I gaze up at Cannon with a cheesy grin and he pushes away from the wall, nodding at my shoes. “They’re pretty dope.”
I wait for him to pass, irrationally pleased that he approves of my girly footwear. He’s taking down the weights from my bar, so I stand and help him. We work wordlessly for a few minutes, leaving things nice by the rack before moving on to free weights. I kick the tire I saw him flipping when I first visited the gym.
“I’d like to try this sometime,” I say.
He finds a good spot to stand for his bicep curls then glances from the tire to me and back again. “Shouldn’t be a problem for you,” he says, sizing me up like an equal. As he begins lifting, I stand by and watch for a few minutes, letting myself live this moment. I’m always either the cool teammate or the girl some boy who has no interest in team sports is into. Other than Jordan, guys in my game don’t want to cross boundaries, and my relationship with my ex was living proof of what a disaster it is to blur the lines. But maybe . . . maybe I can be both the kinda girl you kiss at a party and the kind you throw with on the diamond.
Lost in this blissful fantasy, I set my feet up a few feet from Cannon, facing the wall-length mirrors as I begin my reps. My weights are about half the size of his, and my biceps are definitely not in the same league, but I keep pace, doing the same number of reps and resting in sync with him. We’re about to begin our third sets when his eyes finally find mine in our reflection. He studies me while his arms begin their work.
“Hey, about Friday.” He starts a conversation, maybe hoping I’ll take it over and navigate the rough waters. What he doesn’t get, though, is that this is a conversation I don’t want to have. He’s in the boat alone.
“Don’t.” My response is swift and clipped, forming instant ice. “It . . . It’s fine.” Not fine.
The awkward silence seeps back in, and my motivation to lift weights—to even be here—wanes. Butterflies are gone, replaced by lead and rocks that sit heavy in my gut.
“It’s just that Zack . . .”
I let my arms fall, heavy with the weights, and look up at Pete’s cobweb-covered ceiling tiles.
“Please, just don’t,” I grumble.
I roll my head to the side, eyes meeting his. He’s grimacing as if embarrassed of his cousin, but Zack isn’t his job. Cannon is responsible for Cannon.
“It’s usually a boys’ club out there . . .” He trails off, because there’s no great way to finish that statement.
“Except for the girls who sit around and stare at you guys with awe like you’re gods. Bare-chested gods.” That was smug. My chest is getting tight. This happens when I get frustrated and conflicted. I’m not a very pretty angry person.
“Come on, that’s not fair. So what that some of the girls like to hang out and watch us? So what if our shirts are off? And so what if, you know what? Some of us like the attention, and some of them like to give it to us. Fuck, Hollis. You need to seriously loosen up. Not everything is a protest for women’s equality. And you can take your shirt off too, ya know. No rules against that out there.” He rolls his eyes, a sneer to his lips as he turns away. He’s proud of himself, and that tightness in my chest is close to suffocating. The only relief will be letting it burst.
Cannon dumps his weights on the rack and I follow a step behind, dumping mine right next to his. He huffs and moves them to the right place, which is actually a nice thing to do but the way he does it ticks me off, so I groan, balling my fists at my sides.
“Why did you have to ruin this?” I lament.
“Ruin what, Hollis? I was just trying to talk to you, about Zack and what he did—”
“You were making an excuse for him,” I cut in, leveling him with the truth.
His mouth opens but promptly shuts. His eyes shift their focus from my right one to my left, his mind working behind them. I pat my closed fist against my hip, antsy and unsure whether I should wait for him to speak or get this weight off my chest.
“I swear, Hollis, I’m not making excuses for him. He was . . . not cool. Friday was not cool,” he says, and I instantly regret letting him go first.
I laugh out and look up again, my jaw slack and my spirit dashed. How can I be so attracted to a guy who I also want throttle until he understands what it’s like to be a girl in this world?
My head falls forward and I nod, a pathetic laugh drifting through my parted lips, the faint smile I’m wearing only there to mask that I’m nowhere near happy or really amused.
“You’re right, Cannon. Way to sum that all up. Zack was not cool. And perhaps Friday was not cool either. That’s what happened. Not cool,” I rattle off, laughing a little more with every word I breathe because this is so ridiculous. I should have stayed home and tried to paint my dad’s nails while he slept or put popcorn in his nostrils.
“You don’t make this easy,” he finally breaks in. His words stop me cold, my mouth closing while I stare, unblinking, at the space to the right of him, unable to bring my eyes to him fully.
“I don’t make this easy,” I rephrase. I just want him to hear it, in my tongue.
Crossing my line of sight with a
