by Roni Loren
“Nothing to apologize for. Stage fright happens to a lot of people,” he said, his voice as smooth as river rock. “Do you want me to grab you some water? Or a shot of something stronger?”
She managed a smile at that. “Tempting. But I have to drive. I’ll be all right. I have a bottle of water in my car. I just… It’s been a long time since I’ve been onstage.”
He leaned a shoulder against the wall, looking like an After ad for the newest gym equipment. “How long?”
She smirked and slipped her shoe back on. “Um, never.”
He chuckled, the sound warm and rich, and crossed his arms, making his shirt even tighter and more distracting. “That’ll do it. I used to compete in…swim competitions, and I’d get sick right before every time.”
A swimmer. Well, that explained the ridiculous body. Taryn dragged her attention down to the money he’d handed her. “I can’t believe I just got paid for that. I literally ran offstage. The other competitors must’ve really sucked.”
His lips lifted at one corner. “You’re kidding, right?”
“What?”
He pushed off the wall. “I mean, I’m not going to lie and say the competition was stiff, but you have to know you can sing your face off, right? You earned that fair and square.”
She shook her head and pushed her out-of-control hair away from her face. The humidity was making the curls grow bigger by the minute. “This is nuts. I was supposed to be watching a James Spader movie.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Huh?”
She waved a hand. “Nothing. It’s just been a weird night.” Another off-the-reservation idea hit her. Right now, she was Jamez with a z, not Taryn who had to get home and tally study results. “Hey, I didn’t catch your name.”
“Lucas.”
She extended her arm for a handshake, and his big, warm hand wrapped around hers, making her feel small and delicate—a decidedly unfamiliar feeling. The guy was just so…solid. The physical spark she hadn’t been feeling with Doug hit her like a goddamned bonfire with Lucas, sending heat straight up her arm. She held on to his hand for a moment too long. “You were really nice to hunt down my shoe. Let me buy you a decaf or something. There’s a place down the…”
Lucas’s lips parted to respond, but her phone’s shrill ring shattered the space between them.
Taryn frowned and looked down. “I’m sorry. Let me…” She dug around in her purse for her phone. She read the screen and heaved a sigh. “I have to take this one.”
Lucas nodded. She moved a few steps away and turned her back. “Hi, Momma.”
“Hey, baby, it’s so good to hear your voice,” her mother said warmly.
“Same here,” Taryn said, keeping her voice down and trying not to sound annoyed at the interruption.
Her mom was quiet a moment. “Where are you? I hear cars.”
Taryn’s shoulders relaxed a little. At least her mom sounded calm. Maybe she was having a good night. “I’m just finishing up some errands in the city. I’m about to drive back home.”
“Taryn, you really shouldn’t be out this late. The roads are wet, and I heard robberies are on the rise downtown,” her mother said, forever coming up with something to worry about.
“I’m safe, Momma. I promise. I have my Mace and my mad ninja moves.”
“Okay,” her mother said, sounding unconvinced and missing the joke. “Call me when you get home and let me know you got there safely.”
Taryn closed her eyes, rubbing the center of her forehead and taking a deep breath. “It’s going to be late. I’ll wake you up.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t be able to sleep until I know you’re safe,” her mom said, a tense tone in her voice. “I had a nightmare this afternoon. Your car went off the road and hit a tree. And, Taryn, if I lose—”
“Momma, it’s fine. I’m sorry. I’ll call, all right?” Taryn tried to keep her voice light and hide the dread that filled her every time conversations took this turn. Nothing like hearing all the ways your mother imagined you dying. “Is Dad home?”
“Yes. He dozed off on the couch watching one of those military shows he likes so much,” her mom said, sounding a little perturbed and more like the mother Taryn knew before everything changed.
