Howie’s desk phone started ringing as soon as the two of them entered his office, and the man gave Nick an apologetic look as he picked it up. He waved Nick into one of the two chairs lined up on the client side of his desk, and Nick settled into it with a little smile, glancing around the man’s neat-as-a-pin work space. Howie’s obsessive need for organization and order trickled down to every aspect of the gym, and Nick had no doubt that it was part of the place’s success.
There were a couple of other gyms Nick had looked into training at when he arrived, but even though they’d both been quick to tell him they’d take him on, he’d held out to see if he could cut it here at Howie’s. The work was going to be the same no matter where he went, but the caliber of clientele and the lack of bullshit in dealing with an owner who ran a tight ship would be worth the extra weeks of uncertainty when it came to his employment.
Howie had his phone wedged between his ear and his shoulder, and while he talked, he pulled a thick stack of paper out of his printer, tapping it to straighten the edges and then sliding it across the desk toward Nick.
Nick clenched his jaw for a moment, eyeing the brick of paper warily. Looked like a contract, so that was good, but damn. It had to be at least half an inch thick. He picked it up for appearances sake, recognizing his name on the first page and then letting his eyes blur over the rest of it, a jumble of fine print. He flipped through the stack, stifling a sigh when he saw that it was more of the same. There had to be at least fifty pages. Seventy, maybe. Fucking shit. Howie was no doubt as detail oriented with this as he was with every other aspect of his business. Nick had to respect that, but that didn’t quell the little tremor of anxiety as he wondered if Howie would expect him to read the whole thing and discuss it here and now.
“I’ve heard good things about you from some of our regulars, Nick,” Howie said, smiling warmly as he finally hung up the phone.
“Thank you,” Nick said, dropping the contract back onto the desk. “I’ve enjoyed working with the members here.”
Maybe Howie would want to handle the details verbally and treat the actual mountain of paperwork as a mere formality. Nick would be happy to sign it under those conditions. He trusted his gut about people, and felt confident that Howie wasn’t going to screw him over somewhere in the fine print.
“You’ve got a great conversion rate on the free trials, Nick, so I’d say the feeling goes both ways. I think you’ll be a good fit for us, and as you can see—” He gestured toward the contract. “—I’d like you to come on board officially.”
Nick grinned, feeling the slight sense of anxiety in his chest ease a little. “That’s great, Howie. I’d like that. If you’ve got a pen, I’m ready to sign.”
Howie laughed, shaking his head. “I know it’s a lot of paper—trust me, I get shit from all our trainers about that—but I do want to make sure you take the time to read through it before signing. You already know you’ll be coming on board as an independent contractor, but I want to make sure you fully understand how we operate here. You’ll need to pay the gym a minimum monthly rent, or a percentage of your earnings, whichever is greater, and I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding about how that’s calculated. You’ll also get referral commissions for upselling membership packages, nutrition programs, group training, and the like. The contract goes over how we handle shared promotional costs, your options for marketing yourself to our members through the website, gym access—”
Howie stopped rattling off the details, cutting himself off with another laugh.
“Your eyes are starting to glaze over,” he said, pushing the stack of paper closer to Nick again. “Not that I blame you, but seriously, please do take the time to go over it. I obviously don’t expect you to read the whole thing right now—” Thank God. “—but if you can review it and have it signed and back to me by the end of the week, that would be perfect.”
“Sounds good,” Nick said, meaning it.
Howie’s phone rang again, and Nick stood up, grabbing the contract off the desk. He knew Howie was right, and as much as he would have liked to just sign the thing and have it official already, understanding exactly what he was getting into was gonna be smart.
Even if it took a little more effort to make sure that happened.
Nick stifled a sigh. The world was full of obstacles, but despite his personal shortcomings, so far he’d managed to navigate around the majority of them. An old-school Michael Jordan poster on Howie’s wall caught his eye, making him smile ruefully. MJ obviously felt the same.
Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Story of Nick’s life.
As soon as Nick hit the parking lot, he pulled out his phone, scrolling past Heather’s still-unread message and finding Beck in his contacts. He tapped the mic key, voice-texting as he unlocked his truck.
“Yo, Beckworth, got a pound of paper here. The gym offered me the contract. You have time to go over it with me sometime this week?”
He tossed the paperwork and his phone on the passenger seat as he started the truck, but the phone immediately pinged with an incoming text. Nick grinned. Beck never let him down, but dude usually wasn’t so quick to reply.
He grabbed the phone, but then had to stifle a sigh when he saw that he’d been wrong. Not Beck. Instead, his screen was packed with another few hundred incomprehensible words from Heather. Nick tapped the call button by her name without bothering to try to make sense of them.
“I’m walking into court, Nick,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “I really wish you’d just reply by text.”
A conversation they’d had too many times to count.
“This was faster,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Did you even bother to read my message?”
Nick’s hand tightened on the steering wheel for a second, and he forced himself to relax. For a smart woman, she could be remarkably obtuse at times. Or maybe he was just that good. Still, could she make any single thing easy for him?
