On My Knees (7 page)

“So what’ll it be?” Cameron crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, his powerful legs on display. I thought he’d come back changed after boot camp, but this was a whole new level. I tore my gaze away and forced myself to meet his eyes.

“I don’t know. I’m not really up for a work out. I’m kind of wiped out.”

“From yoga?”

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to explain that I also happened to be epically hung over. “Listen, I did a lot of planks in there. She’s intense.”

“Oh, Raina?” He laughed a little and he shifted his gaze past me. “Speak of the devil.”

Raina bounded beside us, her eyes locked on Cameron. “Hey, Cam.” She lifted up on the toes of her sneakers and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

A pang of jealousy hit me, and then I remembered that he hadn’t exactly made it clear that he wasn’t seeing anyone. Even if he weren’t, someone as good-looking as Cameron wouldn’t stay on the market for long, as evidenced by Raina casually rubbing her sports-bra harnessed tit on his arm.

“Hey,” he said. “Raina, this is Maya.”

Her gaze shifted to me. “New member?”

“Actually, Maya’s an old friend. I was about to give her a tour.”

She gave me a tight smile and extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Maya. Enjoy the class?”

“I did actually,” I admitted.

“I hope you’ll be back?”

I nodded wordlessly, not wanting to commit verbally.

“Cool. Well I’ll see you two later then. I have another class in a few.”

She took off, leaving Cameron and me alone again. Before I could come up with another excuse to get out of performing any kind of exercise in front of him, he took my hand and led me into the main area. The gesture seemed bold, but I appreciated the extra sense of security the connection gave me in light of my gym anxiety. I assessed the rows of fit, clearly habitual gym people, their presence somehow reinforcing how I was not supposed to be here.

We stopped in front of the free weights. “You okay with doing arms? After the planks and what not?”

He did a poor job of hiding his smirk, which stirred me enough to take the challenge.

“Bring it.”

He hit me with a mega-watt smile and picked out two dumbbells. They looked puny in his strong hands as he faced the mirror and started demonstrating the motions he wanted to me to make. He seemed to know what he was talking about, but I was too entranced with his body to really listen. I still couldn’t handle how changed he was. He’d always had a great body, tall and lean, but now with the massive amount of muscle tone that he’d gained, he was downright imposing. The front of his T-shirt lifted slightly every time his arms pulled up to touch the dumbbells together above his head. I caught a glimpse of his abs. I licked my lips, daring myself to look lower.

“Got it?”

My eyes shot up. “Yeah, sure.”

I took the dumbbells and tensed against the strain of lifting their weight as he’d so easily done.

“Keep your shoulders straight.”

His voice was low and even. He placed his hands on my shoulders, coaxing them back slightly with his fingertips. The simple contact shocked through me. In our reflection, I could see his eyes trained on my form. His hand slid down my back as he circled to the side.

“Hold it.”

I froze, my arms holding the weights above me.

“Step your legs apart a little.”

I sucked in a sharp breath at the quiet command.

“Good. If your posture is right, you’re going to feel it here too.” His hand brushed over my lower abdomen. The dull ache created from my earlier planks and holding these damn weights in the air transformed into a red hot energy pulsing through my core and between my legs from the contact that felt far too intimate.

Fuck, I didn’t sign on for this.
I took a shaky breath and lowered the weights to my side and up again, slowly repeating the motion. I was pretty sure a few members would pay extra for this level of attention. Or maybe they didn’t need to. Maybe Cameron was hands-on like this with everyone. But I couldn’t drag my filthy mind out of the gutter long enough to believe he wasn’t touching me for the sheer, animal fun of it.

CAMERON. I’d never had to work so goddamn hard to focus on training someone. No shortage of attractive women had come through the gym, all too eager for the chance to train with Darren or me. But Maya was in a class of her own. Her body had changed since we’d known each other. Her clothes couldn’t hide the fullness of her breasts or how her hips curved out from her waist in a way I didn’t remember. At least blatant staring was justified under the circumstances.

