Chapter 7
Asher
“What exactly am I looking at?” I ask, my head tilting as I look at the page again, trying to figure out where she’s going with this.
“These aren’t the actual materials; I just quickly sketched this out to give you an idea of where I’m going with this.
It’s a proposal.” Clara says from where she stands nervously in front of us.
The three of us are sitting on random pieces of gym equipment as she said the office was too small and she wanted us in the center of our space when she gave us the proposal.
“And, just to be clear,” Grant says, pointing at the page in his copy, “these three stick figures are supposed to represent the three of us?”
“That’s right,” she says with a nod.
“You really think having the three of us on a flyer is going to help market this place?” I ask, trying not to let my doubt show. She obviously worked hard on this proposal.
“Let me explain it a different way,” she says as she paces in front of us. “The three of you are ex-military. That has a lot of draw, especially in a small rural town like this. Men admire you and want to look like you, and women, they’ll desire you and want to be near you.”
“I don’t think I want a bunch of gym bunnies around,” I say skeptically.
“Yeah, I’m not sure we want women in here drooling over us.”
I look up and see her listening to us intently, her head nodding slowly. “Okay, that might actually make things easier.”
“Easier?” Grant asks in confusion.
“Yeah, if our target audience is men, then we can streamline our marketing plans for that demographic specifically.” She turns to the stack of papers she has and quickly flips through until she finds what she’s looking for.
“This was my idea for a male-focused gym. I’d do it up professionally, of course. I just sketched this as an idea to start from.”
She shows us the page and I see a logo sketched there featuring a barbell, a tree and some green army camouflage around it.
“We’ll lean into the green camouflage vibe for the whole place. Give it that army edge. What do you think?” She asks, biting her lip nervously as she looks at each of us.
I glance at the others, and none of us say anything for a few moments. I give them the slightest nod, then Grant turns back to her. “We love it.”
“Really?” she asks, her eyes alight with excitement.
“Yeah, go ahead and get started, just let us know what you need.”
“Okay, awesome! Let me figure out a few things. Do I have a budget for renovations?”
“Oh, I don’t know, what would all this cost? Is five grand enough?”
Her eyes almost bug out of her head. “Five thousand? Yeah, I can work with that…” She gathers up her papers and scurries back to the office, leaving the three of us watching after her retreating form.
“Five thousand?” I ask Grant, raising an eyebrow at him in question.
“I don’t know how much paint costs!”
Leo laughs as he stands and stretches out his limbs. “Do we even have that kind of cash available?”
“Yeah, it’s fine.”
I narrow my eyes on Grant. “You’re going to take it out of your personal account, aren't you?”
“I’ll pay myself back later.”
“Bull shit. We’ll split it three ways. We’re equal owners here, Grant. You don’t need to foot the bill by yourself.”
“I’m the one who agreed to that amount,” he replies, looking torn.
“We would have all done the same. We’re splitting it, and that’s final.”
He nods his head as Leo grabs her business proposal. “She worked really hard on this plan,” he says, flipping through it.
I look down at my copy and nod in agreement.
She has been working really hard for the past two days.
She spent that first day assessing everything, then yesterday, after Leo bandaged her hand, she spent the whole day on the computer, only coming out to take measurements or look at equipment before disappearing in the back again.
I think she would have forgotten to eat if I hadn’t brought us all subs for lunch and dragged her into the staff room to eat with us.
She seems at ease here. The only strange thing I’ve noticed is how she jumps at loud noises, like when someone drops a weight on the floor and sets a bar down a little hard.
I’m not sure what’s causing it, because she doesn’t seem to flinch from sudden movements, nor did she seem to mind when I picked her up and put her on the countertop.
I’m not sure what’s going on with her, but I’m determined to figure it out. I still haven’t figured out where she lives. I tried to give her a ride home yesterday, but she outright refused, saying she had somewhere to be.
If she refuses again today, I’ve decided to follow her.
She is wearing some different clothes today, and she looks as though she’s been showering so I’m not convinced she’s homeless anymore, but I did wonder that after she showed up the first day in the same clothes she’d been in the day before.
Maybe she just doesn’t want us to know where she lives. I can respect her wanting her privacy, even if I don’t like it. It doesn’t mean I won’t follow her, though.
An hour later, Clara comes back out and seeks me out.
“Asher, can you help me rearrange some of the equipment?”
“Sure, which ones are we moving?”
“All of them.”
I look at her in surprise, and she shrugs. “I have a plan.”
“In that case, let’s get the other two to help us.”
She takes a couple of minutes to explain how she wants everything rearranged, grouping similar equipment together.
“People need flow,” she tells us, gesturing around the scattered machines.
“If someone’s working legs, they don’t want to hike across the room for the next machine.
Grouping things makes it easier for beginners to figure out.
It’s also safer, so no one’s weaving through chaos, and way more efficient for anyone doing circuits.
Plus, it just makes sense for cleaning and maintenance. ”
“That actually makes a lot of sense,” Leo says, gazing around the space. “Where do we start?”
“I think we should move all the cardio machines to the open space at the back, just to get them out of the way. Then we should have the space to rearrange the rest of the equipment,” Clara tells us, tapping the arm of the closest treadmill.
“Let’s work in pairs for safety,” I tell them. “Clara, you’re with me.” Leo shoots me a knowing look, but I ignore him.
“Let’s start with this one,” I say, gesturing to the treadmill she was touching. “It’s on wheels, I’ll lift it and you stand at the other end and help guide me.” This way she doesn’t have to actually do much of the hard labor.
