by Ember Leigh
“Hey.” Gen dropped her bookbag on the couch and winced as she lowered herself onto the cushions. The weak leg needed a rest, but so did the strong leg. A sigh escaped her as she propped her left leg up on the back of the couch.
“Too much walking today?”
“Yep. I thought working in a gym would help, but apparently it’s aggravating it more.” Gen folded her hands over the exposed sliver of belly where her shirt rode up.
“Take this weekend to rest,” Sophie said, bowls clinking as she unloaded the dishwasher. “And if you want, you can come to the Unitarian meet-up on Sunday.”
Gen’s stomach wrenched. Sophie had started going to a new church, one that claimed it wasn’t religious. But even the thought of a non-religious church made her queasy. “I don’t know. I need more time.”
Like maybe this entire year “off” from religion.
Sophie nodded, sending her a smile that contained all the understanding in the world. “I thought it might be nice for you to meet some more people around here. People that don’t, you know, judge.”
“Yeah. All in God’s time. I mean, good time.” She draped her arm over her eyes. Some of the tics might never go away. “Why does this feel like detoxing?”
“Because it is.” Sophie’s steps came nearer. The loveseat creaked as she sat on it. “I promise, it gets easier. You’ve only been out for a month.”
“Six months, if you count my recovery time in the hospital,” Gen said.
“But you went back home once you got out of the hospital,” Sophie reminded her. “The crash happened a year ago. What you’re doing is all new.”
Gen sighed into her bicep, the tang of skin and breath mingling together. A year ago, the drunk driver had hit her car. A year ago, she’d woken up mangled and scared. A year ago, her cousin’s lifeless body lay stretched out in the passenger seat, elbows and neck at terrifying angles. “Yeah. You’re right.”
A moment of silence stretched between them, broken by the low hum of traffic from outside. Gen shut her eyes, welcoming the familiar guilt and despondency that usually accompanied thoughts about her cousin Bethany. The somber prayer she always sent up in Bethany’s honor.
This list, and her own escape from the community, was a type of living prayer. If Bethany had been called to Heaven, maybe Gen was being called to the real world. A tit for tat. But her escape had only been made possible by the insurance money paid out by the guy who crashed into her. Bethany’s family had gotten some, too. It didn’t exactly right the scales, but it at least nudged them. Gen’s father had urged her to donate the money to the church, as a form of repentance.
To the church? Over Gen’s dead body. This money was earmarked for life.
“How’s work going?”
Gen flung her arm to the side, staring up at the mottled ceiling. “Fine, I think. I haven’t been fired. Apparently I’m fooling them with my basic knowledge of Windows 8. I still feel like a foal among horses. And Cobra…”
“Hmm.” Sophie crossed her legs. She didn’t like Cobra since he’d shown up unexpectedly in their apartment.
Gen sat up a little, sending Sophie an arched brow. “You said Unitarians don’t judge, right? So does that mean you’re going to follow suit?”
The hard ridge of Sophie’s brow softened, so Gen laid back down before continuing.
“Cobra has said barely a word to me since he brought me back here, but I feel like I catch him staring all the time.”
“Probably likes you,” Sophie said.
“I think he’s horrified. Like a train wreck he can’t look away from.”
Sophie snorted. “Guys are different, okay? You’ll see.”
“If he liked me, he would have said something by now. I know at least that much about men,” Gen said.
“Well, it’s pretty clear you like him and haven’t said a damn thing about it.” The corners of Sophie’s lips twitched upward.
“Oh, no. That’s not how it works. I’m the foal, remember? The foal. I don’t talk to horses. All I know how to do is make an embarrassment of myself. I’m not ready to join the horse race or…whatever.”
Sophie shrugged. “Fine then. Be a foal.”
Gen huffed. “Which are you?”
“Not a foal, but not a horse either.” Sophie stood, a strange smile on her face. “I’m a woman.”
