by Julia Derek
“Hi darling,” he said and extended his arms for an embrace. I disappeared into his muscular arms and we hugged. Then he held me away from him so he could take in my appearance. “Wow, you look great! Those workouts are paying off big-time.”
I was pretty sure I didn’t look all that different yet—after all, I had only had four sessions with Dante, one of which had taken place weeks ago. Still, I did feel as though I’d toned up a little in the short time we’d been training, so I’d put on one of my more revealing dresses—a purple, formfitting number that looked great with my strawberry blond hair and white skin. And hearing Nixon, a trainer himself, tell me I’d improved made me feel even better.
“Thanks, Nix,” I said and grinned big at him. “And you look as good as always.”
It was true; Nixon was one of those guys who knew exactly how to dress to make sure he accentuated his brawny body in a good way instead of appearing like he was busting out of his clothes. Then again, he was gay and his boyfriend a designer, so it wasn’t so strange.
We had a quick drink at the bar and then got seated at our table. The waiter had barely taken our drink orders before Nixon launched into the latest with his now ex-boyfriend, Simon, who’d been unfaithful for the umpteenth time. The story ended with Nixon having walked in on Simon making out with someone on the floor in his living room. Nixon had of course stormed out and promised himself that this was the last time he’d ever talk to Simon. He buried his face in his hands and sighed distraught. Then he looked up at me again.
“Can you believe the nerve of him!” he said, his face purple with indignation. “He didn’t even bother to hide the fact that he was having an affair!”
I took a deep breath and thought about how I could tell Nixon in the least rude way possible what I thought. “Unfortunately, I can believe it, Nix. I’m just wondering why you keep taking this guy back over and over. He’s obviously not worth it.”
Nixon rolled his eyes. “I know, I know. I don’t know either. It really needs to end once and for all.”
“Yes, it definitely does. Well, I’m glad that you’re not more upset about this.” The first few times Simon and Nixon broke up, Nixon had been in tears and depressed for days. Now he seemed more pissed off than sad, which was good, as it must mean he didn’t care as much about Simon as he used to. Suddenly, it hit me what I should do to help Nixon move on from Simon. He needed to meet someone else. And I knew just the right person for him.
Simon peered at me with his bright green eyes. “What’s that smile about? You’re up to something. What is it?”
I could feel my smile getting bigger. “I have just the right guy for you…”
“Who? Someone you think I should go out with?”
“Uh-huh. A guy I used to go out with.”
Nixon looked confused. “Why would you set me up with a straight guy?”
“Because it turned out that he isn’t actually straight.”
Nixon’s eyes narrowed as he processed this information. “You mean he became gay when he was dating you?”
I stared at him with mock outrage, relieved I could do so now. Only a couple of weeks ago, Nixon’s question surely would have upset me. Phew. I was so over Aidan.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t become gay because he was dating me. He was always gay. Being with me just helped him deal with this fact. I’m not sure exactly how that worked, but he seemed very sincere when he told me, so I’ve decided that I’m gonna take his word for it.”
“Okay, well, that’s cool. So you think he and I’ll like each other?”
I pushed out my lips and gave Nixon my best impression of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nixon’s favorite actor, saying “I’ll. Be. Back.” “Yes. I. Sure. Do…”
Dante
When I went to bed later that night, I was still thinking about how Ricki had looked on the floor during our session, exhausted from doing all those sit-ups and trying to punch me. Something about her expression had made me think of Lara and it had hurt me. The pain had gotten ten times worse, almost unbearable, when she’d traced my scar with her finger and told me she didn’t buy my story about the mosquito bite. She had reminded me that I had erased Lara. The intense pain had stayed with me for the rest of the evening, which was why I’d bought a large bottle of whiskey and downed half of it now. I was lucky this was one of the nights Jose couldn’t see me; I’d be useless to him when I was in this mood. I’d barely managed to keep it together during the two clients I’d had after Ricki.
Most of the time I could endure the pain, but not when it got this strong, stayed with me this long. Getting drunk was the only way to dull it then. The pain had spread into my every cell, making me feel as though a million tiny creatures ate me from the insides. My finger found the faint scar under my eye and traced it the way Ricki had done earlier today. Then I had another mouthful of whiskey that burned its way down to my gut to kill the rush of pain that suddenly overwhelmed me.
Even though I didn’t have a choice but to remove the teardrop if I wished to have a life in the real world, I felt like I’d betrayed Lara. By removing the tattoo, I had also erased Lara, disrespected her memory.
The night when Lara died lived in my mind as vividly as if it had happened yesterday, not eight years ago. I could still feel the faint breeze blowing in my face, smell the pot that hung persistently in the air, taste the regret in my mouth when I realized what a mistake I’d made. I should have taken her straight home after spotting her on the street. And then I should have told her I was planning to leave the gang eventually because nothing good came out of being in a gang. Not really. But I hadn’t done any of that. I’d done the opposite instead—asked her to join the party we were having.
