down bad crying at the gym

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“Man, what the hell. Sure. I don’t think you’re cool. Whatever you say,” Scotty rolled his eyes, smirking at her now. Whatever mood he was in, he found himself lightening up just a little now that he’d realised how unsure of herself Sam was. If she didn’t wanna believe him, then whatever. He wasn’t about to needle her into accepting his compliments, even if they were true. 

Something shifted in Sam as she listened to him, her eyes widening and her cheeks flushed. A switch had flipped inside of her and, while Scotty still didn’t understand quite what was happening, it seemed his words were finally reaching her, in some capacity or another. It wasn’t much, her voice still barely more than a grumble, but he’d take what he could get. Progress was progress. 

He waited patiently, deciding that it was better to let her find her own voice than to bully her into returning his sentiment. Sam didn’t seem much like the type to dish out compliments or have heart to hearts in the middle of the gym, but he hoped he was getting through to her, even just a little. He really did wanna be friends with Sam, if she’d let him. She didn’t need to know that he also thought she was a total smoke show, and that his pathetic attempts at flirting came with a lot of intent. 

“You think I’m cool, huh? Like, are we talking Glen Powell in Top Gun cool, or cartoon sun wearing sunglasses cool? Just so I know where I stand,” Scotty teased, his mild smirk now stretching wide into a grin. 

He could see how much it pained her to even say those words, and a better man might have given her a break and backed off. A kinder man might have put her out of her misery and let her off the hook. Unfortunately, today, Scotty didn’t feel a whole lot like either of those guys. Instead, he was beaming at her, eating up every word she said like she’d just offered him up a whole box of Dunkin’s finest. 

“Hey, don’t sweat it, baby girl. I’ve had a weird ass morning too, if it makes you feel any better,” Scotty offered a slight olive branch as he took two slow steps towards her, bridging the gap. It felt safe to do so now, now that he knew Sam didn’t wanna sock him across the mouth. “I’ve got a lot of friends, and call me greedy but I’m always looking for more.” 

Glancing around them at the empty room, he shrugged. The boxing room was still quiet, bar the two of them. Maybe nobody wanted to pummel a piece of leather quite as much as they did so early into the day, but Scotty wasn’t complaining. If it allowed him a little down time with Sam, he’d take the win. 

“You wanna talk about your shitty morning? Or d’you wanna spot each other while we beat the shit outta these bags?” 

The smile she was trying her damndest to fight was threatening to expose her though.

“I’ve never seen Top Gun so I don’t know who that is,” she told him simply. It was her dad’s favourite movie and so she’d boycotted it on principle. The idea of having something to bond with her dad over shouldn’t fill her with so much dread, she was sure, so she had avoided finding common ground with him at all costs.

The moment Scotty stepped forwards, Sam cautioned herself not to react. She kept her eyes level with the line of his shoulders, knowing that if she looked up her pupils would be dilated and everything she felt at that moment - nerves, anxiety, impatience, and something else she wouldn’t dignify with a label - was sure to be written across her face. She felt the way her heart lurched at the casual way he dropped another ‘baby girl’ her way, citing that he could always use more friends. He said it so smoothly, in such a casual tone, that Sam desperately wanted to find fault with his delivery. But there was none. He was just… effortlessly charismatic. Sam had no idea how he did it, and couldn’t work out if the oppressive feeling that weighed above her right now was envy or something else.

Admiration, maybe. That felt less mortifying to admit.

“Sounds like you’re being greedy to me,” Sam said, attempting to force the words out as playfully as she could. They sounded garbled and she immediately wanted to smack herself in the face. A failed attempt at teasing. God, if she was being honest with herself, maybe she’d even been trying to flirt. Naturally, she humbled herself quickly and was left with her cheeks flushing redder than ever.

“I…” She finally lifted her gaze, meeting Scotty’s eyes. In reality, the absolute last thing she should want is to tell Scotty about her crappy morning. About her dad, about the prison visits, about the rattling subway carrying her back into the city and the way she always returned feeling heavier than ever. She shouldn’t want to tell him any of that but his eyes were molten brown, staring into hers with such an intensity it made her skin feel like it was on fire. She inhaled shakily, opening her mouth.

Her watch let out a shrill beeping noise. Eyes snapping down to it, she read the message on it and quickly slammed her palm down on top of the watch face. Anything to stop Scotty from seeing the warning about her heart rate being too high.

“Uh. Yeah. Punching shit sounds good right now,” she said, quickly side-stepping around Scotty to face the bag in front of her instead. Immediately, she squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a frustrated ‘fuck!’ into the air.