She finished her set, breaking my steady survey of the intricacies of her body. We moved away from the free weights, and I set her up on the cables.

“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” she said.

“You’re doing really well.”

She blushed, reinforcing how uncomfortable I suspected she was. Half of my job was making people feel more comfortable in the gym. Though I had a few clients who basically paid me to watch them work out in one-hour increments. Business was business, so I didn’t argue. When they realized they weren’t getting anything more out of it, they typically moved on. Sometimes to Darren.

Maya had always been headstrong though. I knew she’d take the challenge, even if it meant spending time with me that she might not have wanted. After I’d nearly kissed her and she left me in front of her office, I’d had mixed feelings about the whole thing. We hadn’t exchanged contact information, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to keep stalking her at her office.

“I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again so soon,” I said, hoping to get her to open up.

“Me neither.”

“Why is that?”

She winced, straining against a motion, her biceps flexing with the effort. “Eli dragged me out for the yoga class. I had no idea we were coming here.”

She stepped back and took a breath between sets. Her face was flushed from exertion. Time was ticking down. I couldn’t push her hard just to spend more time with her.

“I didn’t know you had a roommate.”

“Yeah, well there are a lot of things you don’t know about me.” She shook out her arms.

“Maybe we can change that.”

Her calm expression didn’t change. “Oh?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged, trying to sound casual. “I’d like to be friends, I guess, if you think we can.”

She looked down at her feet, toeing the floor beneath her, a chink in her otherwise cool demeanor. “I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

She huffed. “How are we supposed to be friends when you’re… You know, you kind of blindsided me yesterday.”

“I know. I didn’t plan that. I’m sorry.”

“We have too much history, Cam.”

“Mostly good history, don’t you think?” I leaned against the machine, crossing my arms.

Her eyes went soft for a moment. Her throat worked on a swallow before her features hardened, an impassive blanket washing away any emotion I might have recognized moments ago.

“What’s next?” she asked, her voice clipped.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Are we almost done or what? I’m dying here.”

“One more,” I muttered, straightening again.

I switched out the hardware and demonstrated the motion for her. I adjusted the weight again when I finished. When I stepped away, she’d launched right into the first set of curls with fevered determination. With every motion her cleavage pushed up out of her tank top. I blew out a slow breath and tried to look anywhere else. I caught her reflection in the mirror and studied her ass in her skin-tight yoga pants.
Christ
. I’d have no chance of hiding a hard on in my gym shorts.

“Take a break after this. Then do two more sets. I’ll be right back,” I said brusquely.

I left her there without making eye contact. I needed water. What I really needed was a cold shower, because I was losing my damn mind reliving the memory of her body. I grabbed a couple waters from behind the front desk. I chugged the first one, stopping to take a few more steadying breaths. I needed to get her out of my head. She didn’t want this trip down memory lane either. What the hell was I doing?

“Everything okay?”

Darren strolled up to the counter, his eyes narrowed. Fuck, he could read me like a book. Unlike Maya. Her thoughts were still a mystery. I’d been able to read her so well, once upon a time.

“Yeah, just grabbing a water for a client.”

Maya walked up with Eli at her side, her eyes as cool and calm as they had been earlier. “Okay, I think you’ve tortured me enough. I’m heading out.”

Darren swiveled to face her, his face lighting up when he sized her up. I tensed.

“Hi, I’m Darren,” he said, holding out his hand.

She shook his hand and her eyes brightened. “You must be Cam’s brother? I’m Maya.”

Darren’s smile slipped for a second. They’d never met, but they sure as hell knew of each other. He flashed me a look before returning to her. “Yeah. You’re
the
Maya?”

“I guess,” she muttered, almost too quietly to hear, as she put on her coat and tugged her hat back on. She looked to Eli and turned to leave.

“So, Maya. You interested in coming out with us for drinks later? Old man Cam is going to tie one on. You wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?”

“Darren—”

He lifted his hand to silence me. “No, no. I’d love to get to know the infamous Maya who I’ve heard so much about.”

“Maya never misses a happy hour,” Eli chimed in, lifting his shoulders to his ears.

