Chapter 7
Mara’s husband, Tony, returned with their littles, and I stepped out to give them privacy as baby Nate started to cry, prompting Mara to whip out a breast like that was the answer to any infant ailment. Surprised—but also slightly relieved—to return to an empty room, I snuck over to my suitcase to change into my gym gear, then whisked my hair into a top knot. There was nothing like a hard run and a heavy lift to clear my head, and if Mara and I were going to walk away with this endorsement, it needed to be positively crystalline.
Eyes on the prize, I laced my shoes and headed out of the room and down the hallway, popping in my earbuds as the elevator lit up, and belched out a swarm of tipsy resort-goers. Did everyone in Vegas just perpetually reek of alcohol, tobacco, and something vaguely smog-like? When the last straggler was gone, I stepped inside, stretching my neck, arms and legs on the way down. I could do this. I’d always been one to conquer a challenge. And Broderick would be happy for my success because he’d see the impact, just like I’d support his if he took home the check. The man would bless so many kids if he poured these kinds of resources into our tiny town.
Strongerby The Score came on by the time I hit the first floor, and I found myself matching the beat with my footfalls as my body stretched just a little taller. A good sweat was all I needed. At least, that’s what I was convincing myself of right up until I stepped into the gym and was rooted to the spot.
The glorious, long pace, the shredded biceps glistening in sweat, the splotchy tank clinging to pecs any straight woman would want to lick. God help me. Broderick had always run like it was effortless—a glide, rather than stride. Blue headphones rested over his tight curls, his jaw was set, shoulders back and defined legs gobbling up the track. I watched for a heartbeat as those arms pumped—did I mention the man was mouthwateringly vascular, because dear baby Jesus in a manger—as some distant part of my brain came online and demanded I gather enough dignity to get the hell out of there.
A throat cleared and I startled, blinking and ducking my head as I stepped aside to allow an irritated looking blonde into the room. She made a beeline for the Stairmaster, and I glanced back just as Broderick’s footwork stumbled in an uncharacteristic falter. He jerked his hands up to the controller, rapidly tapping the down arrow to slow his admirable pace to a hurried walk, slipping the headset down around his neck as his eyes tracked me in the mirror.
“Pix, you alright?”
“Y-yeah,” I said awkwardly, clearing my throat to excuse the stammer as I begged the floor to swallow me whole. Smiling stiffly, I skipped onto the treadmill beside him and cursed whoever decided the hotel only needed two. “Just clearing my head. You know, getting in the zone.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.” Awesome. Twenty-four hours in and losing intelligence at an alarming rate. “Sorry, didn’t mean to throw you off your game.”
“You didn’t,” he argued, shaking his head as he pursed his lips. The blonde eyed us skeptically and I nearly burst out laughing when Broderick’s forced smile mirrored mine nearly identically. Had anyone ever been more awkward in the history of the word ‘awkward?’ I didn’t think so.
Irritated with myself, I said, “Oh, good. Please commence running.”
“Alright,” he said, slowly shifting his headphones back into place.
Of course, he was fucking down here. It was one of the things I loved about the man—we shared a long list of compulsively healthy coping mechanisms. Exercise for stress being one of them. But leaving now would be more ridiculous than just doing what I came here to do, so I activated my machine and then tapped my watch as it slowly crept to life, the smell of rubber thick in the air.
I started the workout tracker and then tried to focus on the metrics on my screen, but deep brown eyes locked on mine in the mirror, a gentle curl to his lips as he watched me pick up the pace. When I scowled at him, he chuckled, shook his head, and focused on his virtual screen—a mountain path, naturally.
The slowly increasing cadence of his feet on the belt beat through the music in my buds, and I huffed, forcing myself to complete the warmup before increasing my pace until I knew I’d be scrambling to keep up.
This. This is what I loved about running. The freedom—or illusion of it, in the case of an indoor gym—the roar of my blood through veins begging for an escape, the burn of muscles. Running silenced the outside world and ceaseless chatter of my mind, forcing me to focus on just putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time. A hell of an accomplishment for a mind so often stretched over multiple topics and goals at once.
