Chapter 31
THE DOUBLE DOORS OPEN, the sound of the crowd assembling outside flooding the lobby before the doors clatter shut again, returning the din to a dull murmur.
“Ellie?” Ian’s voice cuts through the darkened space, his form limned by the green glow of the exit light above the doors. The sight is cinematic, but distinctly genre, like things are about to get either very spooky or very sexy.
Or very judgy.
“Are you ready?” I ask. I sit on the couch dividing the shop from the communal lounge, and when I stand, it activates the motion-sensing lights, illuminating the pro shop behind me. The effect is really dramatic; I recorded my practice run to be sure.
Ian’s attention is fixed behind me, his eyes tracking from left to right.
“Wow,” he says, his tone gratingly neutral as he starts toward the pro shop.
I move to meet him, stopping to accept the kiss he plants on my temple, and one of his hands finds its way to my side as we move closer to admire the changes.
Even though I worked on the makeover all day, I’m still taken with how well our vision has translated into reality.
It was truly a group effort, with every insurgent in the Coffee Coup staying after the Saturday endurance class to help, but they insisted that I present the final reveal on my own on the grounds that they wanted to help prepare for tonight’s event.
Plus, as per Babs, “Ian might want to thank you.” Her suggestive tone inspired a round of faux-scandalized oohs.
They really do need to find a better way to fill their time.
“Those are the rigs from storage,” he says, starting in the left corner of the shop. We paired them with some banged-up barbells he’d retired, repurposing them into racks to hang T-shirts and tank tops. “Good call.”
“We swiped two pairs of j-hooks.” I point to where they hold the bars “So if we’re ever short on the floor, we’ll have to find another way to hang those.”
He nods, moving to the cubbies, inspecting the shelves.
“Everything is arranged by size and color, biggest on the bottom, working up to extra smalls.” I gesture to the rightmost column of shelves.
“This design is the one we have the most of. Since you didn’t nix the suggestion to comp shirts to new members and visitors, I figured we’d use these.
It’s a good strategy,” I say, hoping to reinforce the idea, in case he had simply overlooked the note. “People love free stuff.”
“Sure,” he says, attention traveling along the shelves of newly organized protein powders and supplements to the right-hand wall of the shop.
I try to read his body language, but this vantage point gives me nothing but his splendid rear view.
He pauses in front of the wall, now adorned with rows of glittering medals and trophies: Ian Hammond’s timeline of glory.
“So this is where those photos and articles ended up.”
“Jacob’s a photographer,” I say. “He mounts and frames his own work, and he took on all the magazine and newspaper articles the ladies and I culled through.”
He moves to the corner, where the timeline kicks off with a plaque with a yellow duck mounted to it. “The Rubber Ducky Award from high school was worthy of inclusion?”
“It speaks to your lifelong commitment to fitness.” I point to the group photo above the plaque, where a teenaged Ian stands a full head above the others on his track team.
“That’s when I started lifting,” he says.
“Coach Smitty taught shop, knew nothing about track; had gotten stuck with it for some reason, probably budget cuts. But he committed. When he decided to incorporate a weight training element my junior year, I threw myself into it.” He lets out a dry laugh.
“Anything to keep myself out of the house. Sick mom, pain-in-the-ass little brother…”
Panic grips my stomach, but he smiles, and the tension releases.
“By the next fall, I was so big, the football coach tried to recruit me. I stuck with track and helped the underclassmen in the weight room.” He taps the bill of the duck.
“At the end-of-season banquet, I received this as a thank-you.”
We continue to move to the right, tracking his college years and professional career, including a discreet five-by-seven of The Roar. He arches a brow, pausing in front of the infamous shot.
“You didn’t veto it,” I remind him. “That was major! An international publication.”
He chuckles, sliding his hand from my waist to give my tush a squeeze. “I like that you like it.”
About two-thirds down, it switches from his time as an athlete to his coaching, though we elected not to mention the accident or the other gym.
Instead, it starts with an article in a community paper about our grand opening.
It’s an entertaining read, half informative, half grumbling about the continued “erosion” of the neighborhood’s historic properties, penned by Firehouse’s favorite espresso-pulling diabetic.
Tom had been mortified, which only made Babs more insistent that it went up.
I tap a pair of laminated plaques. “Your Best of Austin awards.”
“When did the second one come in?”
“Last week. Surprise! I hid it.”
“Of course you did,” he says, but there’s a smile in it. He nods to the empty wall space a few feet shy of where the shop transitions into the lounge. “Blank?”
“Intentionally. The Coup has thoughts. We could do a member of the month, write a special workout for them and a little Q I had to stop reading after about five of them.
It was too much. Too open, too vulnerable, too…
compelling. In the eyes of this community, Ian is everything from drill sergeant to life coach to personal savior.
My heart twists. Someone who deserves more than what life with me could mean.
I tap the profile photo beside Helen’s submission. “That one almost made me cry.”
“She had a lot of shit to work through when she first came in. And would be the first to admit that she still does.” He steps closer to read. His brows twitch in surprise. “Wow.”
