It sucked, and it was time to call his friend out on it.

Tank leaned back on the bench and Reed handed him the weight.

He pumped out his reps fast and hard, but when he was finished, Reed didn’t take the bar.

“Hey. Wake up,” he said.

“I’m wide-awake,” Reed said.

“Well, take the bar.” Tank’s crazy big biceps started to wobble under the two hundred pounds. “Reed, what the fuck, man?”

Reed took it and set it back. He didn’t want to crush his friend, just get through to his big skull.

Sitting up, Tank shot him a look as he wiped his face with a towel. “You pissed at me now?”

He was pissed at everything and everyone lately. Keeping his mouth shut was what he wanted to do, but he couldn’t. “Why do you think it’s okay to string Cass along like this?”

His voice echoed off the concrete walls, and several people running on treadmills glanced their way.

“Cass and I are friends,” Tank said. His tone clearly revealed that he thought this was none of Reed’s business.

Maybe it wasn’t. But right now he needed to try to make sense of this whole love bullshit. If people cared about one another, they should be together. No excuses, no running away.

He couldn’t get Erika to see that and it was too late for his father to realize it, but maybe his friend and sister had a chance.

“You know she wants more than that,” he said, quieter this time. Everyone knew everyone in Wild River and Cassie would kick his ass if she knew he was interfering.

“She knows I’m not able to give more. Reed, I’ve never mislead your sister.” Tank guzzled some water from his bottle, then added more weight to the bench. “I’ve always been straightforward and honest with her.”

“But you care about her?”

“Of course.”

“So, don’t you think she deserves to hear the truth—that you’re just not into her that way? Let her move on?”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Tank removed the weights and put them back. “I’m done.”

With the conversation, too, apparently. But Reed wasn’t. “It’s not fair to her.”

“Life isn’t exactly fair to any of us. Look, man, just because people can’t commit the way you want them to, doesn’t mean the feelings aren’t there. And just because you’re feeling something real for the first time and shit’s not working out for you, don’t take it out on the rest of us who have been struggling with the same complicated shit for a long time.”

Reed swallowed hard. His buddy was right. His relationship with Cassie was none of his business. “I just don’t want to see Cassie get hurt.”