Page 73 of Safe Hands

“No,” Beth said.

Jax blinked. “No?”

“No, thank you. I’m flattered. But not now.”

“Can I ask why?”

Beth slid the tally counter into her pocket, taking her time, as if it were a far more complicated piece of equipment than it was.

“Because it’s never just Tuesdays and Saturdays,” she said. “It’s the group chat at eleven at night because someone’s been dumped before a cup tie. It’s the mum who wants a quiet word about playing time. It’s the girl who stops turning up, and nobody knows why, and you can’t stop thinking about it.” She smiled, thin and polite. “It’s caring whether they win. I’ve done my caring.”

Her partner touched Jax’s arm. Jax held up both hands.

“Okay. I hear you. Door’s open, though.”

“I know where the door is.”

Jax nodded, gracious in defeat, and steered her partner towards the coffee. Carly waited until they were out of earshot.

“You’d be good,” she said.

“I was good. That’s rather the point.” Beth wasn’t looking at her. She was looking at the gym floor, at the families on the rowing machines and the girls from the team bickering over the leg press. “I was good at it right up until everything else fell apart. It’s the last thing I had that was mine.”

“So have it back.”

“And then what?” Beth kept her voice level, but her hand had stayed in her pocket, wrapped around the counter. “If I take that, this isn’t a stopgap anymore, is it? This is my life. A gym, a clipboard, and a bunch of teenagers on a Saturday. I’d have to admit I want it.” She gave a short, dry laugh. “And then I’d have to keep wanting it, and you know how well that’s gone for me historically.”

“Beth.”

“Don’t. Dad asked you to take a directorship and you took it. I told him not yet. Not yet is a perfectly good answer. It’s served me very well.”

She walked off towards the leg press, where one of the team was attempting a weight that was going to end in tears, and corrected her form without breaking stride.

Carly stood at reception with the fact of it. She’d been wrong. Not about Beth being good, but about Beth being ready. She’d announced it in front of Jax as if knowing someone well meant you got to decide what they could carry.

From the studio came a sudden, terrible grinding noise, followed by a squeal like a goose being strangled, and then a cheer. The final spin class of the day had just lost a bike.

Carly closed her eyes. Then she went to deal with it.

The bike had died in the back row, pedals locked and smoking faintly, its rider hopping off with the delight of someone who now had a story for the pub. The instructor finished the last song on the bike beside it, and by the time the music stopped, the doors were swinging with people leaving, flushed and chatty, clutching flyers and free protein bars and, in at least two cases, Jenna’s phone number.

Carly crouched by the dead bike, released the brake, and began hauling it towards the storeroom. It weighed roughly as much as a small car and had clearly decided to resist on principle.

Beth wandered over with a cup of tea and absolutely no intention of helping.

“That was easy in the end,” she said.

Carly gestured at the sweat marks on her T-shirt. “I know. It’s hard to work out where these came from.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.”

“And hard work doesn’t suit you, apparently.”

Beth shrugged. “I told you before, my role is more high-level administrative. On that note, should I be drawing up workplace romance policies, or…?”

Carly stopped pulling. “What do you mean by that?”

Beth tipped her mug towards the front doors.