I’d wanted to prove to her that she was the only one for me, and in my foolish mind I’d thought that by showing her my extended “family,” my many brothers and sisters, she would understand what I was all about. When I wasn’t with her, I was out doing missions for the gang, not hanging out with other girls, like she’d kept accusing me of. If she met my boss and the other guys, they’d tell her I was a very busy man—boy—when I wasn’t with her. She’d stop distrusting me and we could stop fighting about it.
I had actually been so naïve that I’d thought the guys in the gang would have my back, brag about what a hard-working soldier I was. Not only did they not have my back, but instead reinforced Lara’s suspicions by telling her I was ladies’ man. In their twisted minds, I know they thought they did me a favor. Because, to them, women were all expendable, second-rate citizens who needed to be kept in place until you got tired of them and wanted a new one to play with. According to the Devils, by telling Lara I was a ladies’ man, she’d understand that she’d better not be out of line with me, or I’d simply exchange her for a girl who knew her place. And then the unthinkable had happened.
In hindsight, I should have just let Lara dump me. Let her keep thinking I was a womanizer.
At least then she would have been alive today.
When I woke up the following morning, my head pounding, I couldn’t remember how I’d finally managed to fall asleep. I did remember that I’d considered riding down to my old hood, finding some of the Devils and asking them to shoot me in the head. It wouldn’t be hard to convince one of them to do it. I knew just what set them off; besides, I wasn’t someone they were fond of anyway. In the end, as I’d thought about what I needed to do for Jose still, I’d changed my mind. He wouldn’t get out of the gang without me.
As I pushed myself out of bed and sat at the edge of it, I wondered what else I’d use as my reason to keep living when Jose was safe. I needed to find something soon because, if everything went according to plan, Jose would be out of the gang in less than a month, and then there would be no stopping me when I got into one of those dark moods again. I checked the time. Almost five thirty. My first client of the day was in half an hour, which meant I’d better hurry up and get in the shower.
The warm water rinsed off what was lef
t of the darkness that had kept me enclosed, and when I stepped out of it, I felt almost human again. I popped a few Advil to calm down my head.
The day continued without a glitch; thankfully, the pills had dulled the pounding in my skull. If not, surely I would have snapped at one or more of my clients, telling them to go to hell, who would then go to Tonya and complain about me. But I managed to keep my mood in check all day long. When I had a client cancel on me toward the end of it, I wasn’t even very tired any longer. I decided to go workout a little. That was what I usually did when my clients canceled. Fortunately, among all my clients, I had at least five no-shows a week, which gave me enough time to stay in shape by squeezing in a short workout here and there.
I sat down on a machine to work my chest and biceps doing pec flys and noticed that my upper body was a little sore. Hmm. That’s weird. I hadn’t done anything different in yesterday’s workout. I thought about what else I’d done and it struck me that the tenderness in my pecs and biceps must be from holding the bag when Ricki had punched it so hard. I smiled. As hard as she’d punched that bag coupled with all the new moves we’d done, she must be pretty sore herself today. I should shoot her a text to see how she was feeling.
As soon as I’d pressed Send, I regretted having sent it. The last thing I wanted to do was give this girl mixed messages about us. Not that the text I’d just sent her was particularly intimate or anything, but considering that I had been so adamant about our kiss having been a mistake, contacting her as frequently as I used to do was a bad idea. There was no need for it any longer.
Fuck.
A response made my phone buzz. Ricki had texted me back:
Yeah, I can hardly move!
As I thought about something witty to respond—that would also signal that I was too busy to keep texting—another text arrived from Ricki: In fact, it’s so bad I could finally use your help.
What can I do for you? I replied, instantly worried. Not because I wouldn’t make good on my promise to help Ricki with anything that she might need, but because I really didn’t have time to do much of anything. At least not something that took a while to do. And even though my body had recuperated from yesterday’s drinking bout and my head was no longer pounding, I was still not 100 percent myself. My mind was not as sharp as usual. Feeling like that, I should stay far away from people who stirred up weird sensations in me. Made me feel anything at all.
My phone buzzed with her response: I need to get a dress out of my closet, but it’s on the top shelf and I can’t reach it. I’m too sore to climb up on a stool to get it.
How could I say no to that request when it was my fault she’d gotten so sore in the first place? I shouldn’t have pushed her during our session yesterday. Of course, I could always suggest that she take a bath with Epsom salt, which should take the edge off the soreness. In fact, it struck me that she should have remembered to do that herself. Why hadn’t she? Was she just trying to get me to come over to her house? Well, even if that was the case, there was nothing I could do about that unless I wanted to risk coming across as rude and dismissive. I decided that it was best to just play along. Maybe she had already taken a bath with Epsom salt and it didn’t help this time. I sent her my response:
When do you want me to come over? I have three more clients and could swing by your place at nine.
I only had one more client, but then I had to go train Jose at the Whiskey.
That would be perfect! she replied.
I’ll see you then, I texted back, having the strange sensation that I’d been had somehow, yet it didn’t bother me.
Ricki
Grinning big, I put away my phone. How funny that Dante had texted me right as I’d been about to text him! I knew appealing to his male instincts to help a female in need would do the trick to get him to come over.
