The Boiling Point

Jordan

“You know you didn’t have to spend all day here helping me,” my dad, Max, sighed grumpily.

After my classes on Sunday morning, I showered and headed over to my parents' place.

Dad was trying to add on to his deck. The man had more than enough money to pay someone to build him whatever he wanted, but he insisted that he could handle it.

Cynthia wasn’t so convinced and bribed me with muffins to get me to come help the old man.

“I didn’t have anything else going on. Cynthia was worried about you trying to set these posts by yourself.”

“That woman needs to let me work on my projects without interfering,” he accused toward the partially open window.

“I heard that, Maxwell!” Cynthia yelled out the crack in the open kitchen window, and I laughed at their dynamic.

My dad was turning into a grumpy old man in his partial retirement, but I think Cynthia was enjoying having him around more.

He had been a workaholic when I was growing up. After my mom took off and remarried, he needed something to fill the void. We were better off without her, but it was rough for a few years until he met Cynthia.

“Maybe you were supposed to!” he yelled back, and I heard her amused laughter filter back through the window.

They fought sometimes, but she had been exactly the type of personality he needed to balance him out. She was light and fun, much like Mollie.

He was focused and career-driven, often working himself to exhaustion when he knew a project needed to be handled.

I had a little bit of his drive, but I tried not to take myself too seriously. When I toyed with opening my own fitness studio, he helped me do all the research on what kind of business model I needed to develop.

He was also my first investor. The only condition he gave me was that my sisters always had a place to work if they needed it. I was beginning to regret that decision.

“So Cynthia told me that she met Hannah,” he said with faux innocence. The old man was digging for information.

“Of course she did.” I rolled my eyes.

“She liked her,” he smiled.

I nodded as I lined up a board and pounded in a stabilizing nail. “I’m not surprised. She’s a very likable person.”

“I sense some tension there. Are things not working out between you two?”

“More like Mal is hell-bent on trying to interfere.” I hit the head of a nail a little harder than intended, a satisfying thwack filling the air.

“Why is your sister interested in your love life?” he frowned.

“That’s a good fucking question.” I was seriously tired of her interfering with my life when she needed to worry about herself.

“Mollie likes her,” he shrugged.

Because Mollie wasn’t a narcissistic psycho.

“Because Mollie isn’t about to fall into the deep end,” I rephrased, knowing he wouldn’t want me talking about her like that.

“Is Mallory drinking again?” he asked point-blank.

“I don’t know. She was at the bar during the team dinner last night, but I never saw her take a drink,” I told him honestly. I had my suspicions, but I never saw her with alcohol in her hand.

“She cornered me by the bathrooms last night and spewed all kinds of nonsense at me, about me taking advantage of Hannah.”

“Why on earth would she think that?”

“Because she still thinks I gave the last two female winners special treatment so they’d win,” I said quickly, some of my anger leaching into my voice.

“She does realize that you had to take a restraining order out on that one whack job?” he asked with a frown.

“I never told the staff. I just rearranged the schedule so I didn’t have to see her.”

“The other one left town, didn’t she?”

I had talked to him a little bit about Anita’s ex. My mother hadn’t been all sunshine and roses toward the end of their marriage, and even as a small child, I knew she was verbally abusive.

“Yeah... she’s engaged with a kid on the way.”

“I hope you told Mallory to mind her own business,” he told me as he lined up the next plank for us to nail down.

“I tried, but she’s already decided that she doesn’t like Hannah.”

“I hate to say it, son, but your sister doesn’t like being miserable by herself. She might just be grasping at straws to keep you down with her.”

I hadn’t thought of it like that before. That all her hostility was to do with me, not anything that Hannah had done.

“Well, she’s about to get herself fired. I know you wanted me to keep her on as long as she wanted, but I’m afraid one of these days she’s gonna go too far.”

“You do what you need to,” he said. “Maybe we’ve all been too easy on her because of the accident.”

“I just don’t know where her head is at. I refuse to be set up with one of her friends, and suddenly I’m some huge manipulative asshole.”

“Well, you are an asshole…” he teased.

“Wonder where I learned that behavior.” I rolled my eyes as I pointed my hammer in his direction.

“It was from Cynthia,” he deadpanned.

