Pumped (Gymbos #2)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

BUTCH

You wouldn’t think it would be possible to get bored surrounded by an endless supply of free weights and buff, sweaty dudes preening and grunting, but some mornings I need more.

“Come on, one round.” I lean over the desk and wiggle my fingers at Silas to tempt him. “I’ll even throw in a protein shake.”

“What if he already had his protein shake this morning?” Fender smirks and waggles his eyebrows, leaning his shoulder against the wall a few feet behind Silas.

I frown and cock my head, then glance at the clock hanging on the wall.

“Silas always has his protein shake for lunch. Breakfast is a six egg and veggie omelet. He’s told us his meal plan, like, a hundred times,” I point out.

“No, I meant…” Fender shakes his head and laughs without finishing his sentence.

“I haven’t had a protein shake of any kind yet this morning… or in months, for that matter,” Silas mutters. “But I don’t have time to play with you. I have a client coming in any second.”

“But I’m bored.” I turn my attention firmly back to Fender and give him a toothy smile while doing the finger wiggling thing again. “How about you? Protein shake whether you win or lose.”

“No way. You almost tore my arm out of the socket last time. If you’re bored, you can come back to the ring and let me practice some new moves on you though,” he offers.

I cringe and take a step back instinctively. Last time I fell for that, Fender spent two hours putting me in various headlocks and chokeholds. “Pass.”

AJ and Callan are both busy with clients, so they’re useless to me.

I have half an hour until my next client comes in, which is the exact wrong amount of time to kill.

It’s not long enough to get into anything but too long to just stand here and wait.

I drum my fingers on the desk and consider my options.

“Why don’t you do some push-ups or something?” Silas suggests.

“Yeah, okay.” It’s as good of an idea as anything else, so I take another step away from the desk and drop into position right there.

Actually, this was better than a good idea, it was a great idea.

I grunt out the count under my breath with each up, and I let the burn in my muscles chase away the boredom that was crushing me.

If you ask me, there’s nothing better than the feeling of working your body, pushing yourself until you start to sweat and you’re not sure you can keep going, and then crashing right through that wall to the other side.

Except for sex. Sex is better. But since that isn’t an option to bust the boredom this morning, I’ll settle for push-ups.

There’s a whoosh behind me as the door opens and the sound of traffic from outside rushes in, along with the cool fall breeze. It’s probably Silas’s client, but I glance up anyway without breaking my rhythm.

“Hey, welcome to Sweat,” I grunt on autopilot as I push myself up again.

The guy standing in the doorway looks up from the phone in his hand with wide eyes.

“This… isn’t the bakery.”

I bark out a laugh and jump to my feet. This isn’t Silas’s client, which means he’s fair game to play with.

Now that I’m on my feet and getting a good look at him, it’s obvious he didn’t mean to come to Sweat.

He’s dressed in a knit sweater and a pair of khaki slacks, with a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and no gym bag in sight.

He looks around again like he’s expecting the gym equipment to disappear and be replaced with a cake display.

“Want to arm wrestle?”

“What?” He sputters a laugh and tugs nervously on the strap of his bag, his gaze darting around like he’s expecting to find someone filming his reaction for one of those shitty TikTok prank channels.

I hold up my arm and wiggle my fingers in the same way I did when I tried to tempt the guys earlier.

“Arm wrestling,” I say again. “I’ve been trying to get someone to throw down with me all morning, but they’re all too chickenshit to try.”

“The word you’re looking for is ‘mature,’” AJ shouts from one of the treadmills where he’s running side by side with his training client without breaking his stride. “We’re too mature to arm wrestle you.”

I snort and roll my eyes. “I think they’re scared,” I lower my voice to whisper to the new guy.

He laughs again and his cheeks turn a light shade of pink.

“Can you blame them?” he mutters, eyeing my arms.

I flex just a little and grin.

“One match?” I barter. “And then I’ll walk with you across the street to Sweet, which is actually the bakery, and buy you whatever you want.”

He stares at me for a few seconds, and I do my best to hold still while I wait for his answer. He might be onto something actually—I could definitely go for a cupcake, macros be damned.

He drags his tongue along his bottom lip, looks around one more time, then nods.

“Sure. Why the hell not?” He unloops his bag from over his shoulders and takes a step closer. “It’s been ages since I’ve been properly humiliated. I think I’m due.”

