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was wearing a shirt so you have no idea what his abs look like,” I say, pointing to my index finger. “And secondly, no. Just no.” I point to my middle finger, then my ring finger then my pinky, counting off all of my answers. “No, no, and fuck no.”
    She holds up her hands as if surrendering to the police. “Damn girl, chill.”
    The door swings open, letting in the sound of traffic driving by outside. I turn to greet the customer, thankful for the interruption to Susan’s ironically accurate accusations. “Welcome to—” I begin, my heart stopping as I notice that the customer wears black sweatpants and no shirt. I swallow, my eyes lingering on the outline of his defined abs as I finish my sentence, “Carson’s Gym.”
    “I thought about renaming it Payne’s Gym,” Kris begins, throwing the towel in his hand around the back of his neck. “But the word pain may scare off the guests.”
    Susan lets out a giggle as if his play on words was the funniest damn thing she’s heard all week. I’m grateful for her though, because my stopped heart has jumped into my throat, blocking my ability to speak. The only thing worse than Susan’s awful laugh is my awkward silence. Why the hell did he have to walk in shirtless? And why was Susan’s assumption of his perfect abs one hundred percent correct? He sure as hell didn’t have those bad boys in high school.
    Involuntary breathing takes over as my brain goes into survival mode, having lost my consciousness to tell it what to do. My eyes follow Kris as he walks around the front counter, leaning over it to toss his car keys on the shelf where we keep random junk like extra flyers and lost and found items. His keys drop to the wood with a clink, and he leans back into a standing position, his hands grabbing the edge of the counter.
    Somehow, the weightlifting gods shine down on me and make me move my eyes from his rounded pecks to the computer screen. I should so not be thinking about his rounded pecks. But I’m only thinking about them because the counter blocks his abs and oh my god, I shouldn’t be thinking of his abs either! Get it together, Delaney, shit.
    “Looks like business is slow,” he says, glancing around the nearly empty gym. Susan assures him that it picks up around ten and then again when the night shift workers get off. I stand as still as a dumbbell while they talk about business.
    Susan jabs me with her long sparkly fingernail. “Huh?” I say, making the first audible sound since my ex-boyfriend walked in the gym. “Earth to Delaney,” she says, twirling her finger near the side of her head with a smile at Kris. “You’re gonna get yourself fired by ignoring the boss like that.”
    “Huh?” I say again, this time looking from her to him. The look on his face is just as uncomfortable as I imagine mine is.
    “I asked what’s been up,” he says, making eye contact with me for the briefest of all moments before glancing down at the worn countertop.
    “Nothing,” I blurt out, a little too eager and entirely too quickly to pass off as a normal line of conversation. God, why are my legs jelly and vision blurry and my throat dry? He is the one who is guilty here. He should be nervous, not me. I should stand boldly and make him quiver at the remembrance of what he’s done to me.
    “Have you been…good?” he asks after a momentary pause. He plays it off well, like he’s cool and collected, but I remember the Kris who refused to give a speech in freshman health class because he was terrified of speaking to crowds. His nervousness doesn’t escape me.
    “I’ve been great, thanks,” I say. Against all the angry emotions and lustful thoughts (that only make me more angry) rushing through my mind, I manage to smile with that southern girl charm that comes with being raised in Texas. “I assume you’ve been good as well?”
    He nods, staring straight into my eyes with his auburn ones. Though his jaw is chiseled and his neck is thicker,