His eyes shift to a neighboring submission, moving side to side as he reads. He reads another. And another. I watch as the surprise shifts to wonder, then something more. Realization.
He blinks rapidly, taking a step back, as though suddenly appreciating the scope of what’s in front of him.
“It’s funny,” he says, voice distant. “In this job, success is obvious. Clients set goals; you work together to plan a path to achieve them. In time, they’re faster, stronger, leaner.
” His eyes are still on the display as he says, “But you don’t know what it means to them. ”
I slide my hand up his back to his shoulder, resting my head against his arm. “People value what happens here. What you do here.”
His arm comes around me, and I turn toward him.
When I look into his face, I have to grip him more tightly.
He’s never been able to conceal anything, not with those exceptional eyes.
And right now, the emotion shining through them is unwinding that twist in my heart, imploring me to give in to the greedy impulse to keep him, no matter what it might cost him.
“Thank you for caring,” he says. “Caring enough to do all of this.”
My throat goes tight. “Thank you for giving me somewhere to care about.”
“And for caring about the guys. And…” He swallows hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Me.”
There’s a question in the last word, and if I had an ounce of self-preservation, I’d simply say something reassuring and leave it at that.
But because I don’t, or don’t want to, I pull him down to me.
I kiss his Adam’s apple first, because I don’t know that I’ve done that before, and the way it moved just now was enchanting, and then his neck, and below his ear.
I nibble his ear lobe, giving it a gentle tug. “You make it easy.”
He holds me so tightly, I can barely breathe.
I hug him back just as hard, my eyes welling.
Reading those testimonials was like being served with the world’s most compelling character witness statements, but instead of seeking clemency, they were selling me on the reasons why I should bind myself to this man and never return to my real life. God, I want to.
Now isn’t enough. It was never going to be.
I’m too greedy for him. It started the second his eyes softened at my sadness that first night, and it’s only gotten worse.
I’m greedy for his skin, his incredible eyes, the way he makes me feel, and the rumbling laugh I can get out of him.
I’m greedy for the casual moments, when he conks out on the couch here in the lobby, his head in my lap while I read, or at the Dawghouse, quoting along with Betty White’s warning not to let the puppy out because the eagles will snatch him.
I’m greedy for interactions that have nothing to do with me: helping Penny release a cricket; listening to Tom break down his most recent update to the billing system; handing Babs her preferred lacrosse ball at the end of class.
This man isn’t break material.
And he doesn’t have to be.
The thought teases through me, shifting and expanding until it threatens to become the one thing I’ve refused to let myself consider: hope.
Hope that I’ll be okay, that the next few months will pass without incident and the specter of my fear will go with them.
There’s still the five-year window, but after the six months, the possibility of MS drops significantly.
It is possible. I can remain this version of myself, keep this life and the strange, wonderful community that’s made me one of their own.
Keep him. Stay us.
I gasp at that. Ian meets my eyes, his look tinged with worry, then relaxing as I smile at him, stunned. I can hope.
“I have something for you,” I say, and step back, however reluctantly, so he has to let me go. I scramble for my gym bag, left on the couch, and rummage through it until my hand closes on the slim package I’ve left languishing for too long.
I return to Ian and hand it off. “For upstairs. For you.”
He looks from the gift to me, and back again. He slides a finger under one edge of the paper, prying it loose from the tape, and pulls the wrap away from what’s inside. The light overhead glints off The Hammonds Do Hawaii, now behind glass.
Ian stills. “You framed it.”
“Is that okay?”
He nods. “That was weeks ago. When—”
“I picked up the frame that day. I’ve been wanting to give it to you, but I needed time. To let myself…” I shake my head, almost afraid to say it aloud, like I might scare it away. “Hope.”
“Hope?”
“For this? For you. That I could…” I don’t have the words. “Keep you.”
Ian’s arms come around me, the frame still in one hand, and I grab on to him again. “Hayes. Ellie,” he says, emotion cradling both of my names. “I—”
The double doors swing open. We pivot to face them, still clinging to one another.
Grant staggers into the semidarkness, vectoring toward us. “I’m so sorry! But we gotta do the unveiling now, or they’re going to riot.”
Ian releases one arm from me to give his brother a gesture that seems to convey “Fine,” “Are you kidding?”, and a possible threat of bodily harm, but Grant only seems to register the first one, responding with a double thumbs-up before darting out the still-open doors.
“It’s your fault,” I tell Ian, who turns to eye me. I smile. “It’s this damn community you’ve put together. They’re committed.” He laughs but cuts a glare toward the doors again. Grant returns, hitting the lights, and members begin filing in.
“Duty calls,” he says, and releases me, fingers slowly trailing down my arm.
I grab his free hand. “Will you be my partner tonight? For whatever this stealth thing Diego and Mark have put together is?” I was going to pair up with Heather, but she can deal. Right now, I can’t be anywhere but with him.
He links his fingers with mine, squeezing gently. There’s a tempest in his eyes when he says, “Hayes, I couldn’t spend a second away from you tonight if I tried.”