6. Harper
HARPER
Ican’t remember the last time the sun greeted me in the morning. She usually doesn’t wake up until I’m on my second cup of coffee, at least, and even then, I only get to admire her rising beauty through tinted office windows.
No one wants to see the boss fighting for her life on a treadmill.
It’s not a requirement for them to use the gym, but I didn’t see a point in them having to spend money on a membership somewhere else when their employment comes with regular workout plans created by specialists to help them maintain their stamina.
The more physically prepared they are and the better their mobility, the less likely they are to get hurt.
Pulled muscles and a lack of regular physical therapy sessions saw many acts at the beginning of this venture calling it quits before truly reaching their goals of success.
Counting steps in a performance is a lot easier when your lungs aren’t battling with your own brain for oxygen.
Between the physical therapist I have on retainer, the twenty-four-hour gym access, and the regular massage and deep tissue therapy sessions I encourage, I’m setting my team up to perform at their highest abilities.
I park in my usual back corner spot of the garage and walk up to the door, key fob in hand.
As I get closer, my feet begin to tingle and vibrate with the steady thrum of …
2000s hip hop? Did someone leave the speakers going all night?
Also, are they deaf? The volume is so loud that I can feel the rhythm bleeding through my veins, spreading from my feet through each limb, begging them to jump with each “Bye bye bye, bye bye.”
Bosses don’t get to let loose and dance around. Bosses get to make a note to bring it up at the staff meeting today to remember to turn off the speakers before you leave. Just one more thing to add to a to-do list that’s bigger than my ass.
It’s a big fucking list.
I use my hip to bump open the door, gym bag slung over one shoulder, water bottle in hand, purse hanging off the elbow of the other that clutches my keys. I make it all of two steps into the room when suddenly the floor seems to tilt and my legs stop working.
Before me is a broad, very bare, glistening back, every muscle rippling as it pulls the straight bar attached to the weighted contraption up and down.
The flex of each movement is holding me in place, eyes tracking the slow trickle of sweat moving from between shoulder blades down to get lost in the track of his spine.
Then suddenly my exhibition is cut short as the bar is released, the weights joining the rest of the rack with a little clink.
The head attached to this glorious back swivels around to face me, alerted they have an audience by the clang of the door as it shut behind me.
A wide grin spreads across Colton’s stupidly handsome face when he recognizes who crashed his workout.
“Why are you here?” I blurt out. Not bothering to compose myself, which is evident as his grin somehow gets even bigger and his eyebrows rise in unison.
Colton grabs a small hand towel from the gym bag by his feet before turning towards me, running the flimsy fabric over his face to catch the sweat the beads across his brow line.
It looks like a normal hand towel, one you would find in a bathroom for drying your hands, or to use in the kitchen when cleaning, and yet it looks made for a doll in his large hands.
I’m hypnotized by this tiny slip of terrycloth as he stretches it behind his neck before shifting the towel over his pecks and sliding it lower… lower…
Nope, nope too low, it’s a trap, look at his face. That stupid perfect face. Focus on the tousled damp hair. Do not stare at his body. Do not look down.
“Well, you see, this is a gym,” he quips. “People generally come here to exercise.”
“I meant, why are you here now? This early. The club doesn’t open for a while, and no one is usually here this early.” I meant, where the fuck is your shirt?!
His smile fades a little bit with each of my words. “Do you want me to leave? I wasn’t trying to mess up your schedule.”
I take a beat to look at him. The earnest expression morphing his features as he wrings the towel between his fingers. He looks almost concerned, like messing up my routine would be a detriment to him.
Thoughtful dick. Now I obviously can’t tell him to get lost.
“No, it’s fine you can stay. I was just surprised to see anyone else here right now. I usually have the gym to myself this time of day.”
His brow lifts in time with the corner of his mouth. “Not a fan of sharing?”
“Not my food or my men,” I spit out before thinking, my eyes widening at my own admission, lips slightly parting, grasping at words to recover from whatever the hell that was. This is why it’s too early to interact with people.
Before I can find a way to backpedal, Colton bursts out laughing, bending at the waist to brace his hands against his knees while his whole body shakes.
I cough loudly, feeling my face burn through deeper shades of red the longer he laughs. My arms naturally try to cross across my body, before stopping mid-air when all the bags, keys and bottle clank together in the middle.
I am the definition of I don’t know what to do with my hands.
I promptly bring my arms back down to rest at my sides and navigate around Colton to get to the treadmills.
I’ll just wait for him to leave before I use the boxing equipment in the back.
With the way things are going, I would end up losing to the bag in round one.
Or maybe this embarrassment will knock me out first.
I drop my bags at the end of the treadmill, not bothering to walk over to the lockers and cubbies set up in the back. With my water safely in its little holder and my phone poised to start my workout playlist, I pop open my headphone case and get ready for my warm-up walk.
I’m barely into one song, incline still only at a 1, when I feel the thud of Colton hopping onto the treadmill directly next to me.
