Irons and Works: The Complete Series

by E M Lindsey

  Sam’s lip quirked to the side. “Yeah, I get that. My dad’s Portuguese, and he always cooked for us. I’ve tried a couple of restaurants over the years, but no one gets it right.”

  “Yeah,” Niko replied, his dark eyes looking too fucking pretty in the late afternoon sun. Sam swallowed and forced himself to glance away. “Anyway, I have a few weeks to figure out what the hell I’m going to do. It’s not like I kept a little black book of random Greek people I’ve met over the years, you know?”

  Sam laughed. “Kicking yourself for it now?”

  “Shut up,” Niko muttered without any heat. “By the way I uh…I wanted to ask you something.”

  Sam turned to him, eyebrows up. “What’s that?”

  “I met a woman at the gym today. Kristen? She’s in a wheelchair.”

  “Are you asking if I know her?” Sam asked, a little irritation in his tone. “This town isn’t that small. I don’t know every person with a mobility disability.”

  “No,” Niko said, flushing. “No, I…fuck. Sorry. That’s not what I meant. She just uh… she was asking those guys at the front desk if they had any accessible classes for her, and they were giving her some bullshit about their insurance policy not being able to cover her special needs or whatever.”

  Sam felt irritation rise in him, only because he knew exactly what Niko was talking about. It happened everywhere. It was why he stopped bothering with commercial gyms and started running his own classes. “Yeah. I know those fuckers. I’m not surprised.”

  “Well, I told her about the yoga class this weekend,” Niko went on, and for whatever reason, that surprised Sam a little. “I told her I’d ask you if maybe you knew some other classes she could take. She said she does weight-lifting and shit there, but they won’t let her participate in anything else, and she’s bored.”

  Sam quickly pulled out his wallet and dug out one of his business cards. “Tell her to email me next time you talk to her. I do classes in the park on my free weekends she might be into. Usually in Denver but I’ll do stuff close by if I get enough interest.”

  “I think she’d be willing to drive,” Niko said, staring down at the card. He got a small smile, then slipped it into his pocket. “She was not happy.”

  “Don’t blame her,” Sam grunted. He dragged his hand back through his hair and fought back the urge to rant, only because the day had already been so shitty, that was the cherry on the cake.

  Before he could say another word, though, a sharp cry dragged him back to the present. Maisy was on her back next to the horse, face turned up to the sky, screaming. Logic told him she was fine, but his dad anxiety was overwhelming him. He grabbed the sides of his chair, ready to slip out, when Niko stood up.

  “Can I…can I grab her for you?”

  Sam wanted to shout at him to fuck off, but he knew it would be easier. He swallowed the bitter pill and nodded, then watched as Niko hurried over and gently prod at her neck to make sure she was safe to move. The instant she saw him, her screams stopped, and she stared with wide eyes.

  “Can I pick you up and bring you back to your daddy?”

  She didn’t speak, but she sniffed and nodded, and let Niko cradle her to his chest. Sam didn’t take another breath until Maisy was on his lap, curled into the crook of his neck, and he rubbed her back absently. “You okay, munchkin?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice muffled. “I hurt my eh-bow.”

  He let his fingers brush both arms finding nothing more than a slight scrape to her left one. She didn’t lift up from him and after a beat, he looked over at Niko who was standing a few feet away, looking awkward.

  “I know you could have gotten her,” he said. “Obviously, since you’re her dad. Just…you looked so done before, when I first walked up. I totally over-stepped and I’m sorry.”

  “I,” he said, because yeah, it felt that way a little bit, but something about his tone told Sam he was being honest. He didn’t think Sam was incapable, he was just trying to take some of the pressure off. “I should get her home,” he finally said, knowing he should say at least thank you, but the words wouldn’t come.

  Niko flinched a bit, but he nodded and reached for his earbuds again. “See you Saturday?”

  Sam managed a smile for him. “Yeah. Nine am, don’t be late.”

