Puckered Hearts

Chapter 31

•ADRIAN•

"And then she started speaking to me all of a sudden. I looked the other way to see if everyone was watching us."

I rolled my eyes for the fifth time and pushed the barbell into his arms before sitting up. I asked the fucker to spot me, and all he did was yap about some girl he has a crush on in one of his classes.

For fuck's sake!

This is a fucking gym. A place where we're supposed to be focusing our minds on one thing instead of something else that's completely out of the box.

I turned towards Amir and narrowed my eyes at him. He noticed the look on my face and started to grin sheepishly.

"I'm sorry, man. I just can't get that part out of my head." He said.

"And you thought talking about it in the gym would help?"

He shrugged his shoulders while still smiling.

"Remind me not to bring you along next time." I told him half-jokingly while standing up and heading in the direction where the treadmills are.

"You know I love you, right?" He yelled after me.

I shook my head while rolling my eyes again.

"You're a great listener, Adrian!" He shouted again, and I swiftly turned around and flipped my middle fingers at him.

I continued walking and entered another area where all the treadmills were. I stopped near the entrance and scanned the room for an unoccupied machine.

After barely ten seconds of looking around, my eyes stopped on the one person I've been looking forward to seeing all day.

This was the first time I'd seen her here at the gym. But then again, this is the school's gym, so everyone practically comes and goes whenever they want.

This should be fun.

I started walking towards her, and coincidentally, the woman running next to her hopped off her treadmill and left. I walked a little faster to occupy it before someone else did.

Kaia continued her jog without even noticing me. She was wearing this cute sports bra with black shorts, headphones on, and her hair up in a messy ponytail.

I set the timer and glanced toward her one more time. I quickly spotted the small, purplish bruise on the side of her neck. A smile immediately wormed its way across my face.

Honestly, none of us saw it coming. I was also surprised with myself for what I did, but it's no surprise to both of us that there's some attraction there.

One that I had intended to erase that night by confronting her, which ended up with me leaving a fucking hickey on her neck. I honestly just wanted to get it out of my system and move on.

What I didn't expect was for this stupid pull between us to keep getting stronger every time we crossed paths.

I finally focused on my cardio routine, and a few minutes later, I started to notice Kaia slowing down with her jog and starting to walk instead.

I did the same thing and then saw her pull off her headphones and finally look in my direction. I turned my head to the side, and our eyes immediately locked.

Hers suddenly rounded in surprise the minute she saw me.

"What the hell? How are you everywhere?" She whispered fiercely at me.

I chuckled and glanced around the room.

"It's a gym."

She immediately narrowed her eyes at me.

"Are you following me?" She questioned me with a little suspicion in her tone that almost made me burst out laughing.

"Again, it's a gym." I repeated with a clear tone. "That belongs to the school, and everyone is allowed to be here."

She continued glaring at me.

"Get that delusional brain checked out, Lilian. No one is here because of you."

She scoffed and turned away. I smirked at her and watched her press the timer a couple of times before she started running again.

"Well, since we're both here now, we might as well address the elephant in the room." She stated while throwing a sharp glance in my way. "Don't talk about what happened that night, so let's just pretend it never happened. Are we clear?"

I stifled back a laugh and braced my arms on each side of the handrails while focusing my attention on her.

"What if I don't want to?"

Her head quickly snapped in my direction, and her eyes glared straight at me.

"I don't care what you want. It's never going to happen again, and you and I will keep our distance from each other like we used to before. Whatever happened that night is already a distant memory to me."

How cute

I pressed the stop button, hopped off my treadmill, and paused right before hers. I reached in and also pressed the red button on her treadmill to make her stop as well.

"Let's recreate more then."

She started to slow down just as her treadmill does the same before it came to a complete stop. She braced her hands on her hips and fully turned around to face me.

Since the treadmills are a little high and she was still standing on them, it made her appear taller than me since I was standing on the ground.

I found myself struggling to breathe when she suddenly faced me. Her eyes glared down at me, and I quickly looked somewhere else to avoid them, but I was not looking away from her.

I was taking notes about everything else;

Like the sweat that dotted her golden brown skin, the hair tendrils that fell freely around her face, even the way her chest was heaving up and down because she was breathing really heavily.

And that goddamn hickey.

I did that.

That was me...

I left my mark on her before she was even mine.

God, the things I would do to have my lips and hands around her body again...

My eyes slowly refocused on her face again. Everything around me started to fade into the background, and all I could see was....her.

Her lips are moving, but the words are not reaching my ears. I could tell she was angry with me and was definitely saying something that could bruise an ego or the heart, but fuck it.

I am mesmerized by the sight in front of me.

"Okay, not gonna lie, you look so hot right now." I blurted out without a second thought.

The expression on her face suddenly changed to confusion and then to surprise.

Before I could grab the chance to retract my words, she jumped off the treadmill and pushed past me while walking away.

I stared at the empty spot she had left while smiling to myself before hopping back on my treadmill and continuing with my cardio exercise.

Well, at least she didn't say anything back to deny it. I know she felt it too.

No matter what she says or how many guys she goes out with, she will never be able to run from it.

And I will take every chance I get to keep reminding her of that until she caves.