Chapter 8 #2
“I don’t know when Katrina will be back this morning, which is the only reason you’re walking out the door right now. But this afternoon, I’m taking that kiss.”
He took a step back, out onto the balcony, but kept his eyes firmly locked on the man watching him. Then Daniel smiled, and Brantley’s heart thumped.
“See you then, professor,” he said before he left to go down the hall to his bedroom, leaving Brantley counting the minutes until five o’clock and the kiss he’d been promised.
THAT AFTERNOON, DANIEL pulled his sister’s car into Pearson’s Total Fitness and made his way toward the front doors.
The parking lot was jam-packed, but that didn’t surprise him, considering all the weekend warriors who hit his own gym back in Chicago.
He, however, wasn’t there for a workout. No, he was looking for?—
“Danny boy!”
Derek.
Barely two steps through the door, Daniel spotted him standing behind the front desk next to a young brunette woman who smiled politely. He walked over to them, and Derek came around the corner to shake his hand.
“What brings you by? You wanting to work out while on vacation? That’s some dedication right there. It used to take some heavy bribery to have you doing anything close to exercise back in the day.”
“Do I look like I’m here to work out?”
A frown marred Derek’s expression and he drummed his fingers on the counter. “Nope. You look like a rich city lawyer on vacation to pick up some hot beach-boy ass.”
“Jesus, Derek,” Daniel said as he cut his eyes to the brunette, who was standing a little too close to the two of them. “Can I talk to you in your office for a minute?”
“Sure,” Derek said. Then he weaved his way through the aisles of weight equipment with both men and women sweating and working their muscles to their maximum potential.
When they came to a door at the back of the gym, Derek pushed it open and stepped “inside” to the sandy shore of the beach.
“ This is your office?” Daniel said as he scanned the miles of golden sand that stretched down to the white wash of the crashing waves.
“No,” Derek said as he unlocked the door of an enclosed patio attached to the back of the gym. “This is.”
Daniel took the two steps up onto the wooden deck and then crossed over to a couch that faced several windows displaying the perfect view of Derek’s corner of the world, and damn if he wasn’t a little envious.
Palm trees lined a walking track where people on rollerblades passed by, shirtless and perfectly tanned. Surfers jogged toward the ocean, and tourists snapped photos of the part of the beach Derek had claimed as his own.
Daniel took a seat, and as his friend grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge in the far corner, a genuine smile split his lips. Derek had done exactly what he’d said he would when they had been kids: saved up and bought a gym by the beach. Just like Muscle Beach in California.
“What, no gym equipment outside so you can scope out the hot, oiled muscle men all day while you slave over your paperwork? That was part of the dream, wasn’t it?”
Derek threw a bottle his way and winked. “Clearly you didn’t look to your left when you stepped out the back.”
Daniel craned his head in that direction now, and sure enough, there were men in varying degrees of clothing, pumping iron.
“Well, fuck me. You really did it.”
Derek perched his ass on the desk and unscrewed the top of his water. After chugging half the bottle, he nodded. “Course I did. You didn’t think I spent all those years shaking my ass for it to not pay off, did you?”
Daniel wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Derek had mentioned opening his gym a couple of years ago, but that had been it. Apparently, it had been a huge success.
“Congratulations, man. This is one hell of an office.”
“Yeah, it’s not too bad. I bet it’s almost as high-rollin’ as yours is up in the big city.”
“I’d take your office any day.”
Derek gestured to the beach with his bottle and shrugged. “It’s all right there, Danny boy. You just gotta want to come home to it.”
Daniel grew quiet, wondering if Derek was referring to more than the beach. And if he was, Daniel wasn’t sure he was ready to go there just yet. It was hard enough to ask Derek what he was about to.
“So, what brings you by? If it isn’t my promotion on twenty-nine-ninety-nine-a-month membership minus the enrollment fee—for you—then it must be something equally fucking groundbreaking.”
Daniel laughed at that sales pitch. “How kind of you.”
“Hey, I’m always thinking about my buddies.”
He rolled his eyes. “Mhmm. Well, I’m here for some advice, actually.”
“Advice, huh? Okay. Well, I say fuck him. There, that’s my advice.”
“Really?” Daniel asked, shaking his head and realizing how much he’d missed this crazy bastard. “I haven’t even asked anything yet.”
“I know, but when it comes to Brantley Hayes, nothing else will really compute with you until you get that part out of your system. It was always that way.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes. Yes, it was. Our college job ringing any bells for you?”
Christ , he hadn’t thought about that in years. “That was your idea, not mine.”
“Of course it was my idea. We were hot, and I knew we would get awesome tips. And I was right, wasn’t I?
We used to make a couple hundred each night.
You more than me, with the way you used to move your ass on the dance floor.
But after the night Brantley turned up, everyone else might as well have disappeared off the planet.
Man, you were like a dog with a bone—or a dog with a boner?—”
“Yeah, I was there, remember? But there’s one slight problem to your plan: my mother still doesn’t know, so how do I just?—”
Derek laughed. A deep, rumbling belly laugh. “You’re kidding, right?”
There it was again, that niggling feeling that— “She knows, doesn’t she?”
“Ahh, yeah. Pretty sure she worked it out, Danny.”
Daniel scratched the side of his head. Well, fuck. That was different. His mother knew about him and Prof—Brantley— huh . Now what?
“Did I help with your little problem?”
He scrunched his nose up and finished the rest of his water. “You didn’t even hear my original question.”
“Which was?”
He stood, lined his bottle up with the green recycling bin by the door, aimed, and then threw, getting it in with one shot. “Do you think I should go and stay with him for two weeks?”
Derek spread his hands out in front of himself and then nodded as he gave his smuggest grin. “To which I said…go forth and fuck him. Also known as my version of hell fucking yes. Get your ass to his house and do what you came here for. Whatever that might be.”
Daniel sighed and walked to the door. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.” Then he looked over to his friend. “Don’t work too hard.”
Derek put his feet up on the small coffee table and relaxed. “Not a chance in hell of that happening, Danny boy. Not a chance in hell.”