fool (lester averman)

chapter twenty

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chapter twenty: russ tyler, #56

a/n:

rory and charlie are my little babies.

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After breakfast that morning, Rory, even if she's still so tired that she feels nauseous, goes to the gym in the vain hope she might tire herself out. Bombay's been keeping a log of how much time they've been spending in there, anyway, so, even if she's already gone over her quota for that week, she figured she'd kill two birds with one stone.

Running a steady pace on one of the treadmills, she tries to focus on the words to a song from Face to Face by The Kinks instead of the wall in front of her. She wonders who ever thought a wall of mirrors was a good idea for a gym as she glares down at the buttons on the panel in front of her. Did they ever think about how harmful it was? Did they ever consider the fact that people might not want to see themselves in this state? Did they even care? Her deceitful eyes drift up to the reflective surface as she gets lost in thought. While her knee only hurts when she's overusing it, her face is taking a while to heal. The bruise is more blue than it is purple, now, but it's still so painstaking against her pale skin that she can't not look at it.

Forcing herself to ignore it (and her eye bags), she figures she looks decent for a girl with less than a few hours of sleep under her belt.

She hopes so, at least.

Charlie's face enters her point of view abruptly and shocks her out of her reverie. He's jumped up on the front of her machine so he could look her in the eye, holding onto the panel to keep steady, and smiles sheepishly.

"Hi?"

"Hey."

"What are you doing?" She pants, struggling to take off her headset and keep up her pace at the same time.

"I have this idea to bounce off you." He says innocently and waits for her to nod before he continues. "So, with Adam benched, we have a seat to fill, right?"

"Right..."

"Well, if we don't want you or Guy to have to play twice as hard to compensate as the remaining best scorers on the team, we'll need a new player. I have an idea on who to pick."

Rory stops running, standing on either side of the belt, and stares at him with pinched brows.

Shouldn't Hendrix have a reserve of extra kids for this exact scenario?

"And?" She asks. "Do you need me to, like, talk to my dad so he can make Tibbles do something?"

"No."

"Then why do you need my help?"

"Russ Tyler thinks you're neat."

Her shoulders deflate as she picks her water bottle up to take a sip. "Charlie, I don't know about this. I just wanted to take a nap..."

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For the second time in her life, Rory slides to a stop in front of basketball courts in downtown Los Angeles and considers leaving Charlie for dead. She's not entirely sure how he convinced her to finish up at the gym, get her roller skates, and follow him out here, but she's going to punch him whenever she does figure it out.