Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
PERCY
Butch seemed to take my coming out fine earlier in the week, but I’m still a little anxious this morning, walking a little slower than usual on my way to Sweat.
It’s definitely not an ideal morning to be walking all the way from my apartment to Boystown in shorts and a T-shirt.
The breeze coming off the lake and the October chill that’s fully settled into the air have the hair on my arms standing up with goose bumps and my nipples hard enough to cut glass.
I cross my arms over my chest and walk a little faster.
My smart watch vibrates to alert me to a text, with my phone itself buried somewhere in the depths of my bag.
My stomach jumps. Butch hasn’t texted me since we arranged the camping stuff last week, but for some reason I’m fully convinced it will be from him, even though it’s way more likely to be Juno asking me to bring them coffee to the lab when I get to campus later.
The text isn’t from Juno or Butch though. It’s not actually a text at all. It’s a notification from an app I’m sure I didn’t re-download after my last dismal experience on it.
“Fucking Juno,” I mutter to myself, stopping on the sidewalk to dig through my bag, pushing aside my textbooks and clothes until my fingers brush along the smooth edge of my phone. I pull it out, and sure enough, I have not one, but several notifications from the M4M app.
I know for a fact I deleted this app last year after giving it a try and getting messages from way too many chasers.
I shudder at the creepy reminder. Why in the good god damn hell would Juno re-download this cursed app?
And not just download it, they clearly must have reactivated my profile too.
In my head, I compose a grumpy text to send to Juno while I open the app so I can deactivate my profile again before I delete it.
It opens to the message tab and, surprisingly, the messages seem pretty normal this time around. Last time it seemed like almost everyone’s opening line was to ask me about my genitals, or to send me pics of theirs. But these DMs seem borderline normal.
CUBSFAN69: Hey, man, nice arms ;)
THE_SAUSAGE_KING_OF_CHICAGO: dude, you’re cute, where have you been hiding?
RICCO-NOT-SO-SUAVE: We should hit the gym together sometime…
The gym? Nice arms?
“Fucking Juno,” I mutter again, closing the messages and navigating to my profile where it turns out Juno has uploaded several new photos of me.
One that they must have taken sneakily while I was cooking breakfast without my shirt last week, one where I was jokingly flexing for them, and one I took myself in the mirror dressed in my gym clothes that I did not intend to post anywhere.
They also added working out to my interests.
I roll my eyes and scroll down to the settings tab where I’ll be able to deactivate this stupid thing again. Another message comes through before I get the chance. It’s another nice, flirtatious comment about working up a sweat together sometime.
I hesitate with my finger over the “deactivate” button, nibbling on my bottom lip.
Sure, I’m hung up on Butch right now, and yeah, these guys are still probably just fuckbois, even if they’re not chaser fuckbois.
But maybe it wouldn’t hurt to leave it for now.
I mute the notifications instead of deactivating my profile, and close out of the app.
Maybe it’s shallow, but it feels kind of nice to be objectified for my burgeoning muscles. It’s affirming. It feels manly. It’s… fun. I walk a little faster the rest of the way to Sweat, with a new bounce in my step.
“Morning, Rocky,” Silas greets me as I step inside.
“Rocky!” Fender hoots from a treadmill.
“Heard you upped your game on the leg press. Way to go, man.” AJ leans over the front desk and offers me a fist bump.
When did I become one of the guys here? Damn, it feels nice though.
I grin and take the fist bump, resisting the urge to downplay my achievement by telling AJ that it wasn’t much weight or how sore my legs still are today.
It was a new record for me, and that’s what matters.
And the soreness just means new muscles are forming.
I’ll be crushing watermelons between my thighs before you know it.
Okay, maybe more like juicing oranges, but still, it’s progress.
“New day, new gains. Right, Rocky?” I have no idea how a man Butch’s size managed to sneak up behind me, but my breath catches at the sound of his voice and my heart pounds.
Is he going to treat me differently now that he knows I’m trans? Are things going to be weird at all? His hand collides with my ass, and I yelp, my face heating and my cock stiffening instantly.
“No slacking, dude. Get your ass on the treadmill for your warm-up.”
“Do you spank all of your clients?” I grumble to cover the arousal that’s rushing through me, and rub my stinging ass cheek while I look at him over my shoulder, hoping that tone hides any trace of how horny I am.
“Only the ones who show up late and waste the first few minutes of their session.” He winks at me.
“Maybe I should start using that tactic on Slater,” AJ says with a laugh.
“Why do I get the feeling that you trying to spank Slater would just turn into a wrestling match?” Callan chuckles.
Fender hops off his treadmill and leans against the handrest with a filthy grin.
“Oh, hell yeah. Please tell me you and Slate wrestle each other to decide who tops every time.”
AJ blushes but doesn’t answer, which makes Callan and Fender both hoot with laughter.
“Damn, that’s kind of hot,” Butch mutters quietly, flashing me a smile as we make our way over to the treadmills for our warm-up.
I give a quiet laugh that I’m sure sounds like agreement.