We work perfectly together as the four of us move all the cardio equipment out of the way.
“I guess it’s a good thing there are no clients in here today,” she says, stretching out her back as we take a water break.
I frown, looking around the space. “Is it normally this quiet?” I ask the others.
“Aren’t you here every day?” She asks in confusion.
“Yeah, but I spend a lot of time on the punching bags.” I take a seat on a weight bench and take a sip of my water as she moves to stand in front of me.
She watches me for a second as if she wants to ask something, then changes her mind, spinning away, giving me a glimpse of the bruises on her neck.
My fist clenches as anger rolls through me. Who could harm a woman like that? Especially someone as sweet and kind as Clara. The urge to punch someone becomes overwhelming, so I stand up and make a beeline for the punching bags.
I don’t bother to wrap my hands; I just move in and start throwing jabs at the closest bag, imagining it’s whatever asshole laid his hands on Clara.
After a couple minutes, I hear my name being called. “Asher?” I drop my hands, panting heavily as I turn around to find a concerned-looking Clara watching me carefully.
Shit, I hope I didn’t scare her.
“Are you okay?”
“Huh?” I ask in confusion.
She steps closer, her eyes dropping to my hands as she gently grabs my wrist and inspects my knuckles. They’re not bleeding, but they are red. My skin tingles with awareness from where she touches me. My heart feels like it picks up speed, as if it’s sitting up and paying attention to her.
“When I saw you doing this before, you were wearing gloves. I was worried you would hurt yourself.” I stare at her, unsure what to say. I don’t think anyone's worried about me like that in a long time. Leo and Grant care, but they wouldn’t stop me to tell me to put on gloves.
“Is there a reason you suddenly started doing that?” She asks, still holding my hand between both of hers, as if she’s completely unaware of what her small touch does to me.
I shrug, unsure how much to tell her. “It’s a coping mechanism.”
“Did I say something to upset you?” she asks in worry.
“No, of course not.” I turn my hand and grip hers, dragging her closer to me, so there’s barely any space between us.
I use my free hand to ever so gently glide a finger across her neck.
I see her swallow, and I lift my eyes to meet her beautiful blue ones.
Lowering my voice to a whisper, I confess, “I see these marks, and it makes me angry I wasn’t there to stop it from happening.
It makes me want to kill the man who put them there. ”
“I…” she trails off, unable to say the words I long to hear, to ask me for help.
I nod my head and, hiding my disappointment, drop my hand and take a step back as I clear my throat. “Well, I think we’ve had a long enough break, why don’t we get back to moving the machines?”
She nods and quickly turns away, as if happy for the change in subject. I’d only known her a few days, I knew it would probably take her a while to open up to us. I just hoped she wasn’t in any trouble in the meantime.
And today, I was determined to find out. If she refused a ride home, I was going to follow her.
I hadn’t thought this through. Realizing I couldn’t follow her on my motorcycle without her easily hearing me behind her, I’ve been following Clara on foot for the past forty minutes.
She isn’t dressed for the winter, but neither am I. I’m just glad there’s no snow yet. I shove my hands in the pockets of my leather coat as I peer around the corner and wait for her to get far enough away that I can follow.
When she turns again, I get a sinking feeling in my stomach that I know where she’s going. The apartments on Wallace Crescent. It explains why she didn’t want us to drive her home. The only people I’ve ever seen out front looked like they’re high or drunk. It was well known as the bad part of town.
What the hell was she doing here? Is she using?
I hurry down the street so I don’t lose her around the corner as I try to wrap my mind around that idea. She’s shown no signs of drug use. No frequent bathroom breaks, no glazed eyes, no falling asleep.
I pull out my cell and click Grant’s name, holding it to my ear as I creep down the street behind her.
“Hey, you follow her home?” he asks as soon as he picks up.
“Still trailing her. She just turned onto Wallace.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck is right.”
“Did he say Wallace?” Leo asks, as Grant switches to speakerphone.
“Yeah—wait, she’s crossing the street now. Shit.” I frown, looking at the apartment building that barely looks fit for people to live in.
“What? What’s she doing?” Leo asks eagerly.
“She just went into the apartment building.”
“Fuck.”
“Shit,” they say at the same time. There is only one apartment building on Wallace, so they know which one I’m referring to. There isn’t much else on this street at all, just a few other homes in rough shape.
“There is no way she’s buying drugs,” Leo says adamantly.
“I think she lives here,” I whisper through the phone as I lean against a lamppost and watch the building for any signs of her. The whole place is quiet right now.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Grant grumbles. “She’s not that type of girl.”
“I agree,” I say, my brain trying to figure out what she’s doing here. “Where did she come from?”
“What do you mean?” Leo asks.
“Well, it’s a small town, she’s old enough that she didn’t just graduate or something, so why haven’t we seen her around?”
“She must be new to town,” Grant says.
“Exactly. She arrived in town with no money; it’s probably the only place she could afford,” I tell them.
They're both silent for a minute before Leo finally speaks. “I don’t like it.”
“Me neither, but what am I supposed to do? Storm in there, throw her over my shoulder and demand she comes stay with us?”
Neither answer and I scoff. “Come on, we’ll be arrested. Besides, you saw the bruises. I don't want to scare her. Now, can one of you come pick me up? I’m freezing my balls off out here.”
“Yeah, be there shortly,” Grant says, and the line goes dead. I pocket my phone as I stare up at the building.
Would barging in there be the worst thing I could do? At least if she was staying with us, we could make sure she’s safe.