I look around the space, wondering why he would pick the one directly next to me instead of one of the fifteen open treadmills that line the side wall. I don’t see any out-of-order signs anywhere, and they are all the same brand so it can’t be a preference in equipment.
This isn’t proper gym etiquette. And he has too many muscles to not know gym etiquette.
He starts up his machine, and I scan the console in front of him as he speeds up the pace to match mine, except his stride is twice the length of mine and I’m already sweating. Though that may just be from him.
My eyes jump from his console back to mine, over and over, trying to place why the sight is making my brain fuzzy. No water, no headphones, no energy drink. The music he was playing when I walked in is absent, no longer a thrumming undercurrent to my steps.
Is he a psychopath? Who doesn’t wear headphones to the gym? Especially on the treadmill. Is he just going to raw-dog cardio? Monster. This finally gets me to turn towards him, and I realize exactly why he didn’t feel the need for headphones.
He’s chatting away, upper body twisted in my direction that makes his toned muscles flex and pull with each step. His hands move animatedly moving about the space in front of me as he happily continues this one-sided conversation. Does he think I’m listening? Can’t he see the headphones?
Just in case he missed me putting them in, or the less subtle fact that I’m not responding, I wait for him to look over at me and then point up to the headphone in my ear.
He cocks his head as his eyes follow where I’m pointing, mouth forming an Oh as he nods.
I start to turn my head back to the wall in front of me when he bellows, “Can you hear me now?” and throws up a thumbs up, smiling wide when I tentatively give him a thumbs-up back.
Did he think I was telling him to be louder?
I pretend to tuck a lock of escaped hair behind my ear, tapping the headphone once to pause the track.
The second the beat drops, I’m hit full-on with this man’s ostentatious shouting.
He’s midway through a story about when he first started working out and going to gyms, trying to keep up with the old school gym bros that had years of lifting weights on his scrawny seventeen-year-old ass.
I let my eyes drift over his wide shoulders, taking in his strong biceps down to his veined forearms. Whatever he’s been doing in the gym…it’s working.
“They asked if I wanted to work in, which apparently meant to take turns on the machine, and I said yes, because what else was I supposed to say, you know? I insisted the weight they had on there was fine, I was sooooo confident it would be easy work. I lifted the bar up and it immediately crashed to my chest. I full out panicked, screamed my head off that I was dying. It was humiliating, took three guys to pull it off me, just to find out later it was only their warm-up weight!” he laughs, the sound light and carefree as it coats my soul.
I take a drink of water, doing my best to hide the smile that’s slipping out as he continues his tale about picking things up and putting them down.
He's rubbing the back of his neck with one hand as he explains how his arms didn’t work for a week after one of the guys agreed to let him shadow his workout for a day.
“I remember trying to shower later that night and having to use one of those loofah bath brushes to wash my hair because I couldn’t lift my arms that high without them shaking.”
A laugh bubbles out before I can stop it, remembering the time after a brutal leg day I dropped a pen and stared at it for about ten minutes before deciding it wasn’t worth the risk to bend down and ending up staying down.
His head snaps around to face me so quickly I’m a little worried he might have whiplash.
“I got a laugh!” he fist-pumps into the air. And then he’s just staring at me, a dopey smile showing off a single dimple burrowed into his left cheek.
He's smiling like getting the world’s huff of laughter from me was the biggest win of his life. A dulled star he’s seeing shine for the first time. Desperate to see the shimmer of happiness he, unfortunately, seems to bring out of me.
My stomach does this weird flip, and my feet suddenly become lead beneath me as I open my mouth to rebuke his statement. I can say I was coughing, or that I was thinking of something else, but when my eyes connect with his, the words on the tip of my tongue float away.
I shut my mouth without a peep and he somehow smiles wider, running a hand through his hair.
I bet it’s soft. It looks thick, like I could get a good handful…
I feel the momentum falter before I realize the room isn’t tilting—I’m falling. My foot closest to Colton snags on the stationary side of the machine, and I start to stumble forward. A large hand grips my upper arm, steadying me before my face collides with the console.
“You’re okay,” Colton coos once my legs are back in the center of the belt and my steps even out.
His hand runs down my arm to my wrist, thumb soothing my erratic heartbeat with small circles over my skin. I was right, his hands are massive. I watch the small pattern he traces there before he finally moves his hand away. All the while, my eyes watch his hand, and his eyes watch me.
My heartbeat is still erratic, my breath coming out in pants as his hand hovers in the space between our machines, ready to catch me again if I fall.
“If you wanted my hands on that you that badly, Sunshine, all you had to do was ask,” he says, waiting for my stare to finally leave his hand before he winks. Winks.
Instead of responding I slap the emergency stop button on my machine, feeling the belt come to an abrupt halt as I reach over to his console and ratchet up the speed until it hits eight.
His eyes flare as his legs gradually start to pump harder and harder as I hop off my machine, swooping down to pick up my bags as I make a beeline towards the back stairs that lead to the club floor.
As I go to push open the door, I hear his parting words, laughing as he yells, “Same time tomorrow, Harp!” over his shoulder.
Same time tomorrow, Colt.