She patted my shoulder. “I do. He’s a Badd, which means, as my daughter, you’re automatically part of the clan, which means he’ll help you for free, because you’re family. And he’s very, very tough on top of being knowledgeable, so he’ll push you past where you think you can go.”
“I’ve never met the man. Why would he consider me family?”
She just smiled again. “The men and women of the Badd clan take the concept of family and loyalty very, very seriously. I’m all but engaged to Lucas, Baxter’s uncle. You’re my daughter. Therefore, you’re family. He would take a bullet for you, whether he’s met you or not.”
I blinked. “Oh, come on, Mom. You make him sound like a superhero.”
She shrugged. “Wait till you meet him. If he wasn’t the sweetest, funniest, warmest person I’ve ever met, I’d be absolutely terrified of him.”
I shook my head. “You must really like him.”
Her grin was contagious. “I consider all of the Badd boys the sons I never had. Or wanted. But that’s beside the point. They’re all wonderful.” She tugged at my hand. “Come on. Just trust me.”
Trust me.
Mom’s magic words. She didn’t often ask you to trust her, but when she did you ignored her at your peril. She was seldom wrong, especially when she felt strongly enough to insist.
“Okay, okay,” I sighed. “Set up an appointment. I’ll go see him.”
She just laughed. “That’s not how it works with these boys, sweetheart. We go over there now.”
“Now?” I gestured at myself—booty-hugging dance shorts, loose tank top, sports bra, cross-trainers…and a sheen of sweat and aura of body odor. “Like this?”
She rolled her eyes at me. “Yes, Cass. Like that. It’s a gym, he’s a married man, and a former professional athlete. A little sweat won’t bother him in the slightest.” She sniffed. “Some deodorant wouldn’t go amiss, however.”
I cackled. “Nice, Mom.”
She just popped me on the butt. “Go. De-stink yourself, grab your purse, and let’s go.”
Within ten minutes we were in her car and heading across town to what passed as an industrial area of Ketchikan. The gym was in a warehouse, and the sliding doors opened all the way to admit the brilliant sunlight and relative warmth. Rock music thudded from surround speakers, and the sounds of a gym floated out to me as I exited Mom’s car: the clink and bang and rattle of barbells and metal plates, grunts of exertion, raucous male laughter, the high rhythmic thud of a speed bag, the deeper thwacks and thumps of heavy bags, and the creaks and squeaks and thuds of boxers in the ring.
Clean, well lit. New and well stocked, but not glitzy. Utilitarian—thick mats on the floor, a stretch of AstroTurf against one wall with a power sled on one end and a thick rope running across the space. There were massive multiperson powerlifting cages on three walls, and racks of bumper plates, metal plates, dumbbells, and kettlebells in between the cages. The boxing ring took up the center of the warehouse with plenty of space around it. A glassed-in office space occupied a far back corner along with the bathrooms, and the locker rooms were beyond that.
It wasn’t bustling or overflowing, but it was busy. Most of the power cages were occupied, and a trio of burly, shirtless men took turns using the thick rope to pull the weighted sled toward them and then push it back across the AstroTurf. Several other men, and a couple of women, moved around the open space doing bodyweight exercises, or working with dumbbells or kettlebells, and a pair of men danced around the boxing ring.
One of the boxers was young, maybe nineteen or twenty, black, thin and wiry, quick, lithe, and shredded; the other was…I had no words. About six feet, but muscled like something out of a superhero graphic novel. Absurdly proportioned. Shoulders so broad and wide and thick I could probably stand with both feet on one side. He had arms that must have been eighteen or twenty inches around, defined as if carved out of marble, chest muscles you could break a hammer on, an eight pack, a narrow waist, and legs to rival a sprint cyclist’s. He had blond hair cut in a wide almost-Mohawk style, the top shaggy, the sides buzzed, with heavy stubble on his jaw. He had the flat practice pads meant for training punches on his hands, and was dancing around the ring avoiding punches and kicks. He was coaching footwork, it looked like, calling out instructions now and then.
Mom pointed at the giant blond god in the ring. “That’s Baxter.”
I gaped at him. “Well that’s just ridiculous. No one looks like that in real life.”
Mom laughed. “That was my thought the first time I saw him.”