  Niko offered him a salute, then headed back to the path for his run. Sam didn’t pretend like he wasn’t staring, didn’t look away when Niko’s head turned back for a second and their gazes locked. Then he was around the bend and out of sight, and Sam put his hand on Maisy’s back and sighed into her hair. “Let’s go home kiddo. Okay?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, dada, yets go home.”

  * * *

  Niko was a little on edge as he approached the entrance to the shop. The open sign wasn’t on, but Sage’s text told him to just come in, and he could see a small crack in the door propped open with a brick.

  He peered through the window, wondering if he’d see Sam behind the counter, half of him hoping he might, the other still not sure he wanted to. He was resolved to attend the yoga session that weekend—he and Kristen had agreed to carpool since she lived up the street from him—but he hadn’t seen or spoken to Sam since the day at the park.

  He knew he’d overstepped, and he was starting to wonder when he would stop sticking his foot in it every time he was around the guy. But just looking at the guy’s face, at his dimples and the way he sort of bit down on his lower lip when he smiled, it made him act like a complete dumbass. Less of the ignorant type and more of the wanting to trip over himself to make the guy happy.

  And it was obvious Sam wasn’t into it—his life was kind of a shit show and Niko knew exactly how that felt. But he couldn’t shake the utterly visceral desire to be part of his life somehow, and it was starting to become a problem.

  With a breath, he pushed open the door and walked in. To his half disappointment, the only person there was Sage, sitting on a chair in his station with a sketchbook open in front of him. He looked up when Niko answered and grinned. “Hey, man. Can you kick the stop out of the door so no one else wanders in?”

  Niko turned and pulled the brick out, waiting for the door to swing shut. He heard the click of the auto-lock, then turned back to the front counter. “How’s it going?”

  Sage shrugged. “Been better, been worse. You?”

  “Busy,” he admitted.

  “Hey, if this is a shitty time,” Sage began, but Niko quickly shook his head.

  “Trust me, this is the best time. I had to take a few days off work this week to deal with some other shit, so I might as well make the best of it.” He pushed through the little door and took the chair Sage nodded at. “I hope this wasn’t too much trouble for you. I mean, asking you to draw something up when I haven’t the faintest idea what the hell I even want…”

  Sage grinned. “Dude, that’s an artist’s dream. Or well, my kind of dream, anyway. It’s like being given a blank canvas, even if there’s something to cover.” He pulled his book away from the desk and laid it out on his lap, the bottom facing Niko. “I went with some simple designs— some of it kind of like you had before with the lion. I went full Leo,” he said, and showed him a geometric design of the lion from the constellation. “Then I went a little more abstract.” It was almost like a galaxy of color, no real shape to it, but he liked it anyway. “This was mostly to show you what I can do with your skin. It was blown out as fuck when it was first done, but that doesn’t mean it’ll happen a second time. I mean, whoever did this work should be banned.”

  “I don’t think they were exactly on the up and up,” Niko mused as he paged through all the images Sage had worked up. He liked them all, but nothing was really grabbing him.

  When he looked up, he saw Sage watching him with a curious expression. “What?”

  “You don’t like them,” he said, his tone neutral.

  Niko felt his cheeks heat up a little. “It’s not that. They’re gorgeous, man. Seriously. Your talent kind
of freaks me out.”

  Sage chuckled and shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. None of these belong on your skin. Trust me, I can tell when something speaks to you, and these aren’t it.”

  Niko dragged a hand down his face. “I don’t know why I can’t seem to make a decision. It’s not like I want this monstrosity on my body anymore.”

  Sage shook his head with a wry grin. “Sometimes we have to live with something ugly until something beautiful shows up. It can take a long damn time, trust me.”

  “Sounds like you have experience,” Niko pointed out.

  At that, Sage’s face did something complicated, and his hand absently rubbed the inside of his elbow where he had thick, roman numerals tattooed. “Something like that.” He paused for a beat, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, we can keep working.”

  Niko licked his lips, staring down at his leg which was covered by a pair of jeans. “Can we wait on it? I mean, I just…I’m not sure yet.”