Gen stared at the ceiling as Sophie strutted back into the kitchen; her thoughts swirled as plates clanked in the background.
Woman. That strange breed that Gen had been groomed to become her entire life, while taught to avoid all the most striking qualities. No sensuality. No provocation. No outspokenness. No assertiveness.
Gen desperately wanted to be a woman, not the meek girl she’d felt—and been—her entire life.
Moving to LA was a big step in the right direction. Meeting Cobra—and flailing at his feet—was another.
But now, she had to move forward from here.
She wanted to run with the horses.
“I want to be a woman,” Gen said, though she hadn’t meant to. It had only been circulating inside her head.
Sophie laughed. “You are a woman.”
“Right. Yeah. I just meant…” she trailed off, feeling a resolution prickle inside her. “I want to feel like a woman. Like a total woman.”
“In time. I promise, this will all happen in time.”
“What helped you the most when you first struck out on your own?” Gen asked.
Sophie pursed her lips as she thought. “When I first got here…I made it my resolution to say ‘yes’ to everything. Even to things I didn’t want to do. Especially to the things that made me uncomfortable.”
Gen had done that with the calendar shoot—and part of her never wanted to do anything like that again. But that was the whole point of this year off.
“I think I’ll do the same,” Gen blurted, wanting to say it out loud so it became true. “Especially to the things that are uncomfortable.”
“There you go,” Sophie said with a wink. “You’re on your way to becoming a total woman.”
Chapter 7
“Genevieve.”
She startled at the husky voice calling her name. Spinning, she found Travis headed toward her, those broad shoulders swaying as he approached.
“I’ve got a proposition for you.”
She stood rooted to her spot, clutching a folder to her chest. Why did this feel like she was in trouble? And if this proposition was anything like the calendar shoot, she should say no right now.
Travis laughed, crossing his arms. “You look like I’m about to ask you to jump off the building.”
“I suppose I’d say yes, if you told me it was part of my job.” She straightened her back, adjusting the glasses she wore whenever she used the computer. Patrons strutted by on their way to the weight room. The gym had opened for the day ten minutes ago, but the place bustled already. Fitness started early.
“Cobra needs some hours for his personal training certification. He wants to use you as his guinea pig. What do you think?”
Gen blinked a couple times, her gaze drifting toward the weight room. Cobra wasn’t there to offer any clues. “He wants to what?”
“I want him certified. He’ll make a great personal trainer. But he needs someone to practice on.”
“Practice…on me?”
Travis’s smile hung somewhere between friendly and confused. “Yes. But only if you’re okay with it. I thought it might kill a few birds with one stone. You help my employee, and you’ll get free training out of it.”
Only if you’re okay with it. She thought back on her conversation with Sophie. This was uncomfortable. Which meant she should say yes. She blinked a hundred times before she could force out the “Sure.”
“Awesome. We’re gonna start today, cool?” When she nodded, Travis started off toward the back hallway, then paused to look over his shoulder. “Gen, I meant we’re gonna start now.”
She followed him on wooden legs, clutch
ing the folder so tightly her elbows ached. “Okay. Let me drop this off.” She darted for her office to leave the folder. Rejoining Travis in the hall, she asked, “So…what am I going to do?”
“He’ll start with a general assessment. Take the pulse of your physical condition, work up a plan that I’ll review and approve.”
Her physical condition. How could Travis know about her leg? Was she not walking normally? Maybe her efforts at passing had failed miserably.
“Do I need to change my clothes?” She looked down at her black shorts and HOLT racer-back tank top.
“Think of this first session like an interview,” Travis explained. “Your clothes are fine.”
Anxiety hummed through her limbs as they entered the gym. The air was cooler back here, almost stale. He pointed to a small, empty weight room. Cobra sat on a weight bench, his back turned to them, some papers spread out next to him.
“Cobra.” Travis’s big voice filled the room. “It’s all you, buddy.”
Then he left the weight room. Just like that. As if she were able to function on her own now, without a sail.