And I’m not disagreeing that it’s pretty hot to picture Slater and AJ wrestling naked before they fuck, but Butch’s comment is just a reminder that there’s no way I’m the kind of guy he would ever be interested in.
If I tried to wrestle him before sex, I’d probably end up injured.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop me from imagining Butch’s big, naked, sweaty body pinning me down, a playful smile on his lips as he challenges me to break free of his hold.
My knees quake and I grab the handrails as I hop up onto the treadmill, doing my best to keep myself from face-planting and humiliating myself.
“We’re aiming for two miles. Focus on distance, not speed. You ready?” Butch asks, and I manage to push aside those filthy images and pull myself together.
“Let’s do it.”
BUTCH
“Hell yeah, Rocky!” I cheer when he hits the two-mile mark and immediately slows his speed, clutching the handrails and panting as he transitions to a walk. “You did it. You hit two miles.”
“I’m gonna die,” he gasps.
I bark out a laugh. “You’re not gonna die. Have some water.”
I toss him my water bottle. His eyes go wide, and he lets go of the handrails to catch it, a startled little sound falling from his lips.
“Thanks.” He uncaps it and tilts his head back to guzzle it down, his throat bobbing with his gulps.
My dick chubs up at the sight of the sweat rolling down his throat and the knowledge that his mouth is right where mine was before.
When I take another drink from it, I’ll be able to taste his lips.
Fuck, I want to kiss him again. I want to do more than kiss him.
I want to do filthy fucking things to him, and if I don’t figure out soon whether he’s into that too, I’m going to start feeling like a bit of a creep.
Once he’s hydrated, he recaps the water bottle and passes it back to me. We finish our cooldowns and head over to the mat to stretch before we tackle weights. Percy is used to the routine, lying down so I can help him stretch his hamstrings without needing prompting.
“Oh, fuck, that’s tight,” he gasps, and my dick jerks with interest.
“Breathe and relax,” I remind him gently, pushing his leg forward just a fraction of an inch so I don’t overstretch him and earning another breathy little sound.
“You’ll never guess what Juno did,” he says as he finally relaxes into the stretch.
“Hm?” I grunt, letting him know he can keep talking.
“They reactivated my M4M profile and uploaded a bunch of new, buff pics of me. I got a whole bunch of DMs this morning from guys who would definitely be disappointed to realize I’m just a nerd who discovered the gym and not a proper bro or whatever.” He huffs out a laugh, and my stomach tightens.
He’s on M4M? I haven’t bothered opening the app in ages, but suddenly I want to pull it out and look for his profile.
“Can’t imagine anyone being disappointed with you, Rocky.” I ease up on his leg and switch to the other.
He gasps again, then lets out another laugh. “Do they teach confidence building in personal trainer school? Because you must have aced that course.”
I grimace. “I barely passed high school, man. I’m strictly trained on the job. Hope that doesn’t undermine your confidence in me.”
“What? Of course not.” Percy sits up when I finish his hamstring stretch and looks up at me with those big, sweet eyes of his. “Sorry, I just assumed there was some kind of class or certification for this kind of thing.”
“There are, but it’s not strictly required.
I could open up more career options if I got a degree or certification, but like I said, I’m not really a ‘school’ kind of person.
Taking tests gives me hives, reading books is damn near impossible, and don’t even get me started on sitting through lectures. ”
“You basically just described all of my favorite things.” He stands up and starts stretching his calves while smiling at me and shaking his head.
Great. Way to go, Butch. Not only did Percy find out this morning that he’s got plenty of options on M4M, but I just shined a bright-ass spotlight on the biggest reason he wouldn’t want to date me.
“Hey, Rocky,” Fender says, coming over and shouldering past me. “What are you doing Friday night?”
“Uh… nothing? Or… I mean… I’m not sure. Why?”
“It’s my birthday, and we’re having a party at our apartment. You should come.”
I frown. “It’s not your—”
Fender elbows me in the gut before I can finish that sentence.
“Booze, food, plenty of hot men to ogle.” Fender continues his pitch. “You should definitely come.”
“Um…” Percy looks from Fender to me and back again. “Yeah, I could do that. Sure, I’ll come.”
“Were you telling Rocky about the birthday party?” Callan chimes in.
“The birthday party we’ve been planning for weeks, to celebrate the day of my birth this Friday? Yes, yes I was.”
I frown again. What the hell are these two up to?
Then again, if it gets Percy to our apartment Friday night, I’m not about to complain.
That’s perfect, actually. He was holding back because he wanted to come out to me first, but that’s out of the way now.
A chance to hang out with him outside of the gym is exactly what I need.
“Fender’s party will be a blast,” I say, even though this is the first I’ve heard of the party and I’m almost positive Fender’s birthday is in February.
“No need to bring presents, but if you insist, I wear a tattoo gift certificate, size two hours.”
Percy laughs. “Alright, yeah, I’ll be there,” he says again, his eyes wandering back over to me with a smile on his lips and a spark in his eye.
Fuck, I want to kiss him again right now. But I guess I can wait until Friday.