  “Hey, there’s no pressure here, okay?” He reached out, squeezing Niko’s knee gently. “No judgment either.”

  Niko opened his mouth to reply—maybe with a thanks, or some sort of denial that he felt pressured, but there was a noise from the back and then the swinging door opened. Niko felt his heart thud in his chest until he realized neither of the two guys strolling through the door were Sam. He recognized Mat immediately, and the other guy—James— was the amputee he nearly fainted over when he thought Mat was carving a scalpel into his actual leg.

  He felt a slight burn of embarrassment, even if they’d assured him it wasn’t a big deal, because he wasn’t typically the kind of guy who freaked out over body modification. Except well, the blood thing, and not just the actual sight of it, but the fear of what he might see. Still, they grinned at him and there didn’t seem to be any mockery in their smiles.

  “Hey, man. You getting work done?” Mat asked, clapping Niko on the shoulder as he passed by.

  Niko shrugged. “We’re going over some ideas.”

  “He’s got an old blow out he tried to laser off, but they couldn’t get it to fade much,” Sage filled in.

  Mat gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sucks, bro. I did laser once, but that shit was so painful and so expensive, I gave up. James did the cover-up and it looks much better.” He lifted the hem of his shirt all the way to his left nipple—the stainless-steel piercing glinting against a backdrop of what looked like a nebulae cloud. “It was my ex-wife’s name.”

  “Tammy,” James said, and Mat flipped him off. “I’m fucking kiddin’, calm down. I don’t remember the name, I just remember Mat’s sweet little face when I fixed it for him.” He leaned in and gave Mat a slap on his cheek. “He loves me forever now.”

  Mat rolled his eyes and sank into his chair, pulling out a thick appointment book. Niko couldn’t help but glance over as Mat opened it, and he was startled to see all the words and numbers had been blacked out with sharpie, and everything had geometric designs with various colors.

  “Fuck, I’ve got two shading appointments today,” he groaned.

  “How can you tell?” Niko blurted, then fought the urge to slap his hand over his mouth.

  Mat didn’t look bothered, though he did shift a little in his seat as he set his book on the table. “I uh…Derek told you about my brain thing, right?”

  Niko’s eyes widened. “No.”

  Mat shrugged. “Accident some years back. Bashed my head in pretty good, and when I came out of my coma, I couldn’t read letters or numbers. Just looks like a hot mess. I went through months of therapy, but the shit never came back.”

  Niko flushed. “But…I text you,” he said.

  Mat rubbed the back of his neck and gave a slightly uncomfortable laugh. “I have a voice to text program on my phone, like blind people use, and it reads it out to me. Pretty much how I use my phone at all.”

  Niko licked his lips, then shook his head. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be an asshole. I didn’t know.”

  “You’re not,” Mat said, leaning over the little partition of his station. “It’s not like I go around advertising it. I don’t care if you know, I just…it’s nice with all of us hanging out and no one’s looking at me like I’m some dumbass who can’t read.”

  Niko glanced back at Sage who had a deep frown but wasn’t saying anything. “Well, I’m not going to say anything, but anyone who thinks you’re stupid because of an injury deserves a special place in hell where every day is leg day.”

  Mat blinked, then laughed. “Cruel, man. But I like it. Anyway, it’s all good. I have a system and it works. If my clients need lettering, someone here draws it up for me. Usually Kat, because her writing is amazing. And I can trace it just fine.”

  Niko wanted to tell him he thought his system was clever as hell, and that the simple fact he found ways around it made him smarter than most people he knew, but he didn’t want to sound patronizing. So instead, he stood up and stretched. “I should go.”

  “Yeah? You know Sam’s going to be here in like twenty minutes,” Sage said quietly.

  Niko flushed and turned, not sure if Sage was giving him shit because it was Sam and not Derek, or if he was being chirped because his crush was that obvious. “Oh. Uh…”

  “Derek’s cool with it, if that’s what’s got you red as a tomato,” Sage clarified. “He’s kind of hung up on that flower guy anyway.”

