When he pulled away, his mouth tingled with a frosty sensation, like a powerful mint that took his breath away. Vic’s scowl smoothed out as he wiped a scrim of ice from Matt’s lips. “Next time you want Slurpees, let’s get them this way instead.”
Matt laughed. Remembering the showdown at 7-11, he couldn’t deny that their early morning tryst had been much more fun.
* * * *
Chapter 7
During the week from eight to five, Matt worked at the same gym downtown where he and Vic had first met. He taught swim classes, coached the swim team, and played lifeguard when the aqua-aerobics classes were in session. What had started out as a hobby turned into a full-time position, and now Matt had staff—two young women worked with him, keeping the locker rooms straight, cleaning the pool, watching kids horse around in the water when the pool was open to the public after school. Once Vic came off his double shift at the end of the summer, Matt thought he might hire a third person, just to give himself a few days off here and there. Autumn always brought an influx of people to the gym’s Olympic-sized pool, swimmers chased inside by the weather, and when Vic worked normal hours again, Matt wanted to spend more time with his lover.
As he drove to work, Matt let his mind drift back to the apartment, where he’d left Vic cursing in a cold shower. It seemed he could recall every day he’d spent with that man, every hour even, and the times they were apart blurred together into nonsense not worth mentioning. With vivid clarity, Matt could still remember the moment he first saw Vic, lifting free weights at the gym. The sharp, male scent of sweat hung thick in the air, a surplus of testosterone that had drawn Matt into the weight room in the first place, just to take a look. He saw Vic’s reflection in the mirror along the back wall—with his shaved head glistening from the lights overhead, his ears lined with gold hoops, and the black tattoos rippling over muscled biceps, Vic stood out in a crowd. Matt watched those thick arms flex with a strength he wanted to sample. He tried to imagine what they’d feel like, wrapped around his shoulders, holding him close; he wondered what those thunderous thighs felt like clamped tight around his waist. A man like that would never let him find out, God knew, and Matt sure as hell didn’t have the guts to ask…
Then Vic’s gaze drifted up, meeting Matt’s in the mirror, and their eyes locked across the room. Everything else disappeared, canceled out from the power and lust and desire that shot between them, and Matt wished he had on something more than skin-tight swim trunks that tightened around an instant erection.
Only when Vic looked away could Matt remember how to breathe.
He knew he should’ve left—if a guy like that caught a guy like him staring for long, he’d likely take offense and Matt wouldn’t make it to the locker room alive. But then Vic glanced at him again, and turned around, as if he needed a second look.
Matt couldn’t believe it. The faintest smile flickered across his face before he managed to stifle it. So. He wasn’t the only one who felt that surge between them.
Later, in the showers, Matt felt a gaze on his body and turned to find Vic storming past, eyes flickering in every direction but his, as if the big lug liked what he saw but didn’t want to be caught looking. When Matt’s sort-of boyfriend Kyle introduced him, Matt didn’t know whether to laugh or cry—frustration welled up inside him, anger and joy, a tumult of emotions that warred within his heart. One feeling surpassed all the others: a sense of completeness, of wholeness, of truth. Vic was the man he was meant to be with, Matt just knew it.
If only he hadn’t been with someone else.
Fortunately things didn’t work out with Kyle—Matt hadn’t thought they would. Since he’d first discovered the disturbing little fact that sexual intercourse gave his partners unsurpassed powers, Matt had been reluctant to become intimate with…well, with anyone, to be honest, but Kyle? No. Just no. Switching from the gym to the Y across town provided some much needed distance between them, and whenever Kyle managed to catch up with him, Matt held back. He never initiated anything, never responded to Kyle’s touch or kiss, and couldn’t seem to keep his mind grounded in the present moment when they were together. Vic stood between them like a promise, a dream or goal just out of reach that Matt could one day hope to attain, if he held out a little longer. He didn’t bother to return Kyle’s calls, and eventually the guy took the hint. When he stopped calling, Matt waited a week, then another. Then said the hell with it and went in search of what he really wanted.