“That’s the spirit,” Fender calls from where he’s balancing on a gym ball a few yards away.

“Come on, don’t be shy.” I smirk and prop my elbow up on the desk, wiggling my fingers again to coax him over.

His blush deepens and my gut dances with interest.

“I’ve never arm wrestled before,” he confesses, setting his messenger bag down next to the desk before shuffling forward.

“Never?” My eyebrows fly up. “My mom used to pay my brothers and me a quarter for every arm wrestling match.”

He lets out a stuttering laugh. “To arm wrestle her or each other?”

“Each other. Now that you mention it though, I think she could have taken any one of us when she was in her prime.”

“I thought that answer would clear some things up, but it didn’t. Why did she pay you to arm wrestle each other?” He screws up his face like he’s trying to work out the math on the whole thing.

I shrug. “I guess because it was less destructive than actual wrestling. One time, my older brother, Georgie, power bombed me onto the couch and the whole damn thing cracked in half.”

“Power…” he mutters and shakes his head. “Well, I’m an only child, so no arm wrestling side hustle for me growing up. I just kindly ask that you don’t break my wrist. I can’t afford a hospital bill or weeks spent in a cast.”

I chuckle at his overly polite request.

“I’ve hardly ever injured anyone arm wrestling,” I assure him.

He doesn’t look all that convinced, but he matches my position anyway with one arm up on the counter, facing me. His palm is a little sweaty when our hands connect, but then again, so is mine. His hand feels a lot softer than mine; no calluses from years of weightlifting, just nice, smooth skin.

“Ready?” I check, and he nods. “Alright, go.”

As obnoxious as I’ve been all morning trying to get everyone and anyone to go a round or two with me, I’m not just trying to flatten him in two seconds so I can gloat and shit.

I give him an easy pressure to counter his immediate burst, but not enough to take him down.

His face isn’t just pink now, it’s immediately flushed with exertion, his nostrils flaring and his teeth gritted.

“Remember to breathe.”

He nods and drags in a full breath, giving me a little more effort.

“You want to look at your hand, the quickest way to lose is to let go of your focus,” I coach. “And be careful to use your full body weight, not just your shoulder or your wrist, that’s how injuries happen.”

He wheezes an amused sound and his strength falters. I hold steady, waiting for him to get back at it though.

“I’m pretty sure your arm alone weighs more than my whole body.”

I crack a smile and grip his hand just a little tighter. “Maybe. But there’s more to arm wrestling than pure strength. Now, keep your shoulder lined up and I want you to sink your body weight down, really give it everything you’ve got.”

A cute little growl slips out of his throat as he does as I say, his face getting a little redder and a few beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

“Good, good, good. Look at that. See? You’re stronger than you thought.” I cheer him on, letting my arm sink almost all the way to the table under his effort until the very last second, and then I give it some power and carefully slam his hand down.

Just because I’m coaching him, doesn’t mean I have to let him win. He stumbles a little and then catches himself on the desk, using his free hand to brush his curls back.

“Well, that was… uh… interesting,” he says.

“Thanks for being a good sport.” I pat him roughly on the shoulder. “And now we’ve earned a trip to the bakery. Let’s go.”

PERCY

I have no clue what just happened. One second, I was walking down the street, distracted by an email from one of the students in the class I TA, vaguely looking for the new bakery that just opened, and now some big, blond gorilla has his arm around me after crushing me in an arm wrestling match.

“I didn’t catch your name, by the way,” he says, punching the button for the walk signal on the corner with more force than necessary. No wonder these damn things are always broken if other people are treating them like that.

“Percy.” I suddenly wish I’d picked a less nerdy name. I always thought the name fit me, it felt right, but now that I’m saying it out loud to a gym himbo—gymbo?—it sounds like I’m a scrawny academic… which, okay, I guess is accurate.

He furrows his brow and scratches his chin with his free hand. “Percy,” he echoes. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

“It’s a name. You use it to address the person.” The sarcasm drips from my tongue and I immediately feel like a dick. I don’t know this guy well enough to be giving him shit. My best friend Juno always tells me this is why I have trouble making friends. “Sorry, that was—”

He laughs loudly, cutting off my apology.

The light changes and he tightens his grip on my shoulder, leading me across the street.