“He looks like he could bench press a Buick.”
“Watch how light on his feet he is, though. He’s not just muscles.”
I watched. He was…well, a dancer, by all rights. No wasted energy, each movement precise, lithe, graceful, and powerful. “No kidding.”
“Don’t let his looks fool you, either. He’s very smart.”
I’d seen and met a few other members of the extended Badd family by now, and they were all as ridiculous in their own ways as Baxter. But Baxter was by far the most mind-bogglingly perfect physical specimen of humanity I’d ever seen in my life.
I suddenly felt underqualified to even be in this gym. I was suddenly hyperaware of the extra layer over my abs that hadn’t been there a few months ago. The fact that my ass jiggled a bit instead of being hard as a steel drum was super embarrassing. The fact that I’d already lost a good bit of tone in my arms and shoulders, and the weakness in my injured leg really brought home the knowledge that I was out of shape.
“Get out of your head, Cassandra,” Mom murmured to me, yanking me across the gym.
“How the hell do you know what I’m thinking?” I snapped.
“I know what the heck you’re thinking because I know you. Whenever you start to doubt yourself, you get this look on your face like you have to poop.”
“MOM!”
She laughed, shrugged. “What? It’s true.”
“And you get on my case for being crass.”
She just pulled me to a stop at the side of the ring, where we watched Baxter, the Gargantuan God, dance around the ring, letting punches and kicks from his trainee smack and whack, sometimes moving his pads so the trainee missed, forcing him to regroup and find his footing.
The trainee was blindingly fast, but Baxter seemed to anticipate his every move, able to get his glove in place, or move without any effort.
A few more minutes of this, and then Baxter called a halt in a gruff, permanently hoarse voice. “Good work, man,” Bax said, whacking the trainee across the shoulder with a pad. “Great footwork. Keep lifting, though. Go heavy for low reps, get that power up. And try to work on not telegraphing your left cross.”
“Sure thing, Coach,” the younger man said. “That it?”
Bax nodded. “Yeah, man. Get goin’. See you next week.”
A wave of a gloved hand, and the trainee ducked under the top rope, jumped down, and headed for the locker rooms, unlacing his gloves as he went. Baxter grinned at Mom.
“Livvie!” He sounded genuinely happy to see Mom. Ducking under the ropes, he removed his pads as he dropped to the floor. “Back for a HIIT session, are you? Been a while.”
Livvie? No one called Mom that. Not even Dad. I didn’t think even Lucas called Mom Livvie.
He picked Mom up in a great, shaking, off-her-feet bear hug, swinging her around until she cackled and whacked at his shoulder.
“Oh my god, put me down, you big lunatic!” Mom didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that he was coated in a glistening layer of sweat, despite not being out of breath in the slightest.
He set her down, and had the unmitigated gall to ruffle her hair like she was a four-year-old girl instead of a woman quite literally old enough to be his mother. “Good to see you, Liv.”
I frowned at Mom, wondering when the sharp denunciation of his hair ruffling would be voiced.
Instead, she just fixed it without a word, and grinned at him. “Ba
x, I want you to meet my second oldest daughter, Cassie.”
Baxter nodded, looking me over. “The gimp.”
I widened my eyes. “Excuse the fuck out of you!”
Mom just laughed. “Be nice, Baxter. She may not be in the mindset for teasing.”
He just shot me a grin, which I assumed had melted a rather comical number of undergarments in his day. “Coupl’a things, babe,” he said, hands on his hips, eyes on mine. “One, I’m a merciless teaser. Give as good as you get, and we’re golden. Get your knickers in a twist, and we probably won’t be friends. I don’t mean nothin’ by any of it, so don’t take it personally. Two, I don’t play any sissy fuckin’ games in this place. This gym is hallowed ground. The workout is thy lord and master, and I’m the lord and master of the workout. Obey me without question, and all shall go well with you.”
I gaped. “I—you—I—”
“Three.” He spoke over me. “Weakness is the illness, and I’m the doctor. We’re here to heal, so don’t hide your weakness. Defeat it. Don’t be ashamed of it. Don’t mistake laziness or lack of will as weakness—they ain’t the same thing. I can fix weak, I can’t fix lazy.”