Only now that he was looking for Vic, the man was nowhere to be found. Matt didn’t know then that Vic worked double shifts during the summer months, so he spent many long, boring days at the gym, hanging around the weight room and checking out all the guys, looking for one in particular. Whenever he caught sight of Kyle, he left. Soon he was swimming at the Y and cruising the gym in the evenings, and heaven knew he had his fair share of offers after hours. Lonely men would corner him in the sauna, brush up against him in the locker room, or cop a quick feel in the showers. More than once, he heard the phrase, “I’ve seen you looking…”
Matt shrugged them off, pushed them away. “Yeah, I’m looking,” he’d say, stepping back, “but not for you.”
Once a horny aerobics instructor followed him to the bathroom and proceeded to jerk off in the urinal beside Matt’s, staring at Matt’s dick the whole time. When he reached out to touch it, Matt growled, “I ain’t interested, got it?”
“You’re always here,” the guy countered. He had a shaved scalp but his lithe body and scrawny limbs held none of Vic’s bulk. “You gotta be interested in something.”
Zipping up, Matt turned away to wash his hands. “His name is Vic—”
“The bus driver?” the aerobics instructor asked. “You think you can handle a man like that? He’d bench two of you, easily.”
Bus driver. The words flashed in Matt’s mind and hope swelled in him. “Like the city bus?” he asked.
When the instructor nodded, Matt could’ve kissed him. Instead he whooped and raced from the bathroom, water dripping from his fingertips, the sink still running behind him.
It took another three weeks, riding every damn bus the city owned, but eventually Matt hit the jackpot. The look on Vic’s face when he glanced up from the driver’s seat to see Matt smiling down at him made the time spent looking disappear. Even before they hooked up, Matt had trouble remembering what his life had been like without Vic in it. His days could be divided into “lost” and “found.” Any day he classified as “lost” didn’t matter any longer; the sum of his existence, of his soul, could only be totaled now that he had found the man he was meant to have. Vic.
Without a doubt, Matt was one lucky son of a bitch.
* * * *
At the gym, Matt hit the locker room first. He shucked off his sweats to reveal the loose swim trunks that comprised his work outfit, and kicked his sneakers into his locker, switching them for a pair of black sandals he wore poolside. A stack of invoices sat on his desk, but they’d have to wait—Matt always took a quick lap around the pool before he opened it. Swimming relaxed him. Beneath the water, he felt protected and safe, buffered from the rest of the world, the same way he felt with Vic. The one time he’d managed to get his lover alone in the pool had been electric, the press of their bodies warming the water, heated kisses and hot hands and a mouthful of chlorine when he gave Vic head while holding his breath underwater. Swim trunks slipped down wet skin so easily, and there’d been no need for lubrication when Vic backed up on Matt’s hard cock.
The only downside had been the gills that sprouted from Vic’s neck almost immediately after Matt came. The poor guy had to spend the day in the pool, swimming in the deep end until the gills receded, and Matt canceled all classes that day so no one would bother him. He wasn’t able to convince his lover to try it again—Vic stayed in his weight room at the gym, and it took a long time before he’d even consent to join Matt in the shower. Matt had to promise to keep his hands to himself, a difficult feat at the best of
times, and downright impossible with Vic naked and lathered mere inches away.
The memory of their coupling that day in the pool burned bright in Matt’s mind as he climbed one of the starting blocks at the shallow end. When the gills had disappeared, Vic’s fingers and feet were pruney from staying so long in the water and afterwards he sat in the sauna for a full hour, trying to warm up from the steamy heat. Matt had stood watch outside the sauna door, turning every so often to peek through the steamed window at his nude lover, sprawled across the wooden bench, eyes shut. Only the fear of giving Vic another stupid ability kept him from rushing in there to ravish the man. Those damn powers…
As if he could leave that thought behind, Matt dove into the pool. The water parted to swallow him whole. With strong strokes, he pulled himself through the water, hard and fast, crossing the length in record time. When he hit the far end, he pushed off from the wall and splashed into the water with a fierce backstroke to retrace his wake. Another lap, two, and he gasped for breath as he clambered out among the starting blocks. His heart pumped in his chest, his blood raced through his body, invigorating, strengthening. His mind buzzed, alive.
