Chapter 14
Deacon
“You got this. One more.” I clapped my hands together, and Marcus grunted in approval and lifted the weights above his chest. Once the bar was returned to the rack, I stepped back and let him catch his breath and checked my phone.
“What made you want to lift suddenly?” I glanced at the notifications, sliding my thumb up the screen, but there was no message from Willow.
“Lila joined a weight-lifting club in Chicago after her fellow accountant convinced her when they were at pickleball.” He wiped the sweat from his brow. “I want to make sure I can keep up with her.”
“Fascinating girl you found.” I clocked his dreamy expression at the mention of her and rolled my eyes.
I was happy for the guy, though. He’d been hung up on Emi since I met him, and she would never give him a shot.
I wasn’t sure she’d ever given anyone a chance.
She’d told me once she’d done all the falling for someone she ever planned to do.
“Lila’s amazing,” he said, sitting up with a grunt. “Could kick my ass, though. Hence the workouts.”
I chuckled and nodded toward the other side of the gym. “Nothing wrong with that. I knew this natural bodybuilder once. Tiffany could kick my ass ten ways to Sunday. We had a lot of fun.”
We strode toward the cardio equipment, and he tipped his water bottle up. “Is there any group or category of women where you haven’t known someone?”
I laughed off the comment and pointed to the treadmills along the back wall.
Willow had said something to the same effect, and it wasn’t wrong, but it’s not like it was the only thing about me.
Cruz gave me shit all the time about my history with women.
It was probably why he warned me so harshly against trying anything with Willow.
“Never been with a pickleball-playing accountant, so you’ve got me there. ”
“Don’t worry.” He patted my shoulder a few times before climbing onto the machine. “I’ll help you get your game as good as mine.”
I punched him in the arm and fiddled with the settings. “Pretty cocky for first girlfriend.”
“She’s awesome.” He popped in his earbuds, and I did the same, looking away from my roommate to the treadmill settings and adjusting the incline and speed.
I was almost back to where I’d been two years ago before the surgery.
If I could keep pushing, I’d be in shape to get my old life back.
The heavy beat of “Humble” by Kendrick Lamar pounded in my ears, and I hit start.
The familiar feel of my feet hitting the belt as my heart rate beat in sync with the song washed over me, and I sank into the oblivion of running and moving, faster and harder.
It was what we’d done in basic and then at a higher level when I started training to be a PJ.
That’s where I had to get back to. A place beyond being in shape, being as close to a machine as a human body could be, because that’s the level the job required.
“Damn, man,” Marcus mouthed over his own music, pointing at the readout on my screen where I’d lost track of the workout, only now taking stock of my breath coming fast and my calf muscles burning. In my ear, the music stopped, and the phone rang.
When I saw the name on the screen, I hopped to the side of the belt before turning it off and hopping down. “Low, what’s up?”
“Sorry to bother you,” she said, and I heard a hesitance in her voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
I angled between two women on their phones near the ellipticals. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s probably fine, but can you meet me at the vet clinic? Gus had an accident when we were at the park.”
I heard the dog’s whining in the background and the sounds of the road.
“What’s the address?” She spoke away from the phone, and a deeper voice rumbled the response.
“Who’s that?”
“We were lucky and ran into a veterinarian, actually,” she said, her voice softening, and I heard the rumbling of the man’s voice again, which elicited a giggle from Willow.
A fucking giggle. I glanced over my shoulder at Marcus and motioned between my phone and the entrance.
“Theo says he’ll be okay. Gus had a run-in with the wrong end of a porcupine. ”
“Though, to be fair, is there a good end of a porcupine?” The joke came from Theo, so I hated it, but Willow laughed, making me dislike the guy even more.
“I’ll be there in ten,” I said, pushing through the exit doors.
“It’s no rush,” she said, a lightness returning to her voice, no doubt because of Dr. Helpful’s dumb joke. “Theo said it’ll take a while. Gus will need to be sedated.”
I heard a man’s voice saying something, and I bristled. “On my way,” I said, ignoring her reassurance.
The address she had repeated back to me was across town, but I still approached the clinic in just under ten minutes.
What was she doing getting in a car with a strange guy who claimed to be a vet?
I hit the gas to make it through a yellow light.
She wasn’t a kid, but Cruz would kill me if something happened to her.
And what kind of a vet was just lounging around in the park?
I gave a derisive chuff to no one and glanced at my GPS.
I half expected to see an abandoned warehouse when I turned the corner, but the clinic she’d mentioned was ahead of me.
“Doesn’t mean he’s actually a vet, though,” I muttered.
The clinic was bright with sunlight streaming in the front windows, and the receptionist smiled at me next to a cardboard cutout of a fluffy white cat. “Welcome. How can I help you?”
“Yeah,” I said, stepping forward and noting how her gaze dipped to my chest. My T-shirt was drenched in sweat and clinging. Another time, though. “My friend came in with, um, Theo?”
