by J Darcy
Two days ago, he sat in his car in front of a taco truck he used to frequent, just staring at the line of customers and smelling the wafting cloud of delicious goodness that barreled towards him. If he closed his eyes, he could practically taste the char of carne asada and the spicy peppers and the melted cheese and even the soft blanket of tortilla—
Maybe he was a masochist. Especially when his dinner was brown rice, vegetables, salmon, and some eggs.
Ultimately, he was thrilled to enter month two of preparation for the film because it meant fight chorography—and therefore less time lifting or cardio—and only four weeks before actual production on the film began.
But it also meant Kellie’s arrival in Los Angeles. He would see her nearly every day during this period, even if they were learning different chorography. They shared a trainer and a choreographer. They shared a training space. He knew this was coming, but he wondered just how prepared for it he was.
He didn’t have to think too hard. Not when she showed up on the first of the month, clad in a pair of mouthwateringly tight leggings and a neon pink tank top. Her long, auburn locks had been expertly braided away from her face, giving Cade a clear view of her beautiful, pale skin and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Even without an ounce of makeup on, dressed to probably kick his ass, she looked gorgeous. He had no idea what to say. Especially after not speaking to her for months. Well, he sent her flowers on the opening night of her show, and he did receive a thank you text from her, but that was the extent of it.
Now he was staring at her, taking in his fill of big green eyes and a radiance of happiness that few people in his life had. He would never forgive himself for upsetting such a perfect person.
“Cade.” She began, strolling to meet him by the water refill station. Her bottle was one of the fancy reusable ones, with intricate flowers painted around the cylinder. He wasn’t certain, but he would guess that she did it on her own. After a moment to fill up the bottle, she continued. “How have you been? You look like you’ve been working hard.” She motioned to one of his exposed biceps and smiled softly, “Practically a superhero now.”
He wasn’t sure if it was because he had already worked up a sweat from his twenty minutes on the treadmill before she arrived, but he just knew his cheeks had darkened considerably. Only Kellie Allen could possibly make him blush.
“Thanks. TJ has been kicking my ass.” He explained, glancing over at their shared trainer, who was busily going over notes with their new chorographers Jason and Samantha, “It’s been an exhausting month.”
Kellie nodded and dropped onto one of the benches. “Yeah, same. I was still supposed to be training for two hours a day between rehearsals and show time. TJ would Face Time me and yell about my form from across the country.”
Despite her words, she seemed to be in good spirits. So, Cade laughed. “Yeah, TJ is a bit of a hard ass. But he knows how to get results.”
She nodded. “You’re telling me. My elevator was out two days before I left for LA and I ran up ten flights of stairs. Didn’t even break a sweat.”
“I’m impressed. Did he have you on the Stairmaster too?”
Kellie groaned. “Yes. And that’s the fucking worst.”
He agreed. Even just ten minutes on the Stairmaster had him considering quitting the industry and instead becoming a teacher or something. Anything to get away from the exercise. He hated it so much that he would gladly deadlift twice his own weight regularly if just to never use that torturous machine again.
“Well, I guess we know why he’s being paid to kick our asses.”
Cade watched as TJ, Jason, and Samantha made their way across the gym, clearly ready to begin their first day of fight training. They had the first half of the day for one-on-one time until some of their other co-stars showed up, like Frankie Hall, who was playing the villain in the film. Both he and Kellie had plenty of fight time with Frankie, meaning they’d need to train for such.
But Cade could barely focus on that. Instead, he was too busy watching TJ. Or rather, watching TJ’s happy face. Because their trainer was many things—a hardass, strict, loud, and borderline aggressive. He wasn’t happy. He didn’t smile.
Yet as he approached Cade and Kellie, he was smiling. And not just because he was excited for the Monday full of training and fighting.
He appeared to be smiling at Kellie. Unable to help himself, Cade glanced at the woman beside him, noticing her own cheerful face. They were smiling at each other.
It was probably stupid. He was stupid. But he couldn’t stop looking between the pair of them. They looked like they were, well, friends.
Cade didn’t like that it put him on edge.
Not one bit.
◆◆◆
“Cade, no, no—that’s too clean.” Samantha explained, rushing over to push at his arms. “Look at Jason’s form. This is your first sparring—Ace is just adjusting to his superhero mantle. If you’re too polished, it will look unnatural. Remember what he comes from and how he fights.”
With a sigh, Cade dropped his arms and tried to focus on the way Jason held himself. He tried to watch the way the other man’s biceps curled and his legs kicked forward as he fought the training dummy.
But he could barely focus.
Not when across the gym, TJ was pushing Kellie to stretch, all while laughing along her to her story about some giant rat she saw on the subway back in New York. Why the hell did they have to share a gym?
More importantly, why were they laughing and having a grand ole time while Cade was getting his ass kicked by a dummy with unnatural eyes and a silicone torso?
Taking Samantha’s words to heart and holding his fists the same way Jason did during the demonstration, he began to attack the dummy, using every ounce of aggression and frustration he had with the situation. Only when he punched and kicked so hard that the dummy fell backwards with a thud did he stop, a feeling of pride overwhelming him.