“I can still hear you!” she yelled out the window.

“'Cause you’re nosy as hell!” he yelled back.

I heard her laughter carry through the window and punched my dad in the shoulder lightly. “You could be nice to her.”

“I could... but she likes it.” He winked with a wicked grin.

“She must. She’s put up with you this long.” I laughed.

They had gotten together when I was in middle school and the girls were toddlers. It had been an adjustment having two toddler sisters while I was trying to navigate puberty.

Twenty-five years later and Mallory was still invading my privacy.

“Are you staying for dinner tonight?” he asked.

“I’m not sure if I can stomach another evening with Mal.”

“It might just be Mollie.” He shrugged.

“I think I might just get ahead on my interval schedules.” I may have been avoiding my sister, but I had no intention of taking her abuse another night.

“All work and no play…” He liked to say the old adage, but he didn’t always follow the allowed play for himself. “Makes you fucking boring.”

“Hannah came over a few nights, and I fell a little behind last week,” I confessed as I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

“Well, that’s not so boring. You must actually like her if you’ve invited her to the house.”

“She’s funny and sarcastic. Doesn’t put up with my shit.” She was younger but more mature than the women that I had dated who were my age.

“No wonder Cynthia likes her. You need someone to knock you down a peg or two.” He got a mischievous glint in his eye and leaned in, his voice low enough that Cynthia couldn’t eavesdrop, “How is she in bed?”

“Dad,” I groaned as I put down my hammer and shook my head at him.

“We’re both adults. You can tell me.” He grinned.

“She’s mouthy outside and in.” I shrugged. He started laughing, and I rolled my eyes that he was trying to gossip. “We’re taking it slow. I don’t wanna fuck this up.”

“Damn, you must really like her.”

“I do.” I stayed to help him get cleaned up, and Cynthia sent me home with some food to heat up.

By the time I got there, I was ready to shower off the sawdust and get my work done so I could go to bed.

Hannah still hadn’t responded to my text, but I knew I’d see her tomorrow night.

***

My morning workouts had all gone smoothly, so I decided to go home and finish up what I’d started working on the night before.

Ty was more than capable of holding down the fort until Mallory came in for the evening classes. If I was going to be able to spend time with Hannah, I needed to utilize my downtime to get work done.

By the time I needed to leave for class, I had finished planning the workouts for the next several weeks, even programming the instruction clips into the server.

“Hey, man,” Ty greeted as I walked into the studio with my bag pulled over my shoulder.

“Afternoon classes go okay?”

“Yeah. Had a few new faces at my lunchtime class.” He smiled.

“Oh yeah?” I asked curiously.

He gave me a confused look, and I felt like he thought I should know what he was referring to. “Hannah and Parker showed up.”

“My Hannah?” I asked and almost cursed myself for how eager I sounded.

He raised an eyebrow and smirked at me. “Yours, huh?”

“Oh, shut up. I don’t tease you when you fawn over that new girlfriend of yours.”

“So, Hannah is your girlfriend now?”

“I’m working on it,” I told him honestly. That's where I see things going, but we haven't had any official talk about it yet.

“Anyways. She was here for the noon class, pushed herself pretty hard. Parker had a hard time keeping up with her on the treadmills.”

“Her endurance and speed have really come along nicely.” I smiled, proud of how hard she continues to work.

“She wasn’t all that talkative. She asked Dorie at the desk about availability in the daytime classes before she left.”

That was weird. She had kind of settled into a routine of Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evening classes, then training time with Mollie or me on Saturday.

“Is she still signed up for her training session on Saturday?” I asked. I had started to look forward to seeing her those mornings.

“I think so. You can always check the book.”

Something was up. I was going to have to figure out what was going on later.

“I heard your little friend dropped class tonight?” Mal sounded amused as she checked the iPad for the roster of the class.

“She’s a busy person.” I shrugged.

“You gonna do all right without being able to stare at her like a creeper?”

“I don’t do that,” I insisted, knowing she was right.

“You kinda do. Makes your desperation show,” she rolled her eyes and scrunched up her nose.

“Whatever, Mallory. You just worry about making sure to run the class, not who is staring at who.”

