Bonus Chapter
Bonus Chapter
DEREK
Meeting Isabelle
My phone rang loudly, ripping me out of a deep sleep. With my eyes still closed, I let out a groan as I reached and felt around my nightstand.
I should have put the damn thing on silent.
As soon as I found it, I squinted one eye open to see who it was. I read that it was Keelan and let out a curse when I saw the time. It was just after eight in the morning. I didn’t have to go in until this afternoon, which was why I’d stayed up until three in the morning playing video games with my friends. Keelan being one of those friends, but he’d quit gaming around ten last night because he had to open Desert Stone this morning.
I answered the call and brought the phone to my ear. “What’s up, man?” I didn’t bother trying to hide the “just got woken up” huskiness in my voice.
“I’m sorry to wake you, but is there any way you can come in early? Knox and I need to take off. We have a family emergency.”
I sat up and ran a tired hand down my face. “Yeah. I can be there in half an hour.”
“Thank you. I’m going to leave all of Isabelle’s new-hire paperwork on Knox’s desk. Can you have her fill it out before you begin her training?”
I had forgotten I had to train a new employee today. “Isn’t the new assistant manager starting today, too?”
Keelan let out a sigh. “Yeah. She’s here and Knox is showing her as much as he can before we leave. Any way you can be available to her if she needs help?”
It looked like I was going to have a busy day today. “Yeah. No problem.”
“You know we would have made you assistant manager if you had wanted it.”
“Too much responsibility.”
Keelan huffed a laugh. “Tell me about it.” I could hear Knox’s voice in the background, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. “Gotta go, Derek. Thanks again for helping us out.”
“I’ll hold down the fort. Go take care of your family,” I said before hanging up.
Despite it being her first day, Katrina, the new assistant manager for Desert Stone Fitness, was handling everything swimmingly. She only had a few hours left of her shift until I would take over. I technically didn’t have the title signifying that I was in charge of things if the owners (and now management) weren’t here, but everyone who worked here seemed to know. I had worked at Desert Stone since they’d opened their doors and I had worked in nearly every position. I hadn’t exactly agreed to the extra responsibility of being the go-to when the bosses were gone; it’d just sort of ended up that way. The plus side was that Knox and Keelan paid me extra for it.
A little bit before four, as things seemed to quiet down in the gym for a moment, I got a text from my buddy, Leo, asking if I wanted to go out tonight. I shot him a quick text back telling him I was at work but could go out after. He replied right away saying that he was good with going after and would just meet me here at closing.
Distracted reading my phone, I didn’t notice someone had approached the desk until I heard a sweet, feminine voice.
“Excuse me.”
I looked up and saw a young woman with pretty blue eyes and wavy, greenish-blue hair. I quickly dropped my phone on the desk and gave her my full attention. “Sorry about that. How can I help you?” The more I took her in, the more I felt like I had seen her before.
She gave me a bright, friendly smile. “That’s all right.”
Shit, she’s cute. But looked like she was still young enough to be in high school, so I quickly pushed that thought away.
“My name is Isabelle,” she said. “Today is my first day working here. You’re Derek, right? I think Knox said you were going to oversee my training.”
The moment she said her name, I finally realized why I thought she looked familiar. “You were at the mud run with Shiloh,” I blurted.
She nodded. “Yeah. And you’re the one she tackled and took a tumble with down that hill.”
I chuckled. “I thought Creed was going to kick my ass.”
Still smiling, she shook your head. “Nah. Shi wouldn’t have let him do that.”
I tilted my head and waved for her to come around the desk so that we could get her first day as a Desert Stone employee started. Once she was done filling out her new-hire paperwork, I called Becky, a personal trainer, to cover the front desk while I gave Isabelle a tour of the whole gym. The rest of the shift went by fast. Mainly because it always got busy in the evenings, which was perfect. It allowed me to show her how to perform many of the front-desk responsibilities.
As we approached closing, the two of us and a boxing instructor teaching the last class of the day were the only employees left in the gym.