“Nope,” he said, making sure his frustration didn’t color his voice. “Didn’t have the chance to read it.”
He was still hoping she’d relent at some point and file a paternity affidavit legally naming him as Ava’s father. Heather was so damn independent. It had taken her months to even tell him she was pregnant, and despite his adamant stance on being part of Ava’s life from the moment he’d found out, Heather still acted like she might have to suddenly go it alone as a single parent at any moment.
Nick wanted her to set up a parenting plan that gave him joint custody, but if it hadn’t been for Beck encouraging him to keep pushing for it, he would have given up long before. Not given up on Ava, of course—never—but on trying to get some legal rights when it came to making decisions about her.
Heather certainly didn’t make it easy.
She loved holding all the cards, and negotiating any fucking thing with her made his head spin. She’d had a difficult childhood of her own, and he understood her need to feel in control, but understanding didn’t make it any easier to deal with. Still, he was good at being agreeable, and he was willing to do whatever—as evidenced by his recent move—to stay a part of his daughter’s life. To that end, he let Heather’s sigh of exasperation roll off his back and waited for her to tell him what she needed from him this time.
“You don’t have plans tonight, right?” she asked, sounding a little impatient.
He didn’t—who would he have plans with? He still didn’t know much of anyone here—but as usual, she rolled forward without bothering to wait for his answer.
“I need you to pick Ava up from her ballet class at six,” she said. “I’ve got a deposition tonight, and the timing doesn’t work for me. I’ll pack an overnight bag for her, and you can take her to school in the morning.”
“I’m happy to pick her up, but no can do on the school, Heather. I’ve got to be at
the gym at five in the morning for my first client.”
“Nick, I don’t know how late I’m going to be tonight. Can’t you just take her with you in the morning or something?”
He pulled the phone away from his face for a moment so he didn’t say something he’d regret. He knew Heather loved their daughter, and in many ways she was a great mother, but when she was on a case, she had a bad habit—in his opinion—of thinking that it trumped their child’s needs.
“No,” he said curtly, once he was sure he wouldn’t add in something more colorful. “I’m not waking Ava up before dawn on a school day and making her sit in the gym for a few hours when she should be sleeping. Doesn’t matter how late you’re done tonight. If you can’t swing by and get her, just call me and I’ll bring her over. If it’s after her bedtime, I’ll just carry her in to her room at your place, so she doesn’t wake up.”
“Fine. I’ll text you when I get out,” she said, the tone of her voice telling him that her mind had already moved off the topic of their daughter to whatever awaited her in court.
“Call me, Heather,” he said insistently. “Don’t text. I’ll keep the phone on.”
“Sure,” she said brusquely.
He was pretty damn sure she’d ignore that particular request just like she had every other time he’d made it.
What. Ever. He’d make it work.
His phone pinged again as she ended the call, and this time it was an incoming text from Beck. Seeing the guy’s familiar face pop up on his screen went a long way toward helping Nick let go of his irritation with Heather. He tapped the home button to wake up his electronic girlfriend.
“Siri, what’s Beck got to say?” he asked, his lip twitching in amusement as it occurred to him that he now had two fake love interests in his life.
He hoped Siri wouldn’t be jealous of J, since life would suck if she ever gave him the cold shoulder. He trusted his iGirl to understand, though. Nick was all about monogamy as a general rule, but there were some things she’d just never be able to offer him.
He wedged the phone into the hands-free holder on his dash and started up the truck, backing out of the parking space as Siri read back Beck’s words in her familiar, dry, fembot voice.
“Congrats, Starboy. Howie’s gym is lucky to get you. Send the contract over and we’ll get to it this week for sure.”
The phone pinged almost before Siri finished reciting his friend’s words.
Beck again.
“Siri? Don’t leave me hanging, girl,” Nick said, holding down the home button again. “What else does my boy have to say?”
“You meet anyone there yet?” Siri read for Nick as he braked for a four-way stop.
Nick grinned, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he debated whether to head home or burn off some energy at the rock climbing gym. Beck was such a mother-hen, all worried that Nick was going to wither away and die from lack of a social life. He spun the wheel to the left, opting to head over to the climbing wall at New Heights. He tapped the mic key as he drove.
“Met someone today, actually,” he voice-texted, smirking as he imagined how his friend would react to that. “Got a hot date set up in a couple of weeks.”
The ping from Beck’s response came back fast and furious, as Nick had known it would. He hadn’t really dated anyone seriously since he and Heather had stopped trying to pretend that a relationship purely for Ava’s sake was ever going to work between them, and Beck had been on him for the last couple of years to find The One. Not that Beck knew how to take his own advice, of course, but that didn’t stop the guy from dishing it out. He was convinced that Nick “needed” someone, and there was no way Nick was going to pass on the chance to fuck with his best friend a little.
As if hanging with J earlier hadn’t already been its own reward, meeting Jeremy had also blessed Nick with this little bonus opportunity to mess with Beck.