“Oh, certainly.” She motioned to the seating area. “Have a seat. She and Dr. Johnson are in the back.”
Dr. Johnson. Fine. Probably an old nerd.
Rolling my shoulders back, I eyed the door as I texted Willow, but I didn’t get a reply.
Anxious, I tapped my foot and counted the floor tiles—fourteen feet to the exit and nine to the window.
I hated the waiting, and my skin felt tight by the time a door opened and Willow emerged, laughing at something a tall, slender, young guy had said with his hand at her lower back.
I zeroed in on the placement of that hand.
“No,” he said, his hand not moving despite the death glare I sent him from across the room. “Let’s avoid that particular park. How about Latin King? Their chicken spiedini is an East Side staple.”
“That sounds good,” she said, holding out her hand to shake his, and I took in how long his palm lingered against hers. I hated this guy on sight.
“How’s Gus?” I asked in a voice that was too loud for the space, and Willow jumped. She jumped closer to him, making every muscle in my body tense.
“Deacon, you scared me!” She finally pulled her hand from the vet’s grip and held it to her heart. “He’s going to be fine. He probably won’t mess with a porcupine again, though.”
The vet laughed, like this was their inside joke. “That’s for sure.”
“We were lucky Theo was there.” She gave him an adoring glance again. “I would have had no idea what to do.”
“You would have figured it out,” he said, which was what I would have said if I wasn’t consciously stopping myself from shoving this guy away from Willow so he couldn’t touch her again. “And it gave me the opportunity to meet you.”
I didn’t know it would be so easy to despise a stranger, but Dr. Theo Johnson had made his way onto a short list of people on my bad side.
“Was there a lot of blood?” My voice was too loud again, but I said the first thing I could think of to interrupt this little flirt fest. “Does he need medication?”
The vet looked between me and Willow, but he addressed his response to her in the end.
“I’ll get Gus finished up. The staff at the front desk will get you the medication and a printed version of the care instructions and will bring him out soon.
” He pointed to the desk. “And you have my number.” He grinned at her, and she grinned back.
I debated asking about something else to remind her I was there.
“But I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow? ”
She nodded and they shook hands again, fingers lingering until I coughed into my hand.
“Oh, sorry.” She dropped his hand again. “This is my friend, Deacon. He’s going to help me get Gus home.”
The vet’s expression changed when she declared I was a friend, and I’d never hated the word more.
There wasn’t an elegant way to work into the conversation that I had extensive military and medical training and could make something look like an accident, so I held back.
I gripped his hand too hard when he stuck it out for a handshake, but who could blame me?
I owed Cruz that much, and that’s where this feeling was coming from, not from any misplaced jealousy.
Willow didn’t seem to notice and turned to me, her eyes wide with a beaming smile for me after he’d slipped back into the office.
“Seven tomorrow?” I cocked an eyebrow, this time regulating the volume of my voice. “House call?”
She rolled her eyes and pulled her wallet from her purse. “A date. A re-do on a first date! Can you believe it? You were right!”
I followed her to the front desk without responding.
The gnawing feeling in my chest was jealousy, but I wasn’t someone who got jealous, not about women, and especially not about friends.
Willow winced when she pulled the credit card from her wallet, asking what the total was.
I’d dropped enough money on Cupcake to know it wouldn’t be cheap, and I squeezed her shoulder in support, regretting it immediately when I felt her warmth through the fabric of her T-shirt.
And then even more when I was reminded that the vet might touch her on their date.
“Dr. Johnson said there’s no charge.” She was an older woman with gray at her temples and Peanuts characters on her light pink scrubs.
“He likes you,” she said in a kind voice.
“Said he was glad to help out a new friend.” She was just finishing up walking Willow through the aftercare instructions when another woman in blue scrubs walked Gus out, my annoyance fading because Gus looked as miserable and embarrassed as a dog could look.
I dropped to my knees and let him trot to me.
“Hey, buddy.” I hovered my hand near his shoulder, letting him close the distance.
“You’ll be okay,” I said, petting his shoulder again, since that didn’t seem to cause him any pain.
“But you had to do this when that guy was nearby?” I said low against his ears, which perked up.
Gus got it. I gave him one more pet and took the leash to lead him out with Willow walking ahead of us.
She’d repeated the instructions as I hoisted Gus into the back seat. “I need to message Cruz. He’s going to be mad—he told me to keep a close eye on him in the park, and I told him he was being ridiculous.”
“He won’t be mad,” I reassured her, pulling out into traffic.
“He won’t be thrilled about the date, but he won’t be mad.
” In reality, I wasn’t sure if Cruz would care about the date.
He was protective, but I didn’t think he actually wanted her to be alone.
The only person I’d ever heard him seriously encourage her to think of as off-limits was me.