Out of my periphery, I saw Broderick increase his speed, sweat glimmering across the glorious tendons in his forearms. Increasing my own pace, I gauged how hard my body was working, glancing at my heart rate, relieved to see that despite the aching in my chest, it was still solidly below that eighty percent mark.
We ran like that for at least the length of a song before I decided to slow down and catch my breath in preparation for another interval. But he pushed himself faster, and before I processed what I was doing, I ramped up my speed too.
Dammit the man made me stupid. Feet soaring, lungs screaming, muscles protesting, I lengthened my stride, feeling the stretch of my calves as they fought to push me farther with each step. A mature, self-respecting business coach with a six-figure book deal should be beyond petty competition. Alas. Broderick Allen reduced me to teenage levels of stupidity. Which is why, against all better judgment, I matched his next increase, taking my much shorter legs to a full god damn sprint.
I was going to die on a treadmill. Like a frantic, oversized hamster launched off the back of the track, dying in a head-on collision with the free weight rack. Oh god, what a humiliating way to go. Max would never stop laughing. I would trip on a shoelace, and die of concussion by fallen free weight, but they’d inevitably label it faulty footwear, and Max would follow me out, victim of cardiac arrest via aggressive laughter.
To the utter relief of my wailing lungs, we both passed the mile mark and eased to a walk before stepping off the machines. He gathered his water as I walked in a slow, tight circle, bringing my heart rate down before turning for the free weights I was still grateful not to die beneath, and grabbing the twenty-fives before claiming a mat.
Broderick
Why was she wearing that?Why. In God’s name. Was she wearing that? Yeah, the leggings were high-waisted, but skintight, leaving nothing to the imagination, and the strappy sports bra was so fitted it lifted her perfect tits until they kissed in the middle. No. I hadn’t meant to notice. But fuck, she was gorgeous, and no straight, red-blooded male could see that much skin on a woman that drove him mad, and not want to reach out and touch it. Jameson would promptly beat me to a pulp if he knew half the images running through my head.
She was doing a drill we called the ‘slow death’ in the gym back home—essentially kneeling to the ground before rotating the opposite hip to step back up, with the weights cradled at her shoulders. The tight lines of her abs flexed, lean little muscles taut with effort, her brow set in concentration. El was the kind of fierce most men only read about but never have the terrifying pleasure of encountering.
Her brow winged up, eyes locked on mine in the mirror, but before I could look away, she mouthed something that had me dropping my headphones back around my neck and panting, “What?”
She breathed a laugh before quipping, “You catching flies over there?”
Brows pinched; my brain grappled before realizing she was telling me to close my mouth. Like I’d been gaping. My skin buzzed in response. Scoffing, I countered, “Is there a reason you’re watching every muscle in my body, or did you trade life coaching for anatomy without my knowing?”
“Something wrong with enjoying the view?” she asked, tone taunting. Slowly, El bent over, using perfect deadlift form—ass out, core tight—to set those weights back on the ground in front of her mat. Every ripple of muscle was accentuated in those damned leggings, the perfect globes of her ass on display like a pert invitation for me to sink my teeth into one. Sue me, James. It wasn’t my fault this girl had somehow grown up to be a smoke-show not even a priest could avoid appreciating. Even the crease under her ass was sexy.
And I was going to hell for noticing.
“Nope,” I said, shrugging like she wasn’t driving me up a wall. “Besides, I’m just making sure you’re not going to tear a muscle. I’d hate to see you have to bow out of the competition with so much on the line.”
“Seriously?” she drawled sarcastically, straightening and popping a hip in one sexy little motion. The crease at her waist just begged me to close the distance and wrap my hands around her middle. Little Broderick, unfortunately, was taking notice. Off. Fucking. Limits. Asshole. “You’re gonna ‘gym bro’ me? Save the lectures for your classroom, Professor. Chris and Max hooked me up with a personal trainer ages ago.”