Snatching a towel off the wall, Matt rubbed his curls dry and dripped as he ducked into his office. A glance at the clock above his desk told him he had ten minutes before he’d have to open the pool. He sank into his chair, a plastic thing that creaked beneath his weight, and began to leaf through the papers on his desk. Invoices, a reminder from the gym that no patron should walk around the place barefoot, a leave request for next Friday from one of the girls who worked for him, a handful of phone messages from reporters he didn’t know and wouldn’t bother to call back.
But the last message stopped him. Gordon, it read in Roxie’s flowing script. Under that, the gym receptionist had written, Jordan? Something like that. A local number followed, and the message read, Says he’s not a reporter. Yeah, right.
He crumpled the paper in damp hands, anxious for no real reason at all. Jordan was a common name, right? Could be anyone, either gender, anyone at all.
But it’s a guy. Matt reread the message. She thought he said Gordon first. God, Jordan?
As common as the name might be, the only person Matt had ever known with it was the first guy he hooked up with, back in high school. Jordan Dubrowski, on the track team. Or rather, who joined the track team when he found he could outrace the wind.
A power that came from Matt.
Fuck.
* * * *
Matt headed for the reception desk at the front of the gym. Maybe Roxie would remember the call. He burst into the reception area, the question already escaping his lips. “Roxie, this message—”
The words dried up as Matt realized Roxie was on the phone. She shot him a withering look, pale blue eyes stern behind her thick glasses. “Sorry,” he mouthed. A man leaned against the other side of the reception desk, waiting for a chance to talk with Roxie, as well. Matt flashed him a grin and leaned against the wall to wait his turn.
Into the phone, Roxie muttered, “Thanks.” Then she slammed the receiver down, a bit harder than Matt thought necessary. Turning to the waiting gentleman, she snapped, “Nope. Not here.”
Matt pushed away from the wall. “Who’re you looking for?”
“No one,” Roxie replied. Her icy tone warned him against something, but what? The look she gave him would’ve dropped a weaker man to his knees. As if noticing him for the first time, she dismissed the other man and asked Matt, “Can I help you with something?”
Confused, Matt glanced from her to the man and back again. “Wait. Roxie, you…?”
The man extended a hand, which Matt shook without being asked. “Rick Forrester, with the Times. I’m looking for a swim instructor here, named diLorenza? You know him?”
Too late, Matt noticed the pen tucked behind one ear, the open notepad in the hand not offered, and a dark strap across the man’s chest that led to a large camera resting on his hip. A reporter, damn. Trying to buy some time, Matt stalled. “Um, I don’t…”
“I told you already,” Roxie interrupted, running red-tipped fingers across the top of her head as if making sure her severe ponytail was still in place. “We don’t have anyone here named diLorenza. Try the Y.”
The reporter turned his attention back to her. “They had a diLorenzo,” he said, “a while back. Do you have anyone here named that? Matthew diLorenzo. The girl at the Y said she thought he worked here.”
With a flick of her ponytail, Roxie sighed. “You are wasting my time. Our instructors are here to work. They don’t have time to come out and play with you.”
Matt grinned. Roxie was a rabid one, to be sure. Fresh from college, with hair dyed a shade of red that should’ve been illegal and eyeliner like Cleopatra, Roxie guarded the gym as if it were a prison. The reporter’s beguiling smile was lost on her, but Matt had to give him props for trying. “Maybe if I could just sneak back to the pool for a minute…” The guy tried, already moving for the glass door as if he just knew she’d buzz him through. “Take a look myself, what do you say?”
“You need a pool pass,” Roxie told him. Before he asked, she added, “That’s twenty bucks a month in addition to the regular membership fee.”
The reporter’s smile slipped away “But I don’t—”
“You’re in luck.” Roxie reached for a nearby clipboard, talking over the reporter’s protest. “We’re running a sign-up special. Buy two years at once and save half off your membership fee for one of those years. So instead of three hundred you just pay two twenty-five. We take all major credit cards and can bill you in installments.”
