by Cassie Cole
I smiled, but only for a moment. “If it was so hot, then why did you run out of the room after? And why did you call in sick to work all week?”
“Because as good as it was, I was afraid,” he admitted. “What we did was wrong, Kat.”
I touched his thick leg. “It’s not wrong if we both wanted it.”
“It’s against company policy. I could lose my job just for being too flirty with you, let alone…”
“Let alone giving me the best fuck of my life?” I finished for him.
“Exactly.” He blinked. “The best of your life?”
I smiled. “Like you said. It was the kind of thing porn movies are made of. Also, you’re incredibly sexy.”
My compliment had the opposite effect on him. He frowned and said, “We’re getting off topic. I’m your personal trainer. You’re my client. I love my job at RMF, and can’t do anything to risk losing it.”
A pit formed in my stomach. “So, what now?”
“We go back to the way things were,” he said. “Focusing on your workouts and helping you attain your physical goals.”
I grimaced. It was the exact same thing I had offered him a few seconds ago, but now that I knew he had enjoyed the sex as much as me, it felt like we were giving up something wonderful.
“Or I could quit RMF,” I said. “Then we can do whatever we want.”
He looked at me skeptically. “Do you want to find another gym?”
I sighed. “No. I don’t.”
“Then we don’t have a choice. We’ll treat it as a one-time event, and go back to a platonic trainer-client relationship.”
“Counter-offer: we could keep doing it, but do a really good job of keeping it a secret.”
He rose from his chair. “Who says I want to keep doing it?”
I jumped up. “Hey!”
He grinned, and suddenly swept me into his humongous arms. He pushed me back against the wall, where a cabinet hid us in case anyone walked in at that moment. He kissed me hard, pushing his body against me roughly. Smothering me with his enormous muscles.
I gasped when he finally pulled away. My chest heaved. Finn smiled.
“You’re evil,” I said.
“Consider that a goodbye kiss,” he said softly. “From this point on, there’s nothing between us.”
I grabbed his shirt, stood on my tip-toes, and jammed my tongue into his mouth for a quick French kiss. “Consider that a goodbye kiss,” I replied.
He glared darkly. “Now you’re the evil one.”
“Just giving you a taste of your own medicine.” I cleared my throat and adjusted my shirt. “Why did you wait until now to talk to me? You could have replied to my text, rather than leave me hanging all week.”
“I wanted to reply, but was afraid to do it on a company device.” He pulled out his phone and showed me the RMF logo on the case.
“Would the gym really do that? Read your texts?”
“Probably not,” he admitted. “But if shit ever hits the fan, they might go back through our texts. Better to be safe than sorry.”
I glanced at my wrist monitor. “Shit. I have to run.”
“What? Got a hot date?” he joked.
I winced.
The smile fell from his face. “Oh.”
“It’s sort of a date,” I said weakly. “Brody asked me out.”
“Brody. He’s a cool guy,” Finn replied. He seemed like he was trying very hard not to appear jealous. “Hope you two have fun.”
“Thanks.”
I left the office awkwardly. By the time I got outside, I was groaning to myself. We had turned things around, cleared the air between us… And then I had to go and tell him that I had a date. Now things were going to be weird again.
But it was satisfying to see that Finn was a little jealous.
I dropped off my gym bag at the store, quickly applied some makeup in the bathroom, checked-in with Paul to make sure he didn’t need anything, then returned to the gym. While standing around outside, I thought about what I was doing. I’d slept with Finn earlier this week, and now I was going on a date with Brody. And as if that wasn’t enough, I had a flirty thing going with Max.
I’d never been in a situation like this. What was I going to do?
I forgot about all of that when I saw Brody. He came walking down the sidewalk toward me, looking dapper in the fleece jacket he’d been wearing yesterday. He wore a blue and yellow scarf around his neck, which I saw had the cursive UCLA logo on the end.
“You look nice,” he said.
I snorted. “Tough to tell bundled up in this jacket, but you said we would be outdoors…”
He eyed my winter boots. “Those should do. My car’s this way.”
He led me to his car, which was a dark Subaru with winter tires. It was warm when we got inside.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He smiled secretively. “You’ll see.”
We drove west across town, then hopped on I-70 toward the mountains. After a few miles we exited onto a switchback service road, drove for a few more minutes, and then parked at a trailhead.
CENTENNIAL CONE PARK
WEST TRAILHEAD
“We’re going hiking!” I said excitedly.
He parked the car and hopped out. “Is that alright?”
“It’s more than alright,” I said. “I used to love hiking.”
Brody shouldered a heavy backpack. “Me too.”
There was half an inch of fresh powder on the trail, but our boots crunched easily through it. Brody led the way, with me two steps behind him.
“Glad I wore my hiking boots, instead of my tennis shoes,” I said. “You told me we would be outdoors, but you weren’t specific.”
He glanced back at me. “I wanted to keep it a surprise.”
“I’m glad you did!”
The forest was thick with Spruce-Firs and Lodgepole Pines. Snow and ice glistened on the branches as we climbed the trail, reflecting the afternoon sun whenever it peeked through the clouds. Everything was quiet and still, except for the sound of our boots. It was a perfect winter wonderland.