“The music seems louder when there aren’t a lot of people here,” Isabelle said from where she sat next to me. Other than the last class, there were only a few of our regular members in the main area of the gym finishing up their workouts.
“You get used to it.” Just as I said that, someone walked in. I went to greet them, but I saw that it was my buddy, Leo. “You’re early. We don’t close for another fifteen minutes.”
Leo, or Leonardo Diaz, and I had been good friends since diapers. We’d been next-door neighbors growing up, and his parents were still close friends with my dad to this day. He came up to the front desk and rested his arms on top of it. “I know. I figured I’d come in to say hi to Keelan and see if he wanted to go out with us. I haven’t seen him since the mud run and I can’t remember the last time we hung out, but I didn’t see his Jeep outside.”
“He hasn’t closed the gym for a while and I told you, he’s pretty much wifed up now. Going out with us and picking up chic—” Movement next to me reminded me of Isabelle. “What I mean is that he’d rather hang out at home with his girlfriend.”
“As he should,” Isabelle mumbled under her breath, and I had to fight not to smile. I had only known her for a handful of hours, but I could tell she had some sass. It only added to how cute she was. Too bad she had a boyfriend, because I would have seriously considered breaking my never date a coworker rule.
Leo shook his head. “I never thought I’d see the day Keelan would commit to a girl. Was she at his birthday party?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t been able to go because I was the only one capable of being in charge of the gym so his brothers could attend.
“Yes. She was the one with the cherry-red hair,” Isabelle chimed in.
Leo’s gaze shifted to my right. I watched him take Isabelle in and I saw interest fill his brown eyes before they flicked back to me with a clear question. I shook my head slightly, silently telling him not to go there. Understanding, he looked back at her. “I think I remember seeing you there. Your hair was different then.”
She nodded. “Yes. It was neon green.”
Hearing her say that, Leo got this ah, I see look on his face before the look quickly turned into a frown. “I thought the girl with the red hair was Knox’s girlfriend. Or it looked like she was at the party.”
Neither Isabelle nor I responded right away. I glanced at her and found her already staring at me. Both of us seemed unsure what the right thing to say was.
Isabelle cleared her throat before looking away to face Leo. “She is.”
As expected, Leo appeared confused as hell. “What?”
“She’s Knox’s girlfriend, too,” I said. I hadn’t gotten clarification on Shiloh and the four Stone brothers’ relationship and frankly, it wasn’t any of my business, but I had heard and seen enough to have a pretty good idea. I was pretty sure everyone who worked at the gym knew. They weren’t exactly hiding it, nor did they need to.
Leo’s eyebrows tried to reach new heights. “They’re both with the same girl?”
“Yes, they are. Do you have a problem with that?” Isabelle’s voice came out kind, but her eyes said she was ready to defend her friend.
My friend raised his hands up a little in surrender. “Not at all. Just surprised.”
Voices from people leaving the boxing class reached us. I glanced at the time; it was nine. I stood from my chair. “All right, Isabelle, let me show you how we close up.”
Leo stayed by the front desk as we went through the gym, turning off and locking up everything. When we were all done and Desert Stone was closed for the night, Leo and I watched Isabelle walk to and get in her car as we stood by mine.
Leo whistled. “She’s pretty cute.”
“Don’t go there, man,” I warned and walked over to the driver’s side of my car.
Leo headed for his own car, but shot over his shoulder, “If I were you, I’d be tempted to break that coworker rule you have.”
“She has a boyfriend and she’s still in high school.”
He let out a curse as he reached his car. “Now I feel like a pervert.”
Taking pity on my friend, I said, “She’s eighteen.”
Leo glanced back at me. “Still too young.”
“You’re twenty-one. You’re only three years older than her.”
A grin stretched across his mouth. “Sounds like you’ve already thought about this.”
I didn’t want to have this conversation anymore. “Get in your damn car and let’s go get a few beers.”
Chuckling, he did as I said. After letting out a heavy sigh, I did the same and followed him to our favorite bar.