“Daddy’s sleeping?” If her mother was having a bad day, she didn’t doubt it. Her father was probably exhausted, and her mother was probably alone now and working herself into an anxiety attack with all her dark thoughts. Taryn checked her watch, inevitability settling onto her shoulders. “Hey, why don’t I stop by before I go home tonight? I’ll make you my famous green tea.”
“Oh, what a good idea. That sounds perfect, baby.” Her mother’s tone perked up. “I’ll see you soon. Be careful.”
Be careful. Of course.
She always was.
But when Taryn turned around to tell Lucas she’d have to get his number and give him a rain check on the coffee, the sidewalk behind her was empty.
Maybe he’d gone back inside for something, but what good would it do to hunt him down? Tonight had been weird and terrifying and exhilarating and strange.
It had also not been her real life.
Taryn turned and left Jamez with a z to die a quick death on the sidewalk. Back to Long Acre. Back to work. Back to reality.
Chapter
Three
Shaw Miller made his coffee order at the counter of the bustling shop and dug a few bills from his wallet. It still felt weird using cash for everything. He could feel the gaze and smile of the cashier on him as he plucked out the money, but he chose not to look up. He would need at least two cups of coffee and a different personality before he was in the mood for small talk.
The pretty redhead took the money and kept her gaze on him. “Hey, have we met before? I don’t think I’ve seen you in here, but you look familiar for some reason.”
He glanced up briefly and tried to appear nonchalant, even though the words sent his gut twisting into a knot. “I don’t think so, but I’ve been told I have one of those faces.”
“Maybe so. Or maybe I was just wishing I’d met you before.” She gave him a sly grin.
The flirtation bounced off him like hail against a windshield. He shoved two bucks in the tip jar. “Where do I wait for my coffee?”
Her smile faltered at his flat tone, but she cocked her head to the right. “Over there. Lance will set you right up. And here…” She slid a loyalty card across the counter. “Next time we’ll be even faster because we’ll already know your order.”
He pocketed the card and mentally scratched this coffee shop off his list of places to frequent. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, darlin’.”
As soon as he had his coffee in hand, Shaw hurried out of the mocha-scented shop and into the humid morning with a chill snaking up his spine. You look familiar. His long strides ate up the sidewalk as he headed to work, and he couldn’t help checking over his shoulder to see if anyone was following—an old habit he couldn’t seem to break.
Rivers, Shaw’s best friend and the one who’d coaxed him back to this town, would tell him he was overreacting. Rivers had assured Shaw that his fears about returning to Austin were overblown. Shaw had changed his name, his look, and had cut the traceable ties to his old life as much as anyone could in the world of the internet. He’d covered all the bases. But the woman at the coffee shop had, for a moment, looked at him as though she’d recognized him for real, and that had sent ice through his veins.
Shaw wanted to dismiss it as his own paranoia. The woman had probably just said it as flirtation. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d thought someone was looking at him askance, only to be reading too much into it. Last night at the bar, he’d even had a brief snap of fear that the sexy singer who’d lost her shoe had looked at him with some hint of familiarity at first. But based on the fact that Jamez wit
h a z had been about to ask him to coffee, he knew he’d been wrong.
Of course, that hadn’t meant he could accept her invitation—as much as he’d been tempted by it—but it did prove he was prone to thinking the worst. Being stalked by the press for so many years made him see motives in everyone and feel like he was constantly on a stage or under surveillance.
When he unlocked the back door of the soon-to-be-open Gym Xtreme, the steamy, chlorine-scented air hit him in the face like dragon breath. He grimaced and finished the rest of his coffee before tossing it in a trash can in the hallway. Rivers wasn’t in the office, so Shaw headed to the front of the building. As he entered the main part of the gym, his footsteps echoed in the cavernous warehouse space as if he were in a horror movie, but fear was the last thing he felt when he stopped and looked around.
Sunlight streamed in from the skylights he and Rivers had gotten installed, but the main lights weren’t on. Dust motes danced in the air, and the reflection off the pools painted blue patterns on the far wall. Despite the stuffy atmosphere and too-warm temperature, the tension in Shaw’s shoulders eased. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. A quiet gym was like entering his version of church. It was the only place where his mind went still.