Nature wasn’t the only nice thing to look at. Climbing the trail in front of me, Brody’s ass looked amazing in his jeans. It made the time fly by as we wound our way through the forest.
“Why did you stop hiking?” Brody asked after a little bit.
“Who says I stopped?”
Brody paused to fetch a water bottle from his backpack. He took a long gulp and handed it to me. “You said you used to love hiking.”
I drank some water to give myself time to think. I was never quite sure how to bring up my history, especially with a new guy who I liked. The last two guys I’d dated weren’t very sympathetic.
“When I was a kid, dad would take me hiking,” I explained. “I spent most of my time with mom, but hiking was the one activity where he and I got along. My brother was too much of a nerd to come with us, so he stayed home. It was just dad and I.”
“He doesn’t hike anymore?”
I smiled sadly. “He died in a car accident on New Year’s Eve, five years ago. He and my mom, both.”
There it was that horrified, pitying look that always crossed people’s faces when I told them. Brody was shocked. He didn’t know what to say. Right then, he was frantically trying to think of what not to say. Like he was navigating an invisible minefield of familial baggage.
“That was five years ago,” I added. “I’ve worked through all my shit by now. But I haven’t really been hiking since.”
Brody ran a hand through his blond hair. “Listen. I didn’t know… If you want to turn around, we can go do something else—”
“No!” I blurted out. “I’ve always wanted to go hiking again, but never had the courage. Thank you for the push.”
“Are you sure?”
I put a hand on his arm. “Positive. Let’s keep going.”
I showed him I was serious by leading the way up the trail. That, and I knew my
ass looked good in these pants. It was his turn to enjoy walking in the back.
We hiked up the mountain for an hour until reaching the peak, then continued south along the ridge. It was a good workout, and used my calves more than running on a treadmill.
“It’s weird exercising and not getting any points for it,” I said.
“Definitely. I kind of like it, though. Like we’re disconnected from the race.”
“You’re just scared because you know I’m going to catch up to you and win the spring quarter.”
Brody scoffed. “I’d like to see you try. Hey! There,” Brody suddenly said. “It’s just ahead.”
“What is?”
We left the trail and crunched through heavier snow for twenty yards. The trees thinned, and then suddenly we were walking through open air. Up ahead the ground suddenly gave way to a cliff face. I stopped when we were still ten yards away.
I gazed at the view of the valley below. “It’s beautiful,” I said in awe.
Brody put an arm around me, and pointed to the left.
A hundred yards away was a massive waterfall. I had not noticed it because it was completely silent, a frozen pillar of ice reaching from the lake below up to the drop-off point.
“Oh my God.”
Brody beamed. “I read about it when I first moved here. Conditions have to be just right for it to freeze completely.”
“This is incredible!”
“Worth the hike, right?”
“Totally.” My stomach rumbled. “Got any snacks in there?”
He slipped the backpack off his shoulder and smirked. “I did better than that.”
He began pulling glass Tupperware containers from the backpack. One with cubes of cheese, and another with sliced turkey. A container of strawberry slices and grapes, and one with small oatmeal raisin cookies.
“You packed an entire dinner here!”
“Just a picnic, but I appreciate your enthusiasm.”
“I forgot to grab lunch,” I replied. “And I swam an hour with Max before our date.”
Brody reacted like he’d been punched. “Oof, I bet Max kicked your ass.”
“He did, but in a good way. He fixed all the inefficient parts of my stroke, but now it feels like I’m learning to swim all over again.”
Brody unfolded a blanket and laid it on a bare patch of rock where the snow had melted. “That’s the idea. Suffer now, be better later.”
I tried to hold back, but as soon as the food containers were open I started chowing down. Toothpicks of cheddar cheese, then sliced meat, then fruit. Finally I caved and ate one cookie, then three more.
“This isn’t good for my diet,” I said with my mouth full.
“You said it yourself: you skipped lunch. And we probably burned a thousand calories hiking this far.”
“Really?”
He smirked. “Probably not. But we can pretend.”
I laughed. “How long have you been in Denver?”
Brody leaned back on his hands. “Since last fall. My contract runs through this September. It might be extended until the end of the year, but probably not.”
“Then what?”
“Then I go back to California.”
He said it so simply, like he was commenting on the weather. But it instantly changed the context of our date. If he was only going to be here for seven or eight more months, then a serious relationship was out of the question.
Strangely, that took the pressure off of things. Like the stakes of our date weren’t so high anymore.
“Have you enjoyed Denver so far?”
He snorted. “The winter is certainly… wintery.”
“You mean you’re not used to getting six feet of snow out on the California coast?” I asked dryly.
“Not quite. But it’s kind of nice experiencing seasons.”
I tossed a piece of cheese at him. “Oh, boo hoo. You’re sick of perfect seventy-five degree weather every day, year-round.”
“I’m serious! Sometimes it gets boring.”
I flung another piece of cheese, and this time it bounced off his neck and fell down his shirt. I giggled as he scrambled to pull it out.