I can see now where I went wrong. Sweet is directly across from Sweat, which explains how I ended up in a gym for literally the first time in my entire life.

Well, if you don’t count gym class, which I don’t since I spent as much time as possible begging the nurse for notes to get me out of it.

“I’m Butch.” He ignores the ribbing I gave him.

“Butch.” I echo his name the same way he did with mine. Yeah, that name checks out. It’s almost too perfect, actually. Maybe if I’d picked a name like Butch I could have inspired myself to be something other than a string bean bookworm.

“What’s your last name?” His brow is furrowed like he’s thinking really hard about something as he pulls the door open and finally drops his arm from around my shoulders.

Is it weird that I kind of miss the musky scent of his sweat now that there’s some space between us?

“Rockton.”

His smile brightens again like a puppy being offered a treat.

“Hell yeah. Rock, Rocky, The Rock,” he rattles off, balling up his fist and giving me a pretend slug to the stomach.

“What?” I stumble back an inch instinctively.

“Don’t worry, it’ll grow on you.”

“What will?”

He laughs again without answering my question. Maybe all those steroids have given him brain damage or something. He seems nice, at least.

“Oh, fuck me sideways and call me Sally, they have key lime cupcakes. I’m going to have to warn Xeno that Stud Muffin has some major competition.”

“What?” I sputter yet another laugh. Seriously, is this big dope for real?

“What?” he says, like he isn’t sure which part of that nonsense sentence might need clarification.

We get up to the counter and he orders a key lime cupcake while I ask for a couple of Danishes, a coffee, and a chai tea.

“You don’t have to pay for mine. I’m picking up for my roommate too.” I wave Butch off when he reaches for his wallet.

“Don’t worry about it.” He slaps his card down on the counter before I get the chance to dig mine out of my messenger bag.

“Thanks,” I murmur, shifting on my feet.

The woman behind the counter hands his card back and assures us it’ll only be a few minutes. We shift over to the pickup area and I start to wonder if I’ve slipped through some kind of wormhole into an extra bizarre alternate timeline.

“You… uh… didn’t have to do that.” I fiddle with the strap on my bag. “I really didn’t mind arm wrestling you. It’ll make for a funny story.”

“Sure. You should sign up for a membership,” Butch blurts.

I don’t just laugh at that one, I double over. Me, pumping iron? Now that’s a bizarre alternate timeline if I’ve ever heard of one. It finally makes sense why he came over to the bakery with me and is acting so friendly. He must get a commission for every membership sign-up he gets.

“Oh, come on, it’s not that funny.” He lowers his voice to that same deep, purring tone he used when he was coaching me a few minutes ago, and my whole body starts to tingle.

“If you’ve never tried before, how do you know it’s not for you?

” Butch wraps his thick fingers around my nonexistent bicep and gives it a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll even throw in three free personal training sessions to start you off. ”

“Okay,” I answer breathlessly.

Wait. Did I just say that? That couldn’t have been me agreeing to not only set foot inside a gym on purpose, but also to let someone else watch me work out. Abort, abort!

I open my mouth to take it back, but Butch’s entire face lights up before I can say anything and I swear his body vibrates like a puppy wagging its tail.

The man is a behemoth. He must be the size of a gorilla and twice as strong.

That “one gorilla versus a hundred men” question floating around social media hasn’t taken men like Butch into account.

He wouldn’t even have to fight them, he could just pound on his massive chest and the gorillas would scatter. But somehow, he looks… cute?

Fuck. I can’t say no and disappoint him.

“Yeah?” he asks. “You’ll come back and sign up? Do you want to go back now?”

“No, we’re waiting for food.” I laugh.

“Oh, yeah. Duh. Plus, I have a client coming in soon. What about later? You could come back in a couple of hours? Do you live nearby?”

“I can’t today, but… um… I could come back tomorrow morning?” What the hell am I doing?

“Promise?”

“Sure, I promise.” The barista sets my drinks down along with a bag of Danishes and a small box with Butch’s cupcake. “I should probably…” I hold up my stuff and tilt my head in the general direction of my apartment.

He nods. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” I agree, still in a daze, still convinced I just accidentally made a verbal agreement to give a gym fifty dollars a month for the rest of my life, and still positive that this has been by far the strangest morning of my life.