She glared at him and he recoiled slightly, giving her a frozen smile. “That’s not true.”

“Judgment free zone, hon,” Darren said. “Let’s hit the bar down the street around seven. What do you think?”

She stared hard at him. Between Eli’s comment and Darren’s impossible grin, I wasn’t sure how she’d be able to shoot him down. I almost felt bad for her.

“Fine.” She grabbed the second water from my hand, turned, and hooked arms with Eli.

He smiled back at us as she pulled him out the door. Through the glass, I could see her mouth moving at a rapid rate the second the doors closed. She was pissed.

I suppressed a smile.

MAYA. “Do you want to explain to me what the hell that was all about?” I started as soon as we cleared the exit from the gym.

Eli sighed dramatically. “Here we go.”

“You completely sabotaged me in there!” I had to keep myself from screaming at him as we made our way back to the apartment.

“You ran into your ex. It’s not world news, okay? Get a grip.”

Rage pulsed through me. “And you basically pushed me into a private work out with him, and somehow I’m supposed to be totally fine with getting drinks with him and his brother tonight?”

“So what, Maya? You’ve been moping around all week since you found out Cameron was in New York. You obviously still have feelings for him. Why don’t you give it a chance?”

“Give what a chance? What we had is over. I’m attracted to him, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go running into another relationship with him. And who knows if that’s even something he wants?”

He rolled his eyes. “Right.”

“Right…what? What does that mean?”

He turned toward me. “Outside of my own personal experiences, I’ve never actually felt chemistry between two other people. Until today. The freaking air crackled when you two saw each other. Whatever is going on between you is so obviously more than you’re making it out to be. I just gave you a little shove in the right direction.” He swept his hair away from his eyes. “Maybe you’ll thank me one day.”

I stopped in front of the apartment, too irritated to take the next steps up to the entrance of the brownstone we shared with a handful of other tenants. “This is not a game for me. You’re supposed to be on
my
side, Eli.” My tone was low, my voice thick with emotion. This situation with Cameron was taking me on an emotional roller coaster, and somehow Eli was driving the ride.

“
You’re
not even on your side. Do you know how difficult it is to live with you and your self defeating attitude sometimes?”

“Well no one’s forcing you to stay here. It’s not like I’ll miss the rent that you never pay me,” I snapped.

His jaw dropped. The silence that fell between us was almost painful.

“Wow.”

I was about to speak, somehow soften what I’d just said, when he beat me to it.

“I’m going to grab some groceries for dinner and try to forget you just said that. I’ll see you back here later.”

“Eli…” My shoulders slumped as he walked past me.

I cursed and made my way upstairs and out of the cold.

Despite feeling energized by my workout, I sulked most of the day. Eli and I barely spoke, though he made his movements around our small apartment known. I tried to ignore him every time he slammed a door a little too hard, made a clatter putting the dishes away, or sighed a little too loudly. If I was self-defeating, he was classically passive aggressive.

I tossed aside a book that wasn’t grabbing me and looked out the window. The streets were empty, the trees that lined them now barren. The dead of winter had come early this year, with the kind of cold that borders on painful the second you step outside, the kind of cold that made me wonder why I came here, of all places, after school. Though I had no way of knowing, I wanted to believe I was close enough for my mother to find me if she needed to.

I opened my laptop and a new tab in my browser. I typed
Lynne Jacobs
into the search bar and scanned the results. I checked all the usual places where I thought I might find her—police reports, regional news, and finally the obituaries. I had no way of knowing where she could be, if she were even alive.

No less than six months after things ended terribly with Cameron, I’d lost touch with my mom. We rarely saw each other after I’d left for college, but we always kept in touch somehow. Then the phone number I’d had for her was disconnected. At the time, I panicked, angry and scared that I’d never bothered getting contact info from her newest boyfriend, or even the address where she’d stayed last. She moved around so often, I’d stopped keeping track, figuring she’d always circle back and find me wherever she landed. I closed my eyes, seeing her face. I’d never forgive myself.