Crawl To Me (The Millen Brothers #2)

1. Hudson

Chapter 1

Hudson

“ W e think you’d be a really great fit here, Mr Millen. We’d love for you to join our personal training team here at our gym.”

I think about the job offer in front of me for a split second and then I stand to my full height, the chair beneath me creaking, and stick out my right hand. “Thank you very much for the opportunity. I’m excited to get started.”

My new boss, Michael, stands too, slipping his palm against mine and pumping firmly. “We’re very pleased to have you on board, Hudson. We’ll get the papers printed and signed and then I can give you a tour of the place?”

I nod, fingers reaching upwards to reposition my snapback cap to face backwards on my head.

I’ve worked as a personal trainer for three different gyms in the past seven months, so I kinda have this whole signing my name on the dotted line, figuring out the logistics and then getting a tour of the place, thing down pat.

I’m not going to tell this place that though. I don’t want them getting the wrong idea and thinking there’s something up with me, because I can’t seem to be able to stay at the same gym for more than a couple of months. There’s nothing wrong with me or my work ethic, it’s just… those places never seemed to fit me right.

I fumble with the set of keys in my gym shorts pocket while I wait for Michael to return with the papers I need to date and sign; my body full of pent-up energy I’m just dying to release. I can’t sit still for more than a few minutes. It takes that long for the energy inside of me to be full to bursting before I need to move my body – either by spending my time in the gym until the sweat is pouring out of me or fucking somebody until neither of us can feel our legs.

If I’m feeling particularly restless that day, I might do both.

It calms the restless devil inside of me… but only for a little while before I have the urge to do the whole thing again.

“Okay, so I have your contract.” Michael returns with a bundle of papers, handing over the stack and a pen with hardly any ink left in the cartridge. I have to scribble in the top right-hand corner to get the ink to even flow before I can sign my name. “If you could just take a few minutes to read through the terms and conditions there, double check you’re happy with the number of hours we’re employing you for, your monthly salary, that sort of thing.”

I vaguely skim read through the wordy jargon staring back at me, ignoring the large words I don’t understand and simply scour the paragraphs and subsections for the highlighted parts – thank fuck for whoever did that – which include my hours per week and the amount I’ll be paid.

Happy with the conditions, I print and sign my full name on the dotted line, glancing up only to ask for the date; January something or other.

“Brilliant,” my new boss praises, signing off his own portion of the document when I hand the pen to him. “I’ll get these sent off to HR straight away ready for you to start on Monday morning. Any questions?”

I shake my head.

“Okay then, if you’d like to follow me and I’ll show you around.”

Michael locks his office door behind him with a jangly set of keys, leading me along the office corridor and down a set of stairs.

I’m glad to leave behind the stuffy confines of an office, filled with the permanent strong smell of coffee and the click clack of a keyboard, only to replace it with the muffled sounds of grunts and typical pop music emanating from the gym.

“So, this…” Michael swipes the pass wrapped around his wrist against a small black box just off to the side of two double doors. When the light flashes a startling green, Michael pushes through the doors with ease, allowing the sights, smells and sounds of the gym to become more pronounced. “Is the main floor.”

I breathe in the smell of sweat mixed with something distinctly lemony and antibacterial and stare out at the sea of familiar gym equipment, each of which is grouped together. The treadmills line the long wall of windows, allowing you to look outside at London beyond as you walk or jog or sprint. A young man uses one already, his arms pumping to match the speed of his feet hitting the moving conveyer belt beneath him.

The rowing machines sit together, the same for the ellipticals and the stationary bicycles; all of which are occupied by at least one person, if not more.

I glance at the time on my touchscreen watch. For a Thursday afternoon, just before 5 p.m., when most of the standard office workers finish for the day, the gym is surprisingly busy.

“We get a nice steady flow of people,” Michael remarks with a proud nod when I tell him what I’m thinking. “Of course, we get our usual peak times, usually in the morning just before 10 a.m. and again in the evenings from five onwards, just like any other gym. But there’s always someone using the equipment, we chalk it up to less and less people working a standard nine to five now, plus students and the working from home type crowd. It’s a bonus for us. It means you should have a continuous flow of clients throughout the week and sometimes on the weekend when you begin working here. Now, over here is the weightlifting area.” My eyes slide to the section of the gym Michael is pointing at, finding more people mulling about.