“Dude, that’s awesome!” Siri read Beck’s response back. “Tell me about her.”
“Not ‘her.’” Nick was laughing as he said it, and he could only hope that the voice recognition software was good enough to interpret his words. “Him.”
His phone chimed with Beck’s incoming call almost before he took his finger off the send button. Nick tapped the speakerphone icon to answer.
“What the fuck?” Beck’s voice blared out. “That last message said ‘him.’ You’re dating a guy? Was that some kind of autocorrect thing, or did something in the Tulsa water make you suddenly crave some D?”
Nick laughed, shaking his head as he turned into the parking lot of the rock climbing gym. “That would be a no to both questions. But a funny thing happened this morning. Remember that time you tried to break things off with the asshat from Vancouver and talked me into pretending to be your boyfriend when he wasn’t getting the message? It’s a bit like that…”
Nick cracked the window as he turned the truck off. The spring weather was nice and cool, a bit like home. He definitely wasn’t looking forward to what he’d heard about Oklahoma summers. He’d always run a bit hot, which had made Seattle perfect for him most of the year, and the fresh air now was welcome.
The climbing wall would wait, and he settled back in his seat to tell Beck about his adventures at the gym that morning. He definitely missed hanging with the guy in person, but at least technology made it easy to keep in touch.
A thought which brought J to mind again.
Nick really did hope he’d call.
It would be good to start making some local friends.
3
Jeremy
The bakery was empty when Jeremy stopped in Friday morning, which meant that Lucy didn’t bother to hide her laughter as he told her about running into Candi at the gym earlier that week.
“Your life is more entertaining than the last book you recommended, Jeremy,” she said, sliding his daily mocha across the counter with a grin. “But are you really going to join her reunion planning committee? You and your ‘boyfriend’?”
She put the last word in air quotes, and Jeremy rolled his eyes, saved from answering by the ping of an incoming text. He sipped the chocolate deliciousness she’d handed him gratefully as he swiped to open it, idly wondering if he could stomach getting involved with the reunion committee if it meant continuing the charade with Nick a little longer.
Um, no.
Well… maybe?
But probably not an option, anyway, since Nick was going to break up with him. After all, the man hadn’t signed up for a long-term commitment—story of Jeremy’s dating life, fake or not—so if Jeremy wanted to think of ways to see him again, he was probably going to have to resort to more gym torture.
God, what on earth had inspired him to put all that physical stuff on his list? Rock climbing? Getting in shape? Jeremy loved muscles, but maybe more in an admiring sense than actually needing to kill himself to get some of his own.
He would be perfectly happy just looking.
And touching.
Possibly licking.
Hm. Maybe he should sign up for more training with Nick. Not, unfortunately, that it would probably include licking. Or any other tongue action. But still, even if it was just looking, more time with Nick would be worth it.
The man was fucking hot.
Jeremy had been thinking of and rejecting reasons to call him all week. Well, “reasons” was maybe stretching it. Basically, there was just one: Despite knowing better, Jeremy’s romance addiction had already kicked into overdrive, and now he was crushing on the guy he couldn’t have. Not smart. But still, probably better than his usual type of crushing. Or rather to say, the type of guy he usually crushed on. But all potential licking or not-licking aside, it wasn’t just the way Nick looked that had Jeremy hunting for an excuse to see him again.
It was also the way Nick had made Jeremy feel.
But it was safer to think about it strictly in terms of how Nick looked, because what Jeremy felt wasn’t—couldn’t be—true. After all, h
e’d just met the man. And even if it had seemed like there was something between them, some kind of rapport or understanding or connection or something, no doubt that had more to do with Jeremy’s hair-trigger infatuation tendency than with reality.
He knew that his usual MO around a new, hot guy was to look so hard for what he wanted that he convinced himself it was really there, but the problem with Nick was that it felt like he didn’t have to look at all.
Because it was just… there.
Already.
But Jeremy’s relationships were never that easy.
And, besides, Nick was not a relationship.
Jeremy had only met the guy once, and for real, if he needed any further proof that what he was feeling was just a different version of his usual guaranteed-to-go-nowhere new-man excitement, that would be it. Not to mention, God, he kept letting himself think of Nick in terms of dating.
They were fake dating.
FAKE.
And not even dating, really. They simply had a date scheduled—one, singular—during which they would stage a fake break up. Just because Nick was a) lickable, b) made Jeremy feel things, and c) by “things” he didn’t just mean the things that made him want to lick, it was still a bad idea to start wanting it to be more than it was.
A very bad idea.
A Jeremy 1.0 idea.
The new and improved version of Jeremy was smarter than that.
Which is why he hadn’t let himself call.
Although, come to think of it, maybe he should call. They did have that one date scheduled, after all, and they really hadn’t worked out the details yet. Candi had texted Jeremy her address the other day, but he should probably double-check with Nick and make sure they were still on.
The Delicious Series: The First Volume Page 46