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and his hair is no longer cut as if it had a bowl on top of it, he looks the same. I hate that he got hot as hell with age and I got, well, plain and average.
    “Your parents good?” he asks with a slight break in his voice as his nervousness threatens to crack his calm exterior. He has some nerve to ask about my parents. He could have asked them himself if he’d bothered to go to Tyler’s funeral.
    “They’re good. They’re back in college.” I could kick myself for giving him that extra bit of information. He doesn’t need to know that. He doesn’t deserve to know anything about my parents. Or my life. All he needs to know is where to deposit my paychecks. I should tell him that, too. I should walk around the counter, shove him against the wall and beat the shit out of him. I should tell him exactly how much I hate him for what he did, and how many nights I cried myself to sleep over the loss of my brother and the hurt that comes with being ignored by the boy you loved. I should throw every fucking heavy object in this gym at his face. Maybe then he would understand just a fraction of how much I hate him.
    Unfortunately, all I do is slouch behind the counter and pretend to check the gym’s email account on the computer in front of me.
    “Well,” Kris says, releasing the counter and stretching his fingers out in front of him. “Don’t mind me, ladies. I’m just here to work out.”
    I want to ask him about the boy he was with at I Scream for Ice Cream. I want to ask why he didn’t acknowledge me that night, but he can ask me casual questions today, as if he didn’t kill my brother and then disappear all those years ago. That boy had to be at least thirteen years old—there’s no way he could be Kris’s son. Maybe it’s his stepson?
    My wild assumptions make a knot form in my stomach at the realization that I don’t know anything about Kris anymore. He’s twenty-eight years old which is old enough to have done a million things that I don’t know about. The thought of Kris having children…or a wife…sends an angry chill down my spine. Tyler doesn’t get to do any of that and Kris is free to live his life however he wants. It isn’t fair.
    Susan pushes herself behind the counter the second he leaves to workout. “You didn’t tell me you knew him!” she hisses in my ear, giving me a playful slap on the ass.
    “You didn’t ask,” I whisper back.
    “Girl, there’s some history there. I could sense it. I need every single detail, right this instant.” She runs her tongue over her bottom lip, almost foaming at the mouth at whatever naughty thoughts run across her mind. I swear the woman’s appetite for gossip is insatiable. Normally it’s funny but right now is not the time for her real-life Housewives from Hell obsession.
    I glance toward Kris, somewhat relieved to find out that he’s not within earshot of us, and he’s not even looking our way. “It’s nothing and I don’t want to talk about it.”
    Susan’s bottom lip pops out in a pout of toddler-like proportions. “Delaney!” she whines. “You have to tell me. Did ya’ll two…” She makes a motion with her fingers that could make even a sailor blush.
    “Jesus no,” I hiss, turning on my heel and heading for the cooler full of protein shakes and Gatorade. She scampers along behind me, ignorant to how much she’s crossing the line with the subject of Kris Payne. I yank open the cooler door and begin restocking the chocolate Muscle Milk while she hovers over me, an expectant look on her face. “I knew him ten fucking years ago and I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. There is nothing else for you to know, so quit fucking asking.”
    Her eyes bulge at my double use of the f-bomb, and my trembling hands and clenched jaw must finally get through to her because she puts one hand on my arm and the other across her mouth. “I’m sorry, Del. I am.” She pretends to zip her mouth closed. “I won’t talk about it