Gen’s throat tightened as Cobra turned to her, that charcoal gaze drinking her in as if he’d been waiting for this.
“’Sup, Gen?”
His voice was a rumble of thunder and a sultry breeze. She gnawed at the inside of her lip. “Uh, hi. Hello. What am I doing here?”
Cobra stood, seemed to extend himself slowly. Unfurling layers of sinewy muscle, pale skin, rippling ridges. “Didn’t Travis tell you?”
“Yes, he did.” She cleared her throat, unsure what to do with her hands. She was wringing them, but she couldn’t stop it, or think of anything better to do with them. “I don’t understand, like…why.”
Cobra’s gaze swept up and down her body. Goosepimples erupted on her thighs, and she wondered if he’d be able to see from where he stood. If maybe he’d like the fact that his gaze alone could turn her on like a light switch.
“You wanted to fix your leg.” Cobra had a duh look on his face.
And then it slammed into her, the embarrassment she’d been trying to avoid for a week now. The list. The freakin’, stupid, dumb-dumb list that he’d gotten his hands on and probably had memorized by now.
Her eyes fluttered shut. “Yeah. You’re right. I thought I told you to forget about that?”
He laughed softly. “Guess I didn’t forget this one.” Cobra’s feet scuffed softly as he stepped closer. The electric hum of the overhead lights rang so loud in the quiet air between them, it sounded like a table saw. “So what happened?”
Gen swallowed a knot. “Is this part of the training stuff or do you just want to know?”
“Both.”
“Okay.” She crossed her arms over her chest, steeling herself to tell the tale. Sometimes it didn’t come out easily. “I was in a car wreck a year ago. My left leg was crushed on impact, and there was some nerve damage. Doctors said I would never walk again.”
So that explained the scar he’d noticed whenever she wore shorts. “But you’re walking.”
“Yeah. Sometimes not very well.”
He sniffed, that chocolate gaze sliding down her legs. Static electricity coursed through her. “I saw. That night I took you home.”
She groaned. “I want to forget that night ever happened.”
A high-grade, mischievous grin crossed his lips. “But you don’t even remember it in the first place.”
She snorted. “Fair enough.”
Cobra snatched a pen from the bench press and clicked it in his left hand a couple times. “Is that why you made the list?”
In the silence after his words, Gen remembered her promise to herself the night before. Time to run with the horses. She lifted her chin. She was tired of cowering, of only imagining how these opportunities might go. It was time to fling herself forward. Even if it ended in a splat.
“This doesn’t sound like it’s related to training anymore.” She attempted a sexy brow lift. “I think you just want to get to know me.”
The hand holding the pen lowered, and something unreadable flattened his expression. She couldn’t tell if she was spot on or about to find a seventh level of embarrassment. “Maybe. But wouldn’t you be curious if you found a list with ‘fix my leg’ on it?”
That was the least of the items on the list. The truth burned in her. “Of course.” Admit you saw the virgin entry already. “Not to mention all the other ridiculous things on that list.”
The pen clicked again, and he watched her so long she thought she might wilt under the attention.
Cobra turned abruptly, returning to his pile of papers. The absence of his gaze felt like a cold wind whipping past her.
“I want to help you with the list,” Cobra said, picking up a sheet. He handed it to her, something molten in his onyx eyes. He stepped closer. Her heart rate picked up, and she started to step backward. The way she’d been trained her whole life.
But she caught herself in time. Stood her ground. Stayed rooted. This was her space.
“You already are.”
His cheek twitched. “The rest of the list.”
Yes bubbled up inside her and threatened to bellow out with as much force as the polite no thank you always ready to pop out at a moment’s notice. This was the day of testing her new resolution, apparently. See how far Gen could be shoved into the Discomfort Zone.
She struggled to keep her composure. No handbook existed for this. Too many hormones plus too much repression equaled her: a loose cannon way out of her element, ready to grind up against Cobra right here in the middle of the spare workout room.