“You want to go first?” she asked, awkwardly clearing her throat.

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Scotty had spent his high school and college years surrounded by footballers and cheerleaders, nerds and academics, and anybody that fell somewhere in between. He’d been popular, but he’d also gotten along with everyone. He never felt like he needed to spend every waking minute with somebody to value their company or consider them a friend, which he figured was where he’d gone wrong with Sam. He liked her, found her genuinely funny whenever they were in a group setting, and wanted to get to know her better. Scotty had always assumed that their shared interest in boxing might be a common ground, or maybe even his engine, but he was still fucking things up. He couldn’t quite get a handle on her, and he was starting to realise he’d been misreading her this whole time. It seemed, at this point, that Sam didn’t want to be his friend. 

“Yeah, fair enough. Stupid. My bad,” Scotty mumbled, feeling a little foolish. 

Had she really just implied he was stupid?  He wasn’t sure how he could dig himself a bigger hole, but he was sure he’d manage it somehow. Discomfort prickled at his skin, itching away beneath the surface, and he wondered if the best thing to do now was just leave. His day had been doomed from the moment he’d woken up, why was he putting off the inevitable and making it worse? He never should have subjected Sam to his weird, shitty mood. 

Scotty was so wrapped up in his own pity party that he almost missed the latter half of what she was saying. His ears pricked up and his brow furrowed as he looked back at Sam, interest piqued. Shame burrowed itself deep into his chest as he looked at the genuine confusion on her face and he kicked himself internally. Sam wasn’t trying to berate him or make him feel bad – there he’d gone again, making everything about himself. She seemed legitimately curious, as though she couldn’t understand why he’d want to be her friend. 

The realisation hit him like a ton of bricks. 

“Because I think you’re fucking cool, that’s why,” Scotty told her honestly. “I think you’re funny an’ I enjoy watching you and Ives gripe at each other, ‘specially ‘cause I know that girl would die for you even if she’d never admit it.” 

He shook his head, quietly amused. Ivy put up a lot of walls, but she loved passionately and she was fiercely loyal. He got the impression that Sam might be a lot more like her than they both cared to admit. 

“Whatever, I dunno. I wanna get to know you, that’s all,” he shrugged. “Is that so bad?” 

She didn’t want to stand here and bravely try and see this exchange through to the bitter end. She would much rather mumble out an excuse to take her leave and pummel her frustrations out on a punching bag instead. Sand and leather and her own two fists. That seemed easier than the gargantuan task of looking Scotty in the eye right now.

The last thing she wanted was for Scotty to reach for a kind lie about why he wanted to be friends with her, past the social politeness of being nice to a friend of a friend. 

“You don’t think I’m cool,” she blurted out. Automatically and way, way too stubbornly.

Her blush only intensified when she realised how deliberate she must sound. To Scotty, it probably looked like she was deflecting his compliment just to be a pain in the ass, when in reality it was because she didn’t know how the hell to even accept it.

However, as Scotty mentioned her relationship with Ivy, Sam’s eyes widened a little. So he had caught onto their dynamic, watched it, even. He’d paid attention.

Her heart thudded underneath her tank top. Quickly, she looked down, knowing her cheeks were as red right now as they would normally be at the end of a workout. Not at the beginning when she hadn’t even warmed up yet. 

“It’s not bad,” she mumbled in answer to his question. Truthfully, she didn’t think it was bad at all that Scotty wanted to get to know her, she just hadn’t realised that anytime he insisted on doing so, he was actually being genuine. She’d always thought he’d seen being nice to her as some sort of obligation because she was best friends with Amy and lived with Ivy. She’d nursed her stupid, pathetic crush on him from afar and written him off as entirely out of her league. Which he absolutely still was in that area, probably far too busy planning his future space-themed wedding with Laura Timlin. But maybe he was serious when he said he wanted to be friends.

She knew that it was pushing her down a path that would only lead to further humiliation on her end. For the most part, Sam’s feelings were spiky and brittle, but they were still real. And she was still going to feel every degree of torture that would be inflicted on her when being in close proximity with the guy she liked while he insisted they were friends.

But she’d already insulted Scotty enough today to be even more of a dick to him.

“Sorry,” she said eventually. Her brows were furrowed together, like the weight of being so honest was pushing them further and further down her forehead. She shook her head minutely.

“I’m not trying to be an asshole. I think you’re… cool too,” she said, deliberately wincing so he would know just how uncool she thought the descriptor was. Finally looking up at him, she offered him a lame shrug. “I’ve just had a weird day and… That part doesn’t matter. I just didn’t think you would… You’ve got loads of friends already. So. Yeah.”