Until Jason spoke. “Hey man, love the focus and energy, but that’s a bit too aggressive. Remember, Ace gets knocked around by Ranker and his goons at this point, so we can’t have you kicking that much ass.”
Cade cursed and stalked off, expressing his desire for a short break. He stopped at the water cooler and dropped to the bench. He was sweaty, and tired, and frustrated, and sore, and the water wasn’t nearly as cold enough as he wanted.
But those maladies didn’t piss him off nearly as much as watching TJ train Kellie did. Cade took a few desperate gulps of water, hoping that maybe with proper hydration—as well as their upcoming lunch break—he’d have his head on straight and stop obsessing about the way TJ touched Kellie’s arms to fix her form.
He knew TJ was just doing his job. Hell, he knew Kellie was just doing her job. But he couldn’t help it. Seeing them together made the endless physical exertion even harder. And even with the constant water breaks, and the air conditioning on blast, he was still just so fucking hot.
Cade hoped his saving grace would be the arrival of some of their co-stars and background actors. His character spent just as much time fighting Frankie’s character, Ranker, as he did actually training Kellie’s character. Maybe if he was fake punching Frankie, he wouldn’t be so focused on the sound of Kellie’s laughter.
Just when he thought he had calmed down enough—taking a few moments just to drink his water and breathe—Kellie appeared before him, all smiles and good spirits despite what he was sure was a physically exhausting morning. Wisps of auburn hair escaped her once perfectly put together braid, and her once pale face had reddened, but otherwise, Kellie barely looked bothered.
“How’s it going so far?” She asked out of nowhere. Cade was surprised that she was engaging with him. He knew they were going to be friendly, but he also assumed that meant ignoring each other whenever possible. Evidently, Kellie was still able to surprise him.
“It’s a lot.” And it honestly was. Cade worked out on a regular basis, so running
and lifting weights and boxing was nothing new to him. But fighting? Especially perfectly choreographed fights? Since he had appeared in multiple action movies before, he had experience with it to a degree, but those characters also gladly used explosives and guns. Less hands-on approaches. As a superhero, his hands were his weapons.
It meant all this choreographed fighting was certainly new to him. It was challenging learning the scene, remembering the moves, and making sure he didn’t actually punch his partner. He’d have to remain extra vigilant to make sure he didn’t punch Frankie over the course of the next four weeks. Not to mention, while actually filming the scenes for real.
Kellie nodded in understanding and sat beside him. She took a moment to gulp down a few sips of water, before adding, “I’m nervous too. Back at Julliard, during a performance of a play written by one of my classmates, I was supposed to stage slap my co-star. But I fucked up and slapped him hard. He was so surprised by the force, he nearly fell off the stage.” She laughed softly, recalling the memory, “So I’m a bit scared I’ll mess this up. I guess I’m a little happy I’m mainly working with TJ this week, though.”
He sneered at the mention of their trainer, a guy he generally liked and got along with. How his opinion had changed so rapidly in maybe four hours was of little consequence to Cade. “Right. I’m glad TJ has been so involved.” He wasn’t sure what was worse—the way he said TJ’s name, as if it was some sort of insult, or the way he inferred that something more than training was going on.
Kellie seemed just as put off by his words, if her happy smile disappearing was any indication. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
Cade just scoffed and leaned back against the wall of the gym, the concrete cooling his sweaty back. “I’m just saying that TJ certainly enjoys training you. He can barely keep his hands off you.”
She rose to her feet, narrowing those unyielding emerald eyes. “First of all, he only touches me to readjust what I’m doing. Stretching, lifting weights, whatever. Second of all, you can take whatever you’re implying and fuck off with it.”
“I’m just saying, TJ certainly never touched me like that. If my arms weren’t right, he yelled and told me to fix it. He didn’t physically adjust me like I was some rag doll he was playing with.”
Kellie brought one hand up to him, and for a split second, he thought she may actually slap him. Instead, she poked a finger into his chest, her eyes angry. “I don’t know what your problem is, but it seems like you’re trying to start shit. We finally weren’t fighting, and you just had to open that big, stupid mouth of yours.”
“All I said was TJ was involved in your training,” Cade shot back, rather pathetically, “You’re the one who took issue with that.”
“Because the implication was pretty fucking obvious, Cade! Not to mention, you proceeded to infer that he treats me like a rag doll! All because he’s doing his fucking job!”
He turned away and shook his head, suddenly ready to return to beating the shit out of a silicone dummy, or Jason, or the salad and chicken breast he’d get to eat for lunch in less than an hour. “He seems to really enjoy that job.”
Kellie stepped away from him, her water bottle held tightly to her chest. “I don’t know what your issue is, but you don’t get to pay attention to me. You don’t get to be…” She shook her head, her nose twitching in frustration, “Jealous, or whatever it is that you are. You lost that right when disappeared in the middle of the fucking night.”
“I’m not jealous of you working out with a fucking studio provided trainer.” Even the words sounded like a lie to his own ears. But he’d still have to go with it. Anything that prevented him from admitting that yeah, of course he was fucking jealous. He didn’t need that gym rat running his hands all over Kellie under some thinly veiled guise of perfecting her form.