I didn’t like the way she was smirking at me; she was enjoying my discomfort at Hannah's absence.

My focus was off during class. I worried about the continued radio silence from Hannah. It could be nothing, but the fact that she didn’t tell me she’d be switching classes today seemed odd.

She obviously could go to whatever classes she wanted, but she knew I was expecting her to come to our regular class tonight.

“Are you giving me a ride tonight?”

Of course, she wouldn’t even ask like a normal person.

“I need to take care of something,” I told her in a dismissive tone.

Something was off with Hannah, and I wasn’t buying the Parker excuse anymore.

“I guess I can catch a ride with Ty,” she sighed loudly with her arms crossed.

“That’s probably a good idea,” I agreed, not looking at her.

“Well, you’re cranky today.”

“I’m just tired of the games, Mal. You were totally out of line the other night.”

“You need to lighten up,” she rolled her eyes.

“And you need to mind your own business,” I shot back.

“Oh, come on, you can’t be upset that she overheard us.”

“She what?” My head shot up. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw her in the mirror at the side of the bar. Hannah heard our little disagreement in the hallway,” she said in a dismissive tone. “It really is rude to eavesdrop.”

“What the fuck, Mallory! You set that up on purpose?”

“Well, it wasn’t on purpose, but since you weren’t planning on telling her anything, it did work out pretty well.” She looked almost proud of trying to sabotage my personal relationship with Hannah.

“You know there wasn’t anything to tell. Your little theories on Briana and Anita were bullshit, and you know it.”

“But Hannah doesn’t.” She shrugged with a smug smile.

“Just go home, Mal. You need to think about what your next steps are. You can’t keep working here if you’re going to do shit like this.”

“You can’t fire me. I’m popular with the members,” she challenged as she turned up her nose at me.

“Then you need to get help, and actually go this time. I’m tired of your toxic bullshit making my life harder.”

“I’d like to see you make me,” she growled.

“Dad’s little conditions don’t apply anymore. One more step out of line and I’m firing you,” I pointed my finger at her, and she actually looked worried. “Go home.”

She huffed, and I turned my back on her, going into the office and pulling up Hannah’s info. I added her address to the contact info programmed into my phone and locked up.

Ty and Mal were gone by the time I came out, so I set the alarm and got into my Jeep. I wasn’t sure what exactly Hannah had overheard, but it was enough for her to try to avoid me.

Jordan

missed you in class tonight.

She wasn’t going to respond, but I was seeing if she’d talk to me.

After five minutes and no response, I started the car and headed to the address on her contact info. I knew it was a misuse of information, but I wasn’t letting her push me away.

Someone was coming out as I walked up, so I held the door for them and slipped into the building. Hannah was already going to some lengths to avoid me, so I wasn’t leaving this to chance.

I found her apartment number and knocked on the door. It was quiet, but I had a feeling she was home.

My second impatient knock made me anxious, and I grasped the top of the door frame, waiting for her to answer.

I knew she could see me if she looked out the peephole, but I wasn’t leaving.

I’d even enlist Parker if I had to.

“So you are at home.”

She opened the door, and I had to fight the urge to smile at her appearance. She was clad in a pair of super baggy sweats, her hair up in a messy bun, and her face completely clean.

Her cheekbones had thinned out over the last few weeks, and she looked healthier if a little tired. This was the real Hannah.

“Yup. I’m here.”

She fidgeted, and I brought my hand to my lips, watching her tense body language. She wasn’t happy I was here.

“Is that a peanut butter cup in your hand?” I noticed the death grip she had on the poor orange wrapper.

It was worse than I thought. If she was this close to falling off the wagon, she was upset.

“Uh…”

She shoved it into her pocket and dropped her eyes, looking guilty.

“Hannah, I feel like I’m missing something here. I think we need to talk.”

She needed to allow me to explain what she thought she overheard. I wasn’t even sure what exactly she had heard. I’d tuned out half of what Mallory was saying.

“I, uh, why are you here?” she asked quietly, her vulnerability showing.

“Hannah, just sit down, and I can clear up the bullshit my sister made sure you overheard.”

“Oh.” She sat heavily on the couch, and I took the seat next to her, taking one of her hands in mine and pulling in a deep breath.

It was time to clear the air.