41. Grey
Chapter 41
Grey
“ B ro,” Brock says in greeting as he slams the door open and walks into my home gym for today’s session.
“What?” I ask, pausing my stretching at his tone.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were sleeping with Vivienne Karavella?”
“Because I’m not.”
“Come on, we’re closer than that, Grey. You can tell Papa Brock, I won’t snitch.”
I frown. “Mate, what are you even talking about right now?”
“It’s all over the internet. You and her have some serious sexual energy going on—the cameras don’t lie.”
“You mean from our press tour? We are love interests, so we kind of had to act that way. And those interviewers were asking such loaded questions we didn’t really have a choice. But no, we’re just friends.”
“You sure?” Brock pries.
“Positive. I’m with Aspen, remember?”
Brock grins like he’s in on some big secret. “Oh, I get it.” He winks exaggeratedly. “You’re ‘with Aspen.’”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to insinuate by emphasizing the words so much, but, yeah, I am.”
“Your secret’s safe with me.”
“What secret? There’s no secret.”
“Exactly. No secret at all.”
I sigh. “Can we just start the workout?”
“Sure, I’m tired of all that locker room talk anyway. You really shouldn’t talk to your trainer like that, Grey. It’s not my place to know all that stuff.”
I furrow my brows, completely perplexed. Brock is a physical fitness prodigy, but he’s also crazy as shit. I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time and, what’s worse, I don’t think he does either.
Brock snaps his fingers, switching gears. “Your warmup today is to run two miles and you damn well better do it in under fifteen minutes.”
I climb onto the treadmill and turn the speed up to four for a minute or so as a warmup before incrementally taking it up to ten. While I run, Brock stands beside me and continues talking. Everything he says is a bit mad, yeah, but in a weird way I appreciate his chatter since it keeps my mind occupied during our grueling workouts. And there’s a chance that it may be intentional on his part, and he’s some genius. I doubt it, but crazier things have happened.
“So the wife’s birthday is coming up, as I’m sure you remember,” he drones on over the thumping of my feet on the belt.
“What are you getting her?”
“I’m taking her on a surprise twenty-four-hour trip to Vegas.”
“Damn, I’m impressed, Brock. Do you have any shows lined up?”
“Yeah, I booked an all-inclusive strip club tour.”
I lose my rhythm and almost fall off the treadmill. “That’s a thing?”
He beams like a kid on Christmas. “Sure is.”
“Are you sure she wouldn’t rather go see a concert or a magic show or something?”
“No way. Are you kidding? And that’s not the end of the surprise, either.”
“It isn’t?”
“Not in the slightest. I’m going to give her the green light to try and seduce any performers she wants, and if she convinces them to come back to the hotel with us, they can be our third. Now, I usually have a strict ‘no sharing’ policy with the missus, but it’s her forty-fifth so I really have to do something special.”
I nod as though that’s the most normal gift in the world. “Of course you do.”
“And I booked the honeymoon suite at one of those big casinos on the strip. It’s going to be epic.”
“Sounds like the perfect gift.”
He grins. “She’s going to love it. She’s always asking me if I want a third and I’m always denying her, which is the opposite of most couples. Usually, it’s the man wanting to branch out and the woman is the possessive one. Like you and Aspen. And I’m not going to lie, the wife’s fantasies don’t turn me off in the slightest. There’s something so sexy about your lady wanting multiple men at once, don’t you think?”
“Don’t think that’s my speed, but I’m happy for you, Brock,” I say. But something in his words gets the wheels turning in my mind, I just don’t know what.
Brock rambles on about his grand Las Vegas plans, something about a private dinner party where you eat off a live human model, while I wrack my brain for answers. Then the lightning strikes.
“Oh fuck!” I exclaim, stopping the treadmill immediately.
“Are you okay?” Brock asks, his face drawn in concern. “Pull your hammy?”
“No, I’m fine, it’s just there’s something else I need to do right now.”
“What? You mean like, now now?”
I grab a towel and exit the gym, hardly slowing my run from the treadmill. “Yeah, sorry, mate. I’ll pay you double today for the inconvenience but I really need to go.”
Brock follows—or should I say chases—me up the stairs and down the hall. “Where are you going?”
“Leaving. Lock up behind yourself, will you?”
“I—Okay?”
I finally reach my front door and grab my motorcycle keys from the key ring. “See you tomorrow,” I shout behind me as I run out.
I jog down my driveway, jumping onto the motorcycle with such speed that I have to firmly plant my leg to keep the bike from tipping over. I’ve hardly even turned the key in the ignition before I’m on the move, speeding toward the main road. I drive like a bat out of hell, going an easy twenty above the speed limit and using the nimble bike to weave through traffic. At one point, I jump the curb onto the sidewalk, narrowly avoiding a jogger in the process, because the road is gridlocked. I know it’s reckless, but there’s a fire in my chest that I’ve never felt before and the only thing I can think of is Aspen.
After what feels like an eternity—but was actually only nineteen minutes, according to my watch—I reach the gate separating me from Aspen’s neighborhood.
“Can I help you?” the guard asks, approaching my bike with an exceptional lack of urgency.
“I’m going to Aspen Jordan’s house. I’m her boyfriend.”
The guard chuckles. “Yeah, right.”
I feel the color rise in my cheeks as I whip out my phone, showing the guard the lock screen. It’s a candid paparazzi photo of Aspen and I laughing together on set.
He shrugs. “That’s clearly Photoshopped.”
“It’s real, Google it,” I insist. “I'm Grey Aldridge, Aspen’s boyfriend.”
The guard crosses his arms. “Turn around dude, seriously. I can’t let you in unless a pass has been called and?—”
But I stop listening, something catching my eye. It’s a black Cadillac pulling up to the adjacent resident’s only gate, a pass visible on the top corner of its windshield.
Without thinking, I rev my bike’s engine and speed off at a sharp right, squeezing through the gate as it begins opening for the Cadillac.
I hear the guard shout “Hey!” behind me, but it’s too late. I’m already through the gate and flying as fast as my bike will take me in the direction of Aspen’s house, which I luckily know since I’ve driven here a few times before.
I hear sirens from somewhere behind me and see flashing lights in my side mirror. I chance a look over my shoulder and see the gate guard following on a much slower, much clunkier, motorcycle.
I chuckle to myself for half a second before another guard on a bike swings out from behind a turn, narrowly missing me as I swerve to avoid him. The guard quickly recovers, resuming his course behind me, shouting incoherently. I grip the bike tighter, my knuckles white as I urge it to somehow go faster, knowing there’s only one block to go.
Finally, Aspen’s house comes into view, its black gate looming. Knowing it’s now or never, I turn the bike sharply and leap off—a stunt I learned from James Bond and miraculously manage to execute—clinging onto two of the gate posts. I hardly register the deep clang of my bike as it collides with the metal gate, only focusing on pulling myself up and over the gate. I jump down to the other side and sprint toward Aspen’s front door. I bang on it with my fist but spy a bright red flash through the front door’s window and the sliding glass door that leads to her pool.
I hear radios and voices blocked by the gate behind me before it begins to swing open. I race around the house to the back pool, blocked by yet another gate. Goddamn Aspen and her goddamn gates, I think as I fumble to pull it open, luckily only a flimsy child lock on this one.
Then I hear water splashing and high-pitched screaming.