I glanced at Mom. “Did you tell—”
“Four, and last, judgment or criticism is utterly verboten. Talk some unkind shit about someone else, and we’ll have problems.” Another grin. “That’s it. Welcome to paradise.”
I shook my head. “You have some nerve, Baxter.”
He just laughed. “You’re here, ain’t you? Gotta know what I expect so we can make this work.” He jutted his chin at me. “Goals and expectations.”
I blinked. “What?”
He snorted. “We’re establishing baselines, here, babe, keep up.” He glanced at Mom. “She always this slow on the uptake?”
“Listen here, gorilla man—” I started.
Mom just patted me on the shoulder. “Go all in, Cassie-Lassie. Give this all you’ve got. And trust him.” And then she left.
What?
“What?” I echoed my own thought out loud. “Mom?”
She waved as she exited the doors. “And have fun!”
I watched her drive away. “Now, what the fuck?”
Bax tilted his head. “She did tell you where she was taking you, did she not?”
I nodded. “To meet you. I didn’t know we’d…I don’t know. Start before we’d even said hello.”
Bax reached out, took my hand, and shook it. “Name is Baxter Badd. Call me Bax. I’m your new trainer and rehab coach. You’re Cassandra Goode, car wreck survivor, bum leg as a souvenir, dancer and, apparently, dumb blonde.”
I yanked my hand out of his grip and reached out to smack him.
Or, intended to. He caught my hand with a strong but gentle grip, a playful grin on his face. “Ah, ah, ah. We’re not in the ring. No hitting.”
“You—you—!”
“Just joking. Making sure you’re paying attention.”
I put my face close to his. “Call me dumb blonde again and I’ll rip your dick off.”
His grin widened. “Ooh, baby. Talk dirty to me.” He frowned. “Well, actually, don’t. I’m married, and I love my wife. But, for real, that’s how you play the game around here.” He clapped his hands together. “So, let’s get started.”
I sighed, flapped my arms out wide and let them slap against my thighs. “Alright, might as well just go with it. Work your magic, Mr. Badd.”
He squatted in front of me, glanced up at me with his hands hovering around my bad leg, but not touching. “Quick look, in a purely professional and therapeutic way. So, you know, don’t knee me in the face when I touch your leg, ‘kay?”
I shot him a sour look. “I’m not a prude, Bax.”
“You’re plenty touchy, so you never know.” He spoke absently, his fingers now prodding my scar tissue, kneading the muscle.
I frowned. “Touchy? I’m not touchy.”
“You’re uptight as fuck, babe.” He grabbed my wrist and placed it on his shoulder, which felt like putting my hand on a marble statue. “Balance on your good leg, please. Need to test your range of motion.”
I rolled my eyes and balanced, without his shoulder, without so much as a wobble. Glad to know I’ve still got that much left, at least.
“Nice,” he muttered. “Solid core foundation.”
I snorted. “Mom may have told you I was a dancer, but I’m not sure she qualified it quite correctly. It wasn’t a hobby, it was a profession.”
I demonstrated, by extending my bad leg in front of me, lifting it toward the ceiling, arching over backward into a full backbend, into a handstand, held there for a beat, and then continued forward, landing on both feet…
And promptly falling sideways as my bad leg collapsed, dumping me onto the mat.
“Well, that was impressive,” Baxter said, plopping onto his butt next to me.
“Until I fell,” I muttered, staying where I was, lying awkwardly.
“No, it was impressive, full stop. The fall was beyond your control. I wouldn’t have advised you to try that until you knew your leg could take the weight, but it was impressive as hell.”
He grabbed my leg and massaged the muscles around the scarring, which hurt like an absolute bitch, yet somehow still felt good.
“Number one, Cass,” he said, still manipulating and massaging my leg, “you need to give yourself grace. Give yourself the permission to just understand, mentally, emotionally, and physically, that you suffered a motherfucker of a trauma. The muscles, tendons, and joints in your entire left leg were seriously fucked over. You won’t get anywhere if you force unrealistic expectations on yourself, or on your poor fucked-up leg.”
I felt my teeth clench. “I get it, okay? My leg is fucked up. You don’t need to keep hammering it home.”