A clink of metal sounded off to his left, and Shaw stepped around a row of equipment. Rivers was a few feet away, balancing on a ladder as he adjusted something on a set of still rings in the gymnastic area, his dark hair slicked back from either sweat or a dip in the pool.
“How’d it go at the permits office?” Rivers asked, not looking away from his task but apparently hearing Shaw’s footsteps. “I hope it’s more fun than the DMV.”
Shaw snorted as he walked over. “It made the DMV look like a rave, but we’re all squared away. I’s dotted, t’s crossed, ridiculous fees paid.”
“Great.”
Shaw pulled his shirt away from his chest, the material starting to cling. “What happened to the AC? It feels like a sauna in here and smells like chemicals and used gym socks. Are you trying to save money on the electric bill?”
Rivers sniffed. “No, I’m not choosing this misery. The system froze up. I already had a guy out to look at it. He said to turn off the units for a few hours so they can thaw and to consider adding another one to cover this much square footage. He said once we have people in here, it will only get hotter quicker, and in the summer, we’ll be completely screwed.”
“Fantastic. More expenses,” Shaw groused. The gym was bleeding money, and Shaw was having a hard time finding ways to stanch the wound. He’d helped Rivers plan this project down to the penny, but the old building had issues they hadn’t anticipated, the equipment had been pricier to build than the original estimates, and the insurance was through the roof. If they didn’t have a stellar opening month, they were going to drown before they ever made their first lap around the pool.
“I know. It sucks.” Rivers glanced down at him. “But it is what it is. We can’t have people passing out from the heat.”
“At this rate, we’re not going to have people at all because we’re never going to open.”
“It’ll all work out.” Rivers smiled, unperturbed, which tended to be his natural state, and returned to checking the still rings, yanking on them. “The smell is because I got all the pools treated again. The chemical balance was off. Now they’re clean and ready to catch all the people who will fall off our badass challenges.”
Shaw smirked and stepped under the rings. “I’m not sure I would market them that way. Come to the gym that is sure to crush your spirits!”
Rivers snorted. “Breaking spirits to rebuild them, Shaw.” Rivers put a hand to his chest, a dramatic look on his face. “We’re doing spiritual work here. The people need us.”
“Yeah, okay, Reverend McGowan.” Shaw eyed the other side of the high-ceilinged space of what would hopefully become Austin’s premier extreme gym. The side he and Rivers were on had more traditional exercise equipment along with a full setup for gymnastics. Those basics were vital, but the other side was what made the place unique. There were crazy-hard obstacles that tested strength and balance—a huge curved ramp to run up, rock-climbing walls with nearly impossible angles, rolling cylinder bridges, trapeze-style challenges, and two deep swimming pools and foam pits that would catch people if they fell off the obstacles.
He and Rivers had come up with the idea after drinking too much beer one night and watching too many episodes of Ninja Warrior Challenge when Rivers had come into town to visit him. Shaw had thought his best friend was joking. They’d had crazy conversations like that before when they’d been college roommates. Rivers was an inventor by nature and a big talker. But then a month later, Rivers had shown up on Shaw’s doorstep in Chicago with a stack of paperwork. Rivers had leased out the warehouse in Austin, quit his engineering job, and had developed a business plan—a plan that included Shaw moving back to the town he’d sworn he’d never return to and running the gym with him.
Shaw had refused. His life plan was to lie low and never do anything that would have the press sniffing his way again. So what if he was miserable and unable to find decent work because of the reputation that followed him around like a plague? But when Rivers had laid out the plan—Shaw changing his legal name, the business being listed under Rivers even though they’d split the profits, and Shaw getting to handle the business’s finances while also being a trainer—Shaw hadn’t been able to walk away.