I felt my jaw flex under the pressure that phrase elicited. Last thing I wanted to think about was some douche stretching her out after a sweaty session. “Suuure.”
One word, but the tone in it had her brows winging up as she motioned to her weights. “By all means, if you think you’re more qualified, come give a demonstration.”
“No need to make you feel inadequate,” I said with a wink. When she grinned back, I added, “I know how competitive you get. Don’t want you pulling a hammy.”
“Psh, chicken,” she scoffed back, that maniacal smirk hooking wide to one side as mischief sparked behind those familiar gray-blues. God, I missed that ceaseless mouth. I did not, however, miss wishing I could put it to better use. “I’m not daft enough to think I’ll outlift Mistyvale’s favorite running back.”
“Been a long time since anybody called me that.”
Something warm slid behind her smirk, a fond nostalgia hidden behind her sass. Likely of pre-game carb-a-thons and the tinny smell of high school bleachers. El always came to all our games. I knew because she had a whistle so loud it crossed the chaos of the crowd—a straight shot to my chest, like a power up—when I was on a good run. It was always her I found in those stands, hands boldly raised, when I scored.
“Maybe because these days you just start arguments you can’t seem to finish. You going to show me up over here, or what?” She threw her hands up, jerking her chin towards the barbell rack in challenge.
Shaking my head, I held her stare, the heat in my chest a flashing red light screaming a warning to back off, to put some space between us. But I held my ground for once. “Over there? Nah. On that stage this week?” I gave her a nod, a promise. “You’re going down.”
I knew the moment her eyes flared, her cocky smirk twisting into the coy smile of the she-devil hidden inside that compact little package, that I’d said the wrong thing. There was nowhere to back pedal before Elora’s eyes tracked down to where I knew my shorts had grown tighter than comfortable. “Would you like that?”
Dead. I was so dead. I glanced over to the blonde still climbing flights of stairs, her headphones mercifully on, and was about to open my mouth—to say what, exactly, was still to be determined—when my eyes snapped sideways because the door opened, and in strode Pierce and Cheyenne. Her attention shifted just as abruptly, that pretty little column of her throat bobbing as she faced them and I rolled my eyes, returning my headphones, and squatting down to lift my weights.
Fucking Pierce. Man had eyes for El the moment he fell into her orbit. Couldn’t exactly blame him, but with that polished wardrobe and thick head of blond hair it was like competing with Thor in Lululemon. Which was a dumbass thought in the first place because she wasn’t mine to compete for. But as he flashed that too-white smile, and Cheyenne skipped into the gym and wrapped a giggling El in a hug like they were the oldest of friends instead of competitors that met this morning, my stomach bottomed out.
Irritated, I increased the volume on my noise canceling headphones, and tried to focus on getting in my reps, and not the fact that she had my cock at half-mast. But every time I set down my weights, I caught sight of the three of them—El’s headphones now hanging around the slender column of her neck—laughing together in the mirror. She was evidently unaffected by our little verbal sparring match.
I thought it was annoying when Rhyett made friends in a blink, but nothing irked me quite like seeing her smile…for him.
She never smiled for me like that. Smiles with me were always more reserved—guarded and laced with some old echo of the day I ruined everything. Huffing and panting, I dropped my gaze, squatting down and snatching my weights again. It was the moment I saw the exchange of phones between the Marvel superhero incarnate and my smart mouthed little Pixie that I decided I didn’t need to lift nearly as badly as I needed to get out of this room.
Blowing out a harsh breath, I scooped up my phone from where I’d set it on the bench and, with a cordial nod to the saints building orphanages, rushed from the room. I couldn’t hate the man any more than I could blame him for liking El. Watching her jump from date to date had been agonizing back home, but I’d survived it then, and one week in a resort wasn’t going to undermine years of discipline.
With a huff of irritation, I jammed the button to summon the elevator. The echo of laughter down the hall had me aggressively pushing it on a loop when my name bounced off the walls.