Two women stand beside each other, a kettlebell in their grasps, bending at their knees into a squat, while swinging the kettlebell out in front of them. A man lays down upon the leather material of the bench press, positioning his hands on the barbell above him and then releasing the long pole from its hooks. He lowers the weight down to his chest, allowing his pectoral muscles to flex under the strain, before raising the weight above his head in a single rep.

His form isn’t bad , but still, my fingers itch to go over there and correct him. His hands need to be a little bit further apart for a start and he needs a spotter above him lest he become stuck under the weight.

When I can’t take watching him another second, I allow my feet to carry me to the bench press, hovering my open palms beneath the strangers’ pulsing biceps.

“Thanks, mate,” he utters on a groan, sending me a tight-lipped smile while he does a further ten repetitions. Once he’s finished, the vein in the middle of his forehead is standing up and flicking with the pulse of fresh blood. If he were my client, I’d remind him not to push himself too hard; there’s working towards your goals and smashing them, and then there’s just pushing yourself to overwork and harm from straining.

But he’s not my client. He’s just someone who has come for a workout session in the gym, maybe to work off some of the stress from the week and my god do I know how that feels, so I keep my unsolicited advice to myself for the time being.

“I can see we’ve made the right choice in hiring you, Hudson.” Michael slaps me on the back when I return to his side, the two of us gazing out at the muscular man grabbing another metal weight round from the weight rack to add to the power rack. “I’m glad to have you on the team.”

Pride surges through me. I’m good at my job, I know I am. “Thank you.”

One of the women who’d been squatting with her kettlebells, turns around as she replaces the kettlebell with a bottle of water at her feet. She swallows while looking around, her eyes doing a double take when she spots Michael and I.

Or maybe not so much Michael.

The woman – I can’t get a read on how old she appears… older than twenty-five, younger than forty I’d say – hikes up the waistband of her gym leggings and starts towards us. For a second, I’m amused by what her opening line is going to be, but then Michael is leading me away to the free use area tucked away beside another passcode protected door.

It’s probably for the best. I’ve gotten involved with clients before and it’s never ended well. The whole close proximity is fun for a while, making it easier to find time to fool around together, but then it becomes an issue when she becomes attached and I… don’t.

The past couple of times I’ve made it crystal clear from the start – we’re fucking around, nothing more, nothing less – but shit always ends up complicated.

And I can’t fucking stand complicated.

“This is the free use area.” Michael continues his tour. “The yoga mats are stored away, but a lot of customers bring their own regardless, so most of this space is used for stretching before and after their workouts.”

My ears are trained to the words falling from my boss’ lips, but it’s hard to concentrate when I can practically feel the disappointment dripping off the tight clad, legging wearing woman now poised behind me. “I’ve also seen a fair few people use this space for tire pulling and flipping or ropes, so perhaps that’s an idea to incorporate into your plans for your clients.”

I have to forcibly hold my tongue from saying something barbed. I like this place so far, I do. It has a nice vibe to it, and the pay isn’t going to be half bad for the hours they’re employing me for. But I don’t take nicely to people telling me how I should do my job, not even my new boss. What goes on between my client and me is personal, as is the plans we make for the areas they want to tackle, be it becoming stronger, toning up or losing weight.

My client and I will decide which equipment we’ll be using and how our sessions will look together, not Michael. I’ve been a certified personal trainer for long enough; I don’t need ideas on how to put a gym plan together.

When I spot Michael waiting for an answer, I simply hum nonchalantly.

“Great! I forgot to mention, each piece of gym equipment is thoroughly sanitised. We have stations all around supplying the spray and paper towels and we ask each person to wipe down their equipment after they’ve finished using it. If you could just remind people when you’re on the gym floor.”

“Sure, boss .”

Giving me another pat on the back, Michael gestures to the open door beside the free use gym area. “Through here is the gym class area. We offer spin classes, dance, Zumba, boxing, pole… you get the idea.”

“Can I take a look?”

“Be my guest.”

The soft soles of my trainers lead me down the corridor with a mind of their own.

I peer through the first window I come across, taking stock of the empty room. Free-standing punch bags sit in two rows of three, blue safety mats lining the floor beneath them. It must be either a boxing class, or something to do with self-defence.