Besides the much-needed job, his friend had been offering him a taste of freedom he wasn’t sure he deserved but that sounded like a dream. A fresh start. A job that would let him be in an environment he loved. His best friend—hell, his only friend—living in the same building instead of across the country. The only sticking point was that it was in Austin, just down the road from the place of his nightmares, where everything in his world had been ripped away and burned to ashes. Where he wasn’t just hated and feared in a general sense, but in very, very specific and personal sense.
He deserved that hate.
Shaw had come anyway, even when he knew it would be temporary. Everything in his life was. Putting down roots anywhere had always invoked trouble. He’d lost the right to roots. Secretly, Shaw had vowed to devote one year to this project. He’d take some online business classes to finish up the degree he’d had to abandon all those years ago and work as a trainer at the gym. He’d help Rivers get the business off the ground, build himself a little nest egg, buy an RV to travel the country, and then leave Rivers to run the gym. He hadn’t told Rivers about his planned time limit, but he’d cross that bridge when necessary.
The close call in the coffee shop today had only confirmed the necessity of that plan. It’d probably been a false alarm this time, but it wouldn’t be every time. He just hoped he could make it the full year so he could save up enough for the RV and some living expenses. The clock was already ticking. Someone would eventually recognize him. Someone would call the press. The cycle would start over.
“We’re still on track to open next week?” Shaw asked, examining his friend’s work on the rings.
“Yep.” Rivers climbed down from the ladder and wiped his damp face with his T-shirt. “Well, open to the public at least. I signed us up for a charity event tomorrow morning.”
“A what?”
“You’re coming. Don’t try to get out of it. If we get a lot of interest, I may open for a sneak preview on Monday and give a few tours and initial workouts. I don’t want to lose good leads if we get them. The event looks very Austin quirky, so I have a feeling it will get some press, which we desperately need.”
“A charity event with press?” Shaw’s stomach sank. “No way. You know I can’t be anywhere near a goddamned camera.”
Rivers made a dismissive sound. “You won’t be. I’ve already thought this through. It’s a costume run. Runners will be chased by people in costumes, like a zombie run, but vendors c
an dress up, too. We’ll make sure you have a good disguise. You’ll just be there to help me man an information table and give out flyers for the gym. As far as anyone knows, Lucas Shaw is just a trainer here. They have no reason to pay attention to you.”
Shaw let out a breath, the name Lucas still sounding weird in his ear. He’d chosen to keep the Shaw part of his real name, Shaw Miller, because if he or Rivers slipped up and used the name Shaw, there would be an easy explanation. But getting used to an entirely new first name was going to take a while.
“I hate the idea of any press being involved,” he groused.
“I know. But this is too good an opportunity to pass up,” Rivers said.
Shaw couldn’t deny that fact, and he did trust Rivers not to purposely expose him to anything that would blow his cover. He should be relieved Rivers had handled things and created a great promotional opportunity, but the thought of charities and press still made him itchy. “Fine.”
“Excellent.” Rivers gripped his shoulder. “And don’t worry, man. I told you I was willing to be the face of this thing, and I meant it. I’m not going to expose you to any of that. Plus, I have such a pretty face.”
Shaw snorted.
“But if we want this business to be successful, we have to jump on opportunities like this, get people excited and spreading the word,” he explained. “There needs to be some sizzle and pop.”
Shaw gave him a droll look. “Sizzle and pop?”
“Yes. Don’t make fun of my very technical marketing terms.” Rivers nodded toward the equipment. “Now get up on these rings and tell me if they’re going to break and kill someone.”
Shaw smirked. “Nice. I’ve been demoted to guinea pig now?”
Rivers stepped back with an unrepentant grin. “Oink, oink.”
Shaw pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it at Rivers’s face. “Guinea pigs don’t oink, dumb-ass.”
Rivers caught the T-shirt before it hit him and flipped it over his shoulder. He folded his arms and waited. “Show me what you’ve got, big man.”