He kept massaging. And despite the fact that he was gorgeous in a superhero, pro wrestler, rugged, I-eat-mountains-for-breakfast kind of way, I wasn’t attracted to him at all. At least not beyond an objective sense of understanding that he was an incredibly attractive man. Not my type, for one thing, and two, knowing he was happily and dedicatedly married cut anything else off at the pass. Besides that, attraction just wasn’t possible. My entire capacity for attraction was focused solely on Ink.
But I wasn’t thinking about him right now.
Bax met my eyes, his deep brown eyes serious, for once. “Your leg is absolutely fucked. You can barely put weight on it. You ought to have a cane, honestly. It’s so fucked up it’s a miracle you’re able to walk at all.”
“I get it!” I snapped.
“Fucked up, fucked up,” he sang, “your leg is fucked up!”
I yanked free of him and rolled away, tears pricking. “Shut up!”
He stayed with me. “Accept it. Stop fighting it. Stop thinking you have to be okay.”
“And you’re going to get me there by ramming home how fucked up I am?”
“Yep.” He popped the “P” sound. “You’re still trying to insist on things not being as bad as they are. You want to hope some miracle will happen to take it all away.”
I ground my teeth. Hissed through them. “Shut the fuck up, Baxter. You don’t know shit about me.”
“Sure I do. I’ve trained all sorts of people. Started out helping MMA and UFC guys get into condition, and I still do that. Moved into the PT field, helping athletes rehab injuries. I also specialize in helping elite military combat veterans with injuries and people with loss of limbs learn how to regain their mobility, independence, and give them the ability to hit the gym like they used to.” He let that sink in. “You fall into the category of injured athlete.”
I eyed him. “So you consider dancing a sport?” I asked, skepticism rife in my tone.
“Fuck, yes! Dancers, especially of your caliber, are some of the most elite and impressive athletes out there.” A shrug. “Anything that puts strain on your body and requires physical conditioning to perform is a sport. Dancing sure as shit falls into that category.”
“So you’re going to get me back on the stage?”
He winced. “I don’t know about that. I’m always a hundred percent honest with my clients about that—they have to manage their expectations. Knowing that, ninety-nine percent of the time, the greatest limitation on a person is himself or herself. I helped a SEAL who lost his leg from the knee down get back out into the field as a capable operative. It required him to do a shitload of work along with an unimaginable amount of dedication and suffering, along with a truly intense ferocity of spirit, but he did it, because he refused to accept anything else. So could you get back to professional dance? If you want it bad enough. If you’re willing to do whatever it takes. I won’t bullshit you—that would be brutally hard—especially since it looks like you’re missing parts of the muscle in your outer quad.”
I nodded. “It was one of the worst breaks they’d ever seen. Just…destroyed.”
“I can tell.” He held my gaze. “Here’s what I’ll promise you. Stick with me, give me a hundred percent effort, have your specific, predetermined goal written down, and I’ll get you wherever that is. I won’t let you give up on yourself, and I won’t let you give less than a hundred percent effort, every session, every day. I will get you there. More importantly, what I’ll really do is help you get yourself there. You just have to know where there is.” A pause. “Look inside and don’t answer this question until you know the real, true answer, the truth as it exists in your bones, in your blood, in your gut, in your muscles, in your balls.”
I snorted. “Female, here, remember?”
“Metaphorical balls. I could say ovaries, if that makes you feel better.”
I laughed. “Nah. Just giving you shit.” I sighed then turned serious. “So. What’s your question?”
“What is it you want? What’s your goal? What am I helping you achieve?” A hesitation. “That’s one question phrased three different ways.”
I blinked hard. “I…I don’t know.”
He nodded. “That’s why I’m asking. Think about it.” Another short, but intense silence. “Be real with yourself, Cassie. What do you want? I ain’t a shrink, I ain’t a psychotherapist, I’m just a muscle-head who likes helping people overcome physical obstacles. But in my experience helping clients who have suffered injuries like yours and worse, answering that question—what do you want?—often requires looking at more than just the physical. It’s more than just walking normally again. If that’s your goal, just walking without a limp, we can get you there. If it’s dancing again, but not professionally, we’ll get you there. If it’s getting you back to your dance company as a pro dancer, we can get you there.” His fingertip tapped the end of my nose. “You just have to know what your goal is.”
For A Goode Time Call... Page 20