I take a sidestep towards the second room; finding it not as empty as the one before it. It’s a spin class by the movement of the older, grey-haired woman who is hovering above the seat of her stationary bike, legs pumping like mad beneath her, leading the small class before her. Music slips its way under the crack in the door, a song I don’t quite recognise kissing my ears as the instructor grips the handlebars of her bike, arching her back, sticking out her arse.

Jesus. I turn away before I can see any more of the woman, who is totally old enough to be my grandmother – maybe even my great -grandmother – shaking her flesh.

Room three, like room one, is also deserted for the time being – at least fifteen floor-to-ceiling poles take up space, waiting to be used.

I’m about to turn back around to find Michael, when the door to room number four catches my eye. It’s covered in a huge purple tapestry depicting a sitting buddha, seven different coloured circles dotting seven different parts of his body.

‘The Seven Chakras’ reads the script above the buddha’s head.

I feel my face scrunch up in confusion.

What the fuck is a chakra?

“Come on, girls!” I startle at the sound of a feminine voice, echoing down the otherwise quiet corridor. “Hang on, I’ll turn the music up—”

Whatever the woman was about to say is drowned out by the sudden rush of sultry pop music which begins to pulse out of one of the rooms at the end of the corridor.

I find myself peering through the window out of pure curiosity.

My lips part at the scene which greets me.

Unlike the others, room number five is packed to the rafters. Women of all shapes and sizes take up space on the floor, each wearing various degrees of clothing. Some wear tight leggings and crop tops, others skin-tight shorts and lace bralettes. A few are covered only by a leotard and tights. The one thing they all have in common is the pairs of killer heels donning their feet. Heels, which, are in the air right now as the group of women press their backs into the hardwood floor, and open their legs wide in a lewd dance portrayal of—

“Arch those backs!”

I drag my eyes from the group of scantily clad women to the sound of the commanding voice who can only be the leader of the dance class.

My cock twitches in my shorts at the sight of her.

Unlike the women writhing about on the floor, the dance instructor stands, giving me an unobstructed view. She wears a black crop top, black shorts so tight they appear painted on her body, and a matching black pair of stiletto heels. A sheet of glossy black hair cascades down her back as she walks around the room – if you can even call the way her legs move walking… it’s more like a fucking strut – and modifies the tilt of one girl’s lower body.

When she straightens back up, her eyes meet mine through the thin windowpane and even metres away from each other, I’m sure I can see her eyes narrow.

She says something to her class, but I can’t make out the words.

I watch her grin at one of the girls writhing about the dancefloor, tipping her head towards the hallway, before she’s striding across the space, ripping open and door and—

“Can I ask what you’re doing staring into the window of my dance class?”

The ‘I take no shit’ tone to her voice makes my cock twitch again. As does the cross of her arms, an angry slash upon her body. She’s slim – tight and toned, probably from being a dance instructor – but with a slight flare to her hips…

“Hm?”

I take in the questioning raise of her groomed eyebrows, the narrowing of her sky-blue eyes which are so bright compared to her dark hair and the all black outfit she wears.

“I’m going to call security if you don’t give me an answer as to why you’re perving—”

“I wasn’t perving.” I find my voice. “I’m starting work here on Monday morning, so I’m touring the place—”

“You work here?” she asks, the ball of her right foot tapping the floor in time with the loud music still coming from her dance room.

I nod, fingers brushing the brim of my snapback. “As of Monday.”

“Are you going to be teaching classes?” she asks, eyes dipping down the length of me and rising back to my face.

I shake my head, feeling my lips quirk up a teeny bit at the thought of me teaching a fucking dance class. I’d be terrible.

“I’m a PT.”

“Oh.”

My eyes fix on the round ‘o’ her lips make. They look like they’d feel good around my coc—

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around then,” she says, tone unreadable.

I can’t decide if she thinks that’s a good thing or a bad one, which only serves to make the thrill of the chase skitter through me at a rapid rate.

“Come Monday you will.”

When she doesn’t say another word, I turn on my heel to head back towards Michael and the main section of the gym. Glancing over my shoulder before I’m fully out of her sight, I raise my hand in a silent wave. She doesn’t wave back, those arms of hers still crossed over her body, but she watches me leave, never taking her eyes from me until I’m disappearing through the door.