  Niko lowered himself back to the chair, curious more than anything. “Flower guy?”

  “Yeah. Deaf guy from the florist shop,” Mat said. “He and his sister run it, and he’s been ass over tit since they met.”

  If possible, Niko felt worse about the shitty things he’d said that night, and he had a feeling the guy from the gelato place was the flower guy. “So, are they together, then?”

  “Not yet, but it’ll happen,” James said. “I’ve seen ‘em together. It’s fuckin’ cute. Like gross cute.”

  Mat laughed and shrugged. “It’s about time. Derek’s been through enough. And anyway, I have it on good authority Sam thinks you have a cute ass when you run.”

  Niko fought the urge to cover his face. “Jesus Christ.”

  “He wouldn’t have told me if he didn’t want you to find out,” Mat went on. “He knows I can’t keep my mouth shut for shit.”

  “I just don’t think he’s into me,” Niko told him. “I mean, I tried to flirt and kind of fucked it up. I saw him at the park the other day and uh…that didn’t end so well.”

  “He’d had a bad day,” Sage said quietly, leaning in a little toward him. “He told us about it, and he was pretty broken up at the thought that he made you feel bad. He’s not the kind of guy who loses his shit when someone offers to help him. It was just that day.”

  “He just looked so tired,” Niko said, sitting back in the chair. “I don’t know what it was, but he looked like he needed to sleep for a week.”

  “Probably do us all some good,” James said with a grin. “But don’t you worry your pretty little head, Nik. Sam’s a good guy and he ain’t the kind who’ll ignore what’s good for him. Eventually.”

  “Helpful,” Niko muttered. Before he could say anything else, his phone began to buzz, and he saw Jane’s name on the screen. “Shit. I have to run, I have a meeting. Uh…tell Sam I was sorry to miss him.”

  “Oh, we will,” Mat said with a near-evil grin, and Niko almost picked up to cancel, if only to save face. But this was his future, and if it meant a little more embarrassment with the guy he was getting stupid over, well, he’d just have to take it.

  Chapter Eight

  Sam leaned over the edge of his chair, rolling up his mat against the wheel. There were a few lingering patrons chatting near the edge of the grass, and normally he was a lot more friendly with them, but his attention was fully fixated on Niko and Kristen. The funny thing was, he knew Kristen wasn’t a threat. She was engaged—happily so. She was planning a fall wedding and she had been emailing with Sam all through the week about the various
classes he held when he had the time for it.

  He’d even started talking to her about trying to work with the gym’s owner to run some accessible classes if they could get up enough interest for one. And yet, seeing her there with Niko, the way they were laughing and the way he nudged her wheels and gently tugged on the end of her ponytail, it made his gut squirm. Made him want to storm over and take Niko’s attention for himself in spite of knowing he didn’t deserve it.

  Sam had been short with him that morning when he and Kristen showed up. He blamed it all on the week, on running late, on May’s tantrum as he dropped her off with Derek before heading out. But in reality, Sam was struggling. The day he’d come in to the shop to find he’d missed Niko by seconds had sent him reeling, and the fact that Niko hadn’t reached out since seeing him at the park had unsettled him more than he cared to admit.

  He liked the guy. He had no room for it, no energy for it, and yet he wanted. Kristen was no threat, but that didn’t mean others couldn’t swoop right in and take the empty space in front of Niko that Sam was refusing to fill. Niko was attractive and sweet, and someone who genuinely wanted to be good and do good. It would only be a matter of time before someone else realized it.

  But with Maisy’s adoption case looming ahead of him, with him so fucking broke he couldn’t think straight, with having the stupid OT classes and trying to somehow fit in clients and classes and everything else, he didn’t know how he could be any good for anyone.

  He was just lonely. He was lonely and Niko was rare—a unicorn—a decent man who wanted him, and he just couldn’t offer up what Niko deserved. All the same, he couldn’t seem to stop himself from leaving his stuff and rolling over to where Kristen was packing up the rest of her bag. She looked at him with a grin, her eyes brighter than they had been when she first arrived.