Try as he might, he didn’t know how to set those feelings aside. Scotty hated feeling so weak and useless. He hated acting like a kicked puppy the moment he felt someone pulling away, but it was instinct. At this point, it was ingrained into his DNA. How could there not be something broken and wrong inside of him? A pretty girl in a club or a hot guy on a hike, those were the rejections he could handle. Strangers with no stakes in any of it. It was clean cut and simple. Friends and partners were different. Those were the people that knew him intrinsically, had seen the best and worst of him and decided they didn’t want any of it anymore. 

So, as Sam snatched her hand from him and cradled it to her chest as though he was a feral dog, yapping at her wrist, snarling and baring his teeth, he couldn’t help but feel that similar sting of rejection. His stomach churned as he took a sudden step back, reflexes telling him to retreat, retreat, retreat. Scotty liked flirting with beautiful women, but he knew where to draw the line. He wouldn’t push Sam to the point of discomfort – no more than he already had, it seemed. 

Sam had made her stance clear, and Scotty had misread the room. She was working, and she didn’t want to swap shifts to come see his fight. She didn’t want him touching her, not even after accepting his help, and it seemed his conversational attempts weren’t entirely welcome either. 

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to...” he trailed off, clearing his throat as he ducked his head low, avoiding her gaze. 

A tall and hulking Scotty Carter looking timid and scolded in the face of a beautiful woman was starting to become the story of his life. Maybe that was another thing he needed to speak to his therapist about. Did he have a kink he wasn’t aware of? Was this some sort of humiliation ritual? 

He didn’t allow himself too much time to mull that thought over as he heard the last of what Sam had to say, before twisting her body away from his. His heart plummeted in his chest, sinking all the way down into his stomach as a lump formed in his throat. Right, that made it abundantly clear, at least. Sam was Ivy’s roommate, sure, but he’d obviously been wrong in mistaking her for a friend. Flirting and charisma aside, whatever headway he thought he’d made in befriending Sam had all been in his head. 

“Right. Yeah, okay. Shit, my bad,” Scotty murmured, visibly uncomfortable now. 

He grimaced as he looked around them at the otherwise empty room, speed bags rigid as they stood untouched, paddles abandoned on the ground where their last users hadn’t put them away. He’d hoped to let off some steam today of all days, but now he wondered if it was best to just write the whole day off and leave Sam to it. 

“So, do you want me to, like, stop showing up to see Ives?” Scotty asked abruptly, suddenly fixated on that final detail. Have I been making Sam uncomfortable this whole time? “I guess I kinda stupidly thought you an’ I were friends, but...” 

It meant that now, after a thrilling five minutes of having Scotty carefully wrap her hands for her and sending her heart into overdrive, she could do nothing but stare at him, eyes darting everywhere but his face. Sam rarely did eye contact, but especially not when she was embarrassed.

At his question, her eyebrows jumped. Was he really suggesting that he avoid hanging out with Ivy completely just because Sam couldn’t be normal for five fucking seconds?

“What?” she asked dumbly. She had a feeling that if Ivy caught onto what had transpired, she’d give Sam one hell of a stink-eye. Scotty had been Ivy’s friend long before Sam had come along. She didn’t want her roommate to think that she was suddenly dictating who could and couldn’t come hang out at their apartment anymore.

Feeling like the situation had spiralled drastically out of hand, all because she didn’t know how to handle anything past brief impassivity from anyone other than Flynn, Jay or Amy, Sam frowned in confusion at Scotty’s words, quiet as they were.

“I mean… we know each other but it’s not like we ever hang out. Just the two of us,” she pointed out. As far as Sam was concerned, that was what constituted a solid friendship, being able to hang out with someone one on one without any awkward silences. It was probably why she could count the number of friends she actually had on one hand.

She wanted to reach up and tuck her hair behind her ears for something to do, only to remember the ponytail she’d scraped it into. Her fingers floated uselessly around her earlobes and she dropped them, eyes dotting between all the gym equipment scattered around them. 

“You don’t have to… I mean, it’s stupid to think you can’t come visit Ivy anymore,” she said defensively. “I didn’t realise you thought we were friends. I don’t- why?”

Her eyes had grown wide, genuine confusion seeping into her tone. She lifted her head to look at Scotty. 

“I don’t get it.”