“I’ve enjoyed being out here, though,” he went on wistfully. “I’m kind of a loner, so I like being away from the office. I focus better when I don’t have coworkers distracting me. And being out here has allowed me to focus on triathlon training.”
“I bet,” I replied. “It’s been nice doing my work at the RMF. Two birds, one stone.”
He cocked his head. “What work is that? I wouldn’t expect a store owner like you could do any work at the gym.”
I explained my system of demo albums, pre-loading them on Google Drive and listening to them from my phone.
“That’s really smart,” Brody said.
“My employee came up with the idea when I told him I wanted to be at the gym more. Honestly, I think he just wanted me out of the store more often so he can smoke weed in the back.”
“Pot heads make the best music aficionados, though,” Brody pointed out.
“That they do. I’m not complaining.”
“Are you training for anything?” Brody asked. “What are your gym goals?”
“Overall health. Getting back into the habit of exercising routinely, like I used to do when I was younger. Losing some weight would be nice, too.”
He scrunched up his face. “You don’t need to lose any weight. It’s nice to see a girl with curves. If you don’t mind me saying so,” he hastily added.
“I appreciate your effort to make me feel good about myself,” I said with a sneer.
“I’m serious. All the girls I race against in triathlons are like stick figures. They’re fit, but there’s just no curve to them. You, on the other hand?” He gestured. “You’re gorgeous. Sometimes it’s distracting.”
Now I was certain he was pulling my leg. There were plenty of gorgeous women at the gym who weren’t stick figures. But it was still a nice compliment to receive.
“You look great, too,” I said to change topics. “Were you in the military?”
He shook his head. “Went to college, got a degree in statistics. But I always liked exercising. It helps me mentally unwind.”
“Yeah! That’s what I loved about running cross-country in high school. Out there, alone with my thoughts. Focusing on one stride at a time. My brain would zone out in a relaxing way. Like meditation.”
“Totally.”
“It’s not as easy for me now as it was back then,” I said. “But I’m getting there. Slowly but surely. And I am starting to shed some weight. Which feels nice.”
Brody smiled warmly and patted my leg. “Well, I’m glad you got back into it.”
“I thought you said I didn’t need to lose any weight?” I arched an eyebrow.
“I’m glad you got back into it,” he countered, “because otherwise I wouldn’t have met you.”
We locked eyes, and our heads drifted toward one-another. His kiss was soft and sweet, and I could taste the strawberries on his tongue.
I wanted to do more. Out here with the view of the valley below us, I felt an immense connection to Brody. We had so much in common, and I wanted to see how good of a kisser he really was. I wanted to cling to his body and join my warmth to his…
He patted me on the leg conclusively. “Let’s keep moving. We have another three miles on the trail, including a few hundred vertical feet up the ridge.”
We packed up the picnic, and I smiled to myself for the rest of the hike.
18
Katherine
On most dates, my anxiety increased as we neared the end. What would happen? Would I get a kiss on the cheek, or a full-blown goodnight kiss? Would the guy invite me up to his place, or vice-versa?
Since Brody and I had gotten our kiss out of the way early, we were able to relax and enjoy the rest of the date stress-free. We followed the trail up the ridge, then it cut back down into the forest. From there it was all downhill
to the car, but it still took over an hour. And descending was just as hard as climbing, but in different ways. Especially with snow on the ground.
We chatted about whatever came to mind. Denver sports teams compared to California ones. Snowboarding versus skiing (Brody had never tried either.) He asked me lots of questions about my taste in music, and what my process was for deciding which albums to carry in my store.
“It won’t matter soon,” I said with a sigh.
“Why’s that?”
“That construction going on at the end of the block? I discovered it’s going to be a Pacifica Vinyl.”
Brody glanced back at me and grimaced. “I saw.”
“I just can’t compete with them,” I said. “They can undercut me on pricing to steal away my customers. They can out-advertise me with their huge marketing budget.”
I waited for Brody to start offering suggestions. Spend more on Facebook ads, reduce my prices, add a coffee bar. It’s what everyone else did when I mentioned Pacifica.
Instead, he just said, “I’m sorry. That sucks.”
Him acknowledging the shittiness of it, rather than trying to solve it, was exactly what I needed as we finished the hike.
We drove back to the store. Brody double-parked out front and left the car to come around and open the door for me.
“I had a great time today,” he said. “I’d love to do this again sometime. If you want to.”
I smiled. “I would like that.”
He cupped my cheek and leaned in to kiss me again. This time I kissed him back harder, with more enthusiasm. Our lips moved wetly, and we both made soft, satisfied noises.
He beamed at me after. “Goodnight, Katherine.”
“You can call me Kat,” I said. “Goodnight, Brody.”
I stood on the sidewalk and watched him get back in the car and drive away.
“Woah, boss-lady!” Paul exclaimed when I walked into the store. “You didn’t tell me you were taking off the afternoon to go on a date.”
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I said while shedding my coat. “Brody’s a guy I met at the gym.”
“Not a big deal? That was some kiss out there, man. He’s cute, too.”