I grunted and tossed it onto the desk. It was late afternoon and things were beginning to wind down with the daytime crowd. There was one class tonight that began at six thirty, and then it would be nothing but dim lighting, a punching bag and me. There was no way I was going downstairs and hammering it out with eyes watching my every move. There’d be questions, and I definitely didn’t want questions. The only ones I could think of would result in me blubbering my eyes out.

“What’s all that about?” Caleb asked, nodding toward the storeroom.

“Nothing.”

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

I glared up at him. “It looks like none of your business.”

He held up his hands in mock defense. “Hey, just seeing if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” I rolled my eyes. Like shit. He was wondering how much longer it would take to get between my legs.

“You going to help out with the class tonight, or are you just going to sulk up here all day?”

Asshole. “I’ll think about it.”

“Alright,” he said, backing out of the room. “I could do with a hand FYI.”

I nodded. Maybe I should. I could do with the distraction. “Sure, whatever.”

“Good. Six thirty.” He pointed a finger at me. “Don’t be late.”

Once he was gone, I picked up my phone again and brought it to life. The screen was still blank, and a wave of disappointment smacked into me. Unlocking it, I pressed Josie’s name. I had to talk to someone because this whole charade was eating me up inside. Seriously, it was like someone had poured sulphuric acid all over my heart.

After five rings, she answered.

“Hey, sexy,” she drawled.

“Can you talk?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a minute. Is everything okay?”

“Ash and I had a huge fight last night,” I began.

“Oh, shit. About the marriage thing?”

“Not quite,” I replied. “He went somewhere yesterday and didn’t come back until late. When I asked him about it, he came straight out and said he didn’t want to tell me what was going on…” I swallowed hard, tears beginning to well at the memory of the moment when he said that he couldn’t.

“Shit,” Josie hissed. She knew the score with us, the deal Ash and I had struck when we’d gotten back together.

“It was like it was happening all over again,” I murmured. “So, I left.”

“You left him?”

“I’m at Beat,” I said. “I’m okay, but…”

“You’re fucking heartbroken, Ren,” she exclaimed. “I can’t see your face, but I know you. Don’t bottle it up. Look what that did last time.”

“I just need some time,” I replied. “It’s all so… Everything’s so fucked up.”

“You don’t want to go back to Pulse and work it out?”

“He told me he couldn’t, Josie,” I exclaimed. “Outright. I asked him where he was and what was bothering him, and he said ‘I can’t’.”

“Do you think he could’ve been shopping? You know, for a ring?”

I froze, the thought of Ash asking me to marry him catching on the broken edges of my heart. I’d dismissed the idea so flippantly, then so did he when I brought it back up. I was so confused, but I wasn’t entirely sure that the marriage thing was the issue. Last night, he’d been so…defeated.

“Maybe you should talk to him now that the dust has settled and you’ve both had a good night’s sleep,” she went on when I didn’t reply to her insane question.

Good night’s sleep? Hardly. If I knew Ash as well as I thought I did, then he wouldn’t have been able to fall asleep at all.

“It’s just… Keeping a secret from me, something that’s obviously hurting him, is a deal breaker, Josie. Look at all the mess it made last time. He was gone six months and wasn’t coming back.”

“That’s why I think you need to talk to him,” she shot back. “Men are stupid, Ren. So fucking stupid it hurts.”

“So things are still on the outs with Hamish?”

“Don’t change the subject.” Nerve. Struck. “We’re talking about you and your epic love story here.”

“Do you think I could crash at your place?” I asked, not wanting to entertain the idea of going back to Pulse or think about the fact that Ash was hiding a ring. “I just don’t want to be at Beat. It’s where…you know. I need some time to think about things.”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Beat was full of so many memories, but most of all, it was full of Ash’s and my love story. We fell in lust here, we fought, and we argued here. We’d fucked on the mats, in the showers, in the bedroom upstairs… Beat brought us together, and being here was too painful. We’d only busted up last night, but the last thing I wanted was a constant reminder of the most perfect man in the world keeping secrets from me. He’d made promises, and what good were those now?

“The spare key is in the pot plant,” Josie went on.

“In the pot plant?”

“Yeah,” she said like it was a no-brainer. “People always look under them, so I put it in it. You might have to dig a little.”

“Sometimes I really want to know how your brain is wired,” I said, feeling a little lighter.

She laughed like it was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever said. “Trust me, you don’t want to go in there.”

“I’ll move over there tomorrow,” I said. “Thanks, Josie. I owe you one.”

“Are you sure you want to move out of Pulse? You are going back to him, right?”

I didn’t know the answer to that either, and it was the one thing I didn’t want to acknowledge. That this might be it for Ash and me. Maybe this time we wouldn’t be able to find one another in the darkness again, and the thought terrified me.

“I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” Josie prodded.

“Sure.”

There was a moment of silence before she asked, “Ren?”

“Yeah?” There was an imminent pearl of wisdom brewing, and I knew it was going to hurt.

“Are you sure leaving him was the best thing to do?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered. “I really don’t know.”

Fourteen

Ren

The beginner’s boxing class that night didn’t do much to take my mind off things.

The group was positioned on the mats, right over the spot where Ash and I first, you know, but of course, they didn’t know that.

One upon a time, while Ash was under house arrest, we’d had to get to know one another again. The trust was gone, and he’d become like a stranger to me. I never knew that he’d had a sister who he’d gone to jail for or about the estrangement with his parents and so many other things. He’d been trying to protect me from a lot of things, but I didn’t understand until it was too late. I wondered if something was coming back to haunt him. Maybe that was why he pushed me away?

Didn’t matter. I was here, and he wasn’t talking, the trust between us was broken. I wouldn’t be the one to fix it this time.

“You sure you’re okay?” Caleb asked as we got the studio back into order as the last person left for the night.

I shook my head. “I’m fine.”

I really shouldn’t take out my frustrations with Ash on Caleb. He was a cocky upstart, but his concern was in the right place. That was fine with me as long as he kept his hands to himself and got that I wasn’t interested in him like that. He was here to run Beat, and by the looks of it, he was going to be around for a long time. Considering my dad owned the place and I was in and out on a regular basis, I had to at least get along with the guy.

Caleb shrugged, flipped the lock on the door, and turned off all but the back row of lights. “You going to stick around and train?”

I nodded. “For a while. I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow.” I was careful not to say where I was going. It wasn’t like me to dangle the carrot in front of a guy’s nose, especially when I was hung up on the love of my life being a secretive asshole.

“Did you have a fight with your boyfriend or something?” I narrowed my eyes, and he laughed. “Hole in one.”