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Scotty laughed, quietly endeared. The way Sam’s hand seemed to jolt at his touch made him wanna tease her further, testing both their limits as his thumb swiped along the lengths of her fingers. He guessed he’d made the right decision in showing up at the gym, mood be damned. There was something about Sam that always worked to lighten his mood. Even now, as she avoided eye contact, he felt something stir in the pit of his stomach. He wondered if she knew how hot she looked right now, her teeth sinking into her lower lip in a way that could only be described as sexy, her cheeks flushed an adorable shade of pink. His own friends had teased him something crazy about Sam’s alleged crush on him and while he didn’t think there was a whole lot of truth to it – he doubted there were any real feelings on Sam’s end past fleeting attraction – he felt giddy any time the opportunity to flirt with her arose. 

“Working, huh? You can’t convince anyone to cover for you?” Scotty asked. He didn’t bother hiding the disappointment on his face as he idly wrapped tape around her hand. Releasing his hold on her, he held out his palm in askance, waiting for her to drop her other hand into his. Picking up where he left off, he began taping her other hand as he glanced up at her, shooting her a cheeky wink. “For me?” 

He deliberated over her question before giving a quick nod. No doubt Laura, Cass, Amy, Max and the whole gang would be there. They usually were, maybe with the exception of Lou. He was always so busy with author events and cosy little hangouts with Wardo – while they both unconvincingly acted like they weren’t still madly in love – but he always sent his best wishes. It was nice having a group of buddies he knew would always show up, and there was no ignoring the fact that Laura was usually ringside with the biggest foam-finger she could find. Not that she especially liked the violence of it all, and the sharp clang of the bell and the raucous cries of the crowd was usually murder on her hearing aids, but she showed up nonetheless. For that alone, she was always the first in his line of sight for a victory cuddle. 

“Aw, yeah, they’re always pretty good to show up,” he conceded. He’d never in a million years deny the love and support his friends gave to him, not when he barely deserved it in the first place. Scotty still had no idea what was forcing any of them to stick around for so long, just waiting for the rug to be pulled out from underneath him. 

Finally, he came to a stop with her second hand, thumb smoothing the edges of the tape down around her skin. Her attention still seemed a little distant, her gaze far away, and Scotty wondered if she was as in her own head now as he had been all morning too. Hoping to coax her back into the real world, he drew her hand up a little higher, dipping his head as he pressed a tender kiss to her still-exposed fingertips. 

“All done, baby girl. So, if not this weekend, when am I gonna get to see you, huh? And before you say it, the gym and yours and Ive’s apartment doesn’t count.” 

For what it was worth, Scotty was pretty good at pretending to be sad that she couldn’t make it to his fight. If Sam didn’t know any better, she might have believed he was genuinely disappointed. 

Instead, she just lifted one shoulder in a soft shrug as he began taping up her other hand.

“No. Sorry. I don’t… Jay likes to keep his shifts the same,” she explained. It was a half-truth. Jay had been talking about how he wanted to make sure Devi got used to a certain routine and swapping shifts would throw that out of whack, but he was also an interfering shithead who’d made a comment or two about how much Sam needed to get laid. He’d have probably swapped if she asked him to. And that was without the Flynn of it all, who was so determined for Sam to jump into bed with Scotty that she wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up at the garage in a pair of coveralls and a wrench, ready to get to work without the faintest bit of knowledge of how to do something as simple as changing a filter. 

Best not to let either of the boys know about this.

Too busy thinking about how much Jay and Flynn would rag on her for this, and how she really didn’t want to end up at the fight, a complete outlier while she watched Laura and Scotty fawn over each other, she missed the way that Soctty had lifted her hand. Up until he pressed his lips to her fingers and she jumped at once.

Her eyes widened as she stared at him, knowing that the only thing to stop her naked shock from spiraling into embarrassment was to force it in another direction. As was her go-to, hot-headed from day dot, she frowned instead and yanked her hand back.

“What are you doing?” she asked, heart racing and her cheeks far too flushed. 

Once more, she was struck by the consideration that Scotty was making fun of her. She knew he didn’t seem like the type, but he was a natural flirt who probably did enjoy getting a bit of a rise from the awkward girl who could barely string a sentence together whenever she was near him. Her stupid blush and complete lack of vocabulary probably did wonders for his ego. It made sense that he wanted to see how far he could push her.

Cradling her hand to her chest, fingertips tingling in a way that made her wish for the ground to swallow her up and die, she shook her head at his question, not even sure what kind of answer he wanted to hear.

“I dunno. Like, I’m usually just here or at the garage so, like, yeah. I don’t…”

Smart-mouthed when she didn’t need to be and struck dumb when she wanted to talk, Sam opened and closed her mouth a few times before forcefully looking away from Scotty. 

“We don’t hang out,” she said, eventually. And far, far too bluntly.

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