called it quits, it’d felt like a large weight had been lifted straight off my chest.
Before she could think to leave, to go back to her car and drive away from me, I caught her by the wrist and pulled her inside. “Come inside. Warm my couch up and watch TV or something beside me while I read my notes.”
She tilted her head sideways slightly, and I wanted to press my lips against hers.
But she sadly shook her head. “I can’t. I’m all wet…”
“I have sweats that are probably just as baggy as those are that you can wear.” I pulled her closer until our lips were almost touching. “Please.”
She sighed. “My food is in the car.”
I let her go and said, “I’ll get it.”
She snorted and dashed back out into the freezing rain to retrieve her food. By the time she was back, she went from soaked just a bit to ‘you need to get out of those clothes before you catch the plague’ soaked.
“Strip,” I urged her as I took the bag from her hands and placed it on the nearest table—the coffee table that had my notes spread out on it.
I heard her wet shoes hit the tiled entryway and headed for the dryer where I’d just turned on, for a fourth time, the clothes that I’d been wearing all week.
Pulling out a t-shirt, sweats, and some socks, I caught up a towel from the folded pile and then headed back for her.
I found her shivering and slightly blue in the entryway.
Grinning, I dropped the clothes on the arm of the couch before I walked up to her and shook out the towel.
She came to me willingly, and I wrapped her up in the soft cloth before wrapping her up again in my arms.
She sighed and leaned in.
“I missed you,” she breathed.
Something inside of me that had been cold since about halfway through my marriage warmed.
“Let’s get you warmed up,” I breathed as I bent down and swooped her up into my arms.
She didn’t even let out a startled squeak.
Instead, she went willingly, laying her chest on my shoulder, and placed all of her trust in me.
It changed everything.
My day was instantly better.
CHAPTER 13
If squats were easy, they would be called your mom.
-Fran to Mavis
FRAN
“How do you think this competition is going to go for you?”
I gritted my teeth.
Maria’s friend that she always worked out with at the gym was there.
She was competing with someone that I hadn’t ever met before, one that wasn’t from our gym, and she was making it a point to make sure that I saw her.
As if she had to take up the mantle where Maria had left off.
Maria, the woman that was never too far from everyone’s thoughts nowadays.
Maria, the perfect.
Maria, the holy.
Maria, the person that was beautiful.
Maria, the one that was way better than me.
Maria. Maria. Maria.
I know that it was bad to think ill of the dead, especially one that had died so terribly.
But I just couldn’t freakin’ stand it anymore.
She was all I heard about.
Everyone in town had so much to say about her, and had so much to relay to me that was about her, that I was literally about to lose my shit.
If one more person came up to me and asked how it felt to date a recently murdered woman’s ex-husband, I would scream.
Did none of the women at the gym, besides Sophia, realize that Maria was a complete and utter bitch to Taos? Did none of them see the torture that the woman had put him through over the last few years?
Did none of them care about that?
I didn’t know.
What I did know was that I would continue to hide the hurtful words from him, and I would do my best to keep it that way.
Like now.
He was smiling and walking up to me after he finished his part of the competition, and I couldn’t do that to him—make him aware of the whispers.
He would be upset.
So I kept the hurtful words and comments that everyone spewed to me quiet, and instead pasted on a smile.
“You did great, Taos.” I grinned.
He threw a sweaty arm around me and pulled me in close.
And, despite the excessive amount of sweat that was clinging to his Madd CrossFit shirt, I laid my head on his chest and sank into the embrace.
I was tired.
So. Freakin’. Tired.
I’d spent a really long time last night thinking about things that I shouldn’t be thinking about—i.e., the murder of women around town by a serial killer—and it’d taken me an irrationally long time to calm my mind down long enough to get some shut-eye.
Therefore, when I’d had to wake up at four o’clock this morning to get ready in time for Taos to pick me up by five for the competition an hour and a half away, I’d had less than two hours of sleep.
Not to mention, I’d already done two workouts.
Two workouts that, despite being what they considered ‘easy’ were actually quite hard.
I had two more workouts to go, and if things kept progressing like they had been, I’d be dead by the end of the day for sure.
“You want to go take a rest in our tent? We have about an hour and a half until we need to start warming up for the next competition,” he offered.
I actually didn’t. But only because it was so damn cold outside.
We were expected to get snow.
Again.
And it was raining and cold outside, despite Taos setting up a tent for us to use, and putting a small space heater in it to keep it warm while we were inside of it.
The sad thing was, it wasn’t cutting it.
And now, with me being wet with drying sweat, it would be even colder.
“I’m cold,” I admitted.
He pulled me in closer, wrapping his arms around me.