Wouldn’t that be a fun snapshot to send home to her siblings and parents?
“I made that list a long time ago,” she said, her cheeks already flaming.
“But you only crossed off one thing.”
Crap. “I don’t keep it updated. It’s not, like, my priority.” She drew a shaky breath.
“Do you want to go get coffee tomorrow?”
She couldn’t even look up at him. Excitement throbbed behind her ribs. “Yes.”
“Cool.” He handed her the pen. “Fill this out, Red. We’ve got some work to do.”
Chapter 8
Cobra woke up to the scent of weed and pancakes. His bedroom door hung open, the first mistake of the day. He grumbled and rolled off his mattress, which was spread ingloriously on the floor even after four years at this place. By now, he could admit that he was never gonna get a bed frame.
“Coby.” His roommate Tyler’s singsong falsetto reached him from the living room. “Wakey bakeeey.”
Cobra slammed the bedroom door shut and stumbled back to his cocoon. He liked to wake and bake on his days off, but today it seemed wrong. He was taking Gen out for coffee later. Picking her up after work. Taking her on a date like a regular person.
This wouldn’t be a first for only her, either. His stomach roiled at the thought. But it wasn’t all bad.
Thud thud thud. “Cobra, you’re late for your doctor’s appointment.”
Cobra buried his face in his pillow. “Go away.”
The door creaked open a moment later. Nothing locked in this shithole apartment. Not even the front door. “The doctor says.” Tyler’s pale face contrasted hilariously with his bloodshot eyes. He’d probably been getting high for hours now. “A toke a day keeps the neurosurgeon away.”
Cobra laughed in spite of his irritation. “Fuck off. Nobody says that.”
“Come on, bro.” Tyler barged inside, an elaborate glass bong in one hand. Purply and spiraling, it was his prized possession. Probably meant more to him than even his parents did. “I packed a new bowl for you.”
“I’m not smoking.” Cobra buried his face in his pillow again.
Tyler reeled back in exaggerated shock. “Say what? Where’s my Coby boy? My wing man? My right-hand, weed-smoking companion?”
“Christ, fuck off already. I don’t feel like it.”
“Pff.” Tyler’
s joking mood dropped like dead weight. He spun on his heels, headed back for the cloudy living room. “Ever since you started that new job, man…”
What Tyler hadn’t said at the end stuck with Cobra the most. Burrowing into his pillows did nothing. He was awake now, and pissed. He shot up out of bed, stalking out of the bedroom. Tyler and their other roommate, Klay, sat on the couch, taking another hit off the bong.
“There he is,” Klay said, a puff of smoke escaping his mouth as he talked around the hit he held in. “Mr. Goody Two-Shoes.”
Cobra pushed at Klay’s shoulder as he passed through to the kitchen. Klay and Tyler were both losers, but they knew it, so somehow that made it okay. Hell, Cobra was a loser too. That’s why they all fit together.
The three of them had lived together since they were teens. Shitty part was, they were the closest thing Cobra had to family. Even though the most they had in common as adults was the fact that they all smoked weed.
“I might as well be smoking. The apartment is a hotbox.” The tang of weed in the air flooded him as he picked up a stray piece of bacon off the skillet. It was two p.m. He’d been up until five a.m. the night before. Couldn’t sleep worth shit. Wasn’t sure if it was his nerves about meeting Gen or random, unrelated insomnia. He’d had plenty of that his whole life.
“Oh, excuse me, should we go outside?” Another bellow of smoke escaped Tyler’s mouth. “Too sensitive now?”
His words prickled under Cobra’s skin, but all he did was shoot Tyler a warning look. Tyler’s expression drooped into sourness, and he set the bong down.
“I’m high as fuck anyway,” Tyler said, then wandered back into his bedroom. Some of the tension dissipated once he was out of sight. Klay heaved a sigh, reaching for the remote control.