Last night during dinner with Nixon, after he and I had exhausted the subject of Aidan and him going out, we had moved on to Dante. I just couldn’t get him out of my mind. All the way over to the restaurant I’d been turning over his secret in my head, trying to figure out what it could be. Of course I was getting nowhere, only succeeding in driving myself crazier. As I’d discussed the situation with Nixon, he’d come up with the brilliant idea of me asking Dante for help with something in my apartment. When I got him there, I was supposed to get him drunk to get him to open up to me. Since my brownies hadn’t done the trick last time, I couldn’t count on my lasagna doing the trick either, even though people told me it was awesome.
I drove to a wine store to pick up a bottle of red. As I was about to walk over to the counter to pay for it, I decided that I might as well get a second bottle. If two beers and a glass of Sangria didn’t make Dante even tipsy, he might need more than a bottle to get drunk enough to talk about what bothered him. I’d better be prepared for any possible developments. He could always sleep it off on my couch and drive home in the morning.
Since I was a total lightweight in the alcohol department, I myself would not drink very much of course, or I might pass out. Worse, I might do things I would regret the next day. Who knew what Dante was like when he got drunk; maybe he’d try to seduce me, even though he’d claimed our kiss had been such a mistake. It would be great if he realized that it was in fact so right, but if he ever did, I wanted him to do so when he was sober, not so drunk he wasn’t thinking clearly.
If he tried to seduce me, I’d never be able to say no, at least not when drunk. Not if he kissed me the way he’d kissed me the last time. Oh, God. My body got tingly all over just thinking about it. At the moment, though, my focus was on helping to heal him. According to my mother, who was a psychiatrist, it wasn’t wise to get into a relationship with a man who had as many issues as Dante so clearly had. And after the disaster with Aidan, I had decided that I was going to finally heed her advice. I was not about to get into a relationship with someone like Dante, even if he suddenly realized he was as into me as I was into him.
Which I’d begun to suspect that he was. No one kissed the way he’d kissed me if they weren’t into the person.
Still, we were adults, not animals that had no choice but to follow whatever their bodies told them to do. We both realized it was better if we simply remained trainer and client, for the time being. Yes, I had realized it, too, even though it had taken me a day longer than Dante to come to that conclusion. The only reason I was burning with a desire to know what troubled Dante to the point that I’d felt his pain was because I was just like my mother— sincerely fascinated by what made people tick. The more they confused us, the more we were driven to unravel them and then try to cure them. Help them chase away their demons. I guess some people would call us annoying.
Three hours after I had picked up the wine, my lasagna was ready. I was wearing a pair of jean shorts and a yellow top that was snug, but casual-looking. I had applied some mascara to define my eyes and a layer of pink gloss to my lips, and my hair was parted into two pigtails, a hairstyle that I loved. Doing anything more advanced to my appearance would seem like I was trying too hard. I didn’t want Dante to think I’d asked him to come help me because I’d planned to seduce him tonight. The guy was just my trainer, who’d morphed into my most recent project.
Even so, when my doorbell rang, I double-checked my face in the mirror. Feeling like I was a bit pale, I quickly added some pink blush to my cheeks and another layer of lip gloss. Then I went to open the door.
Dante was leaning against the wall, dressed in a simple white T-shirt and worn jeans that hung low from his slim hips. He held his helmet under one of his muscular arms, peering at me from under his brows. The right corner of his lip turned up in a sexy little grin that made me forget that he was only supposed to be my trainer, who’d come to help me with something, not my date who’d arrived to pick me up for dinner.
“I like the hair,” he said in a voice that went perfectly with the grin, making heat gather between my legs and my skin tingle. Oh, God, I should not have told him to c
ome over… What had I been thinking? I should have known better than to listen to Nixon and his outlandish ideas. But I had no choice but to continue with our little ploy now. I’d better not have any wine or this might end in a disaster.
“Thanks,” I said lightly and stepped back so he could enter.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as we walked into my living room. “Still so sore you can hardly move?”
“It’s a little better now. I took another bath with Epsom salt.” I exhaled a small sigh of relief. Thank God he’d reminded me about my supposedly horribly sore muscles. His presence affected me so much I totally forgot they were the reason I’d asked him to come here in the first place. I was literally losing my head. “But it still hurts trying to climb up on a chair.”
“I’m sorry. I was going to suggest you do that, but obviously it didn’t help this time.” He sniffed the air. “Something’s smelling really good. It can’t be those brownies again, right?” He smiled at me with a bright face.
I returned his smile, glad that my lasagna hadn’t lost its potency at the same time as I was disappointed that he’d noticed. If he hadn’t, I could just have had him help me get the dress down and be done with him. The way my pulse had picked up speed and energy was rushing up the insides of my thighs worried me. Obviously being alone with him at my house affected me a lot more than when we were training at Crunch. While I could still feel the chemistry between us there, here it was so palpable I could almost hear it crackle in the air. But since he’d already noticed my lasagna I had to tell him what it was, and then I’d also have to ask him if he’d have dinner yet. Not offering when he’d come all the way over to help me would be rude.