Trying again, the reporter sputtered, “I don’t need—”
But Roxie just shook her head. “You don’t get past this desk without a membership card, dude. And if you’re not buying one, you’re loitering, and I’m calling the police.”
“Wait!” The reporter lunged for the desk, his smile back. “Let’s start again, all right? What do you say?”
Roxie rolled her eyes. As the reporter handed her a business card, she gave Matt a long-suffering look over her shoulder. “Did you need me for something?” she asked. “Or did you just come for the show?”
With a laugh, Matt backed away from her desk and the reporter looking for him. “I’ll bother you later,” he promised. To the reporter, he added, “Nice to meet you. Hope you find the guy you’re looking for. DiLorenza, did you say?”
The reporter nodded. “Or diLorenzo, one of the two. Anyone back there answer to that, you send him out here to me, you hear?”
“Sure,” Matt promised as he ducked through the swinging door that led to the gym. He balled up the message he still held in one hand and chucked it into the first trashcan he found. Damn, that had been close.
* * * *
Chapter 8
With Roxie at the reception desk, Matt’s day was uneventful and quiet, to say the least. No phone calls came through, no reporters hovered around the edges of the pool, no one harassed him in the locker room. The only excitement of the day was a young boy who climbed the high dive trying to impress his friends, but chickened out at the last second and refused to jump. Matt spent twenty hairy minutes talking him down off the diving board. When five o’clock rolled around, Matt was more than ready to lock up the pool and head home.
No one waited for him in the parking lot behind the gym, but Matt was careful not to head straight to the apartment, just in case he was being followed. Being paranoid, you mean, he chided himself. But if it kept his private life out of the papers, and kept Vic’s super powers a secret from the press, a couple extra miles didn’t hurt. He stopped at the grocery store for a few items, then swung through a fast food restaurant to grab a bite to eat, then circled his block twice before he felt comfortable enough to park. He lingered behind the wheel, studying the other cars, but no one waited in any of them. Not for the first time, Matt wished he had just an inkling of Vic’s telepathic ability—he’d scan every mind in the immedi
ate vicinity to ensure none of them were thinking of him.
Yeah, you’re paranoid. He climbed out of the car and nodded at his reflection in the window, agreeing with himself. He didn’t need telepathy—a glance around the empty street told him no one followed his every move. Vic was old news. That reporter at the gym was just looking for a follow-up, a human interest piece he could put in the Sunday paper as filler between the comics and the coupons. He’d be disappointed anyway, once he realized Matt and Vic were lovers. The Times was chump change, a small-town paper in a close-minded city. Any hint of a sexual relationship between two men that didn’t involve a criminal act of some sort would never get into print here.
Retrieving his groceries from the back seat, Matt hurried up the steps to his apartment building. A fine sheen of sweat already coated his back beneath his T-shirt; Richmond in August could be unbearable. He’d showered at the gym and already felt the need to rinse off again. After dinner, though. The greasy smell of fried chicken wafted up at him from the take-out bag he juggled amid the groceries, and his stomach grumbled in anticipation.
Once inside their apartment, Matt dumped the groceries in the kitchen and took his dinner into the living room. Stretching out along the length of the couch, he fiddled with the remote, shaking and knocking it against the coffee table until the dying batteries decided to work. The television flared to life, catching a news reporter in mid-sentence. “Over here on Malvern, Tim. Residents say the fire began at the back of the house, though police are still investigating the cause of the blaze.”
The burned husk of a duplex flashed on the screen. Matt glanced at it and winced at the damage, then turned to his food. As he sank his teeth into one hot chicken leg, the succulent crust crackled and heady juices filled his mouth. Sooo good. Nothing beat Lee’s fried chicken.
On the TV, an older woman with too much makeup smiled into the camera. Behind her, the remains of the destroyed home teetered dangerously. “Tim, reports are coming in about the man some say rescued two young children from this fire. Mrs. Esther Campbell from the neighborhood watch is here with me now. Esther?”
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