Kellie was perfect at everything. Nothing about her needed adjustment.
But she just laughed at his pathetic words. “Good. Then I can return to my training without any more uncalled for comments from you, right?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m just looking out for you. I told you I wanted to be friends.”
“Well, we’re not Cade. Not even close. We’re co-stars who remain polite and courteous to one another. I won’t comment about your relationship with anyone, and you don’t need to comment about the same with me.”
He didn’t like her use of the word relationship. Not one bit. “And what type of relationship do you have with TJ?” He shouldn’t have asked. He couldn’t help himself. Apparently, he was a masochist.
Kellie just shook her head. “Not that it’s any of your business, but he did ask me out. And I said yes. So as of right now, he’s my trainer. But if I enjoy our date? Well, only time will tell.”
With her shoulders held high, she strolled off, rejoining TJ on the other end of the gym. Cade remained paralyzed, desperately trying to process her words. It wasn’t a big deal. Not at all. He and Kellie weren’t together. They weren’t even friends—given her daily reminder—so they didn’t owe each other anything. He could date and fuck hundreds of women without an ounce of guilt if he wanted to.
Yet knowing those things—knowing that it was his fault they were even in the position they were in now—did nothing to quash the unease building in his stomach. It did nothing to stop the way his chest tightened, or his hands sweat. It did nothing to prevent his mind from filling with images of Kellie laughing with another man—kissing another man—making love to another man.
Before he knew it, he was retching into the trash can beside the water station, his breakfast of eggs and vegetables and chicken coming up with every heaving breath. He could hear Jason and Samantha asking about him—telling him they could slow down if the morning had been too intense—but he could barely focus.
Not when he felt like the world was ending.
He must have been as good of an actor as people said. Because he was certainly nothing like the roles he played. Smooth-talking, charming, romantic…
Those guys always got the girl in the end.
But Cade? Cade managed to drive away the only one he had ever cared about.
All because he was a coward.
He had no idea how he was going to fix this. But he had to. He couldn’t let Kellie get away. Not again. Especially when he was starting to realize what it was that he wanted.
Chapter 6
In just seventy-two hours since her return to LA, Kellie already had so many things that required her attention. She was moving into a rental property for about two months—the duration of their pre-production preparations and the first month of filming—as well as in the process of refamiliarizing herself with driving. After almost eight years of living in New York City, her driving skills had tarnished considerably. Her many drives along I-75 while growing up in Florida, heading to her part time jobs at the local ice cream shop or grocery store, were practically forgotten.
But it wasn’t just moving and driving that captivated her thoughts. Then she had training. The work was physically exhausting and memorizing fighting routines also created its own mental strain. In just her first few days, she was missing her usual workout of just yoga and maybe a short run. Considering she had never played sports in her life, the training for this film was far and away the most intense physical thing she had ever done. She couldn’t even begin to understand how people climbed mountains and ran marathons for fun.
Even with her temporary move and physically straining days, Kellie couldn’t pretend that those two tasks alone captivated her attention. She would be lying to herself if she did. Per usual, a certain chocolate-eyed jerk with biceps made of stone weighed heavy in her mind.
It all started with her new trainer, TJ. He started training her remotely during her show run in New York, and they’d typically FaceTime through a workout for about an hour a day. He was a sweet guy—handsome, too—and obviously had a body to absolutely die for. So, when Kellie finally got the chance to meet him in person
on her first day of training, she was happy that they seemed to get along, and that their video calls did little justice to show off his light brown skin and stunning blue eyes.
When he asked her out, after their morning stretches on her first day, she wondered if going out with her trainer would be immensely stupid. But she considered that they would only work together for the next month, and if things didn’t go well, she’d simply request a new trainer for the next film. She liked him, he liked her, and he was incredibly hot. She had no reason to say no.
Until Cade started pointing out that TJ liked to touch her. And made her laugh. And seemed to be a genuinely good guy. Perhaps the anti-Cade, given the way Cade so perfectly fucked up their friendship in just one night. Kellie would be lying if she pretended Cade’s apparent jealousy—no matter how much he denied it—didn’t make her heart beat a little faster or turn her cheeks just a little bit pinker.
But she tried to put Cade out of her mind when she went on her date with TJ. They went to some fancy vegan restaurant in West Hollywood, one with a beautiful patio that had nearly every inch covered in sprawling plants and flowers. They drank freshly brewed kombucha and dined on jackfruit tacos and guacamole with pomegranate seeds. As someone not from the west coast, for Kellie, it was so very Los Angeles.
All things considered, it had been a good date. She learned more about TJ—about his time in the army, and his struggle to open his own gym, and his eventual foray into training celebrities, especially for film and television roles that required a certain level of fitness. He was polite, charming, and of course, easy on the eyes.
Kellie wished any of that mattered. TJ’s good looks and polite conversation did, well, nothing for her. Their date bored her to tears. Hearing his voice made her think of doing planks or sit-ups or needing to stretch her quads more. Everything in his life circled back to fitness, from what he did in his free time to of course his job, and while Kellie respected that immensely, it simply wasn’t the lifestyle for her.