Brew Ha Ha Box Set: Books 1-4

by Bria Quinlan

  Before I could reply, he’d turned on his heel and jogged across the street as the evening lights flickered on around me.

  20

  “So, how was your date with Max?” Hailey asked.

  Would one of us have to get married for this to stop?

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  I’d just gotten to the gym and my nervousness was being slightly overrun by annoyance.

  “Right. So, just dinner and a movie, huh?”

  “No dinner. I met him,” kind of, “at the theater. Then we went home.”

  “Oooohhh. You hooked up with Max!”

  “No. We went to our own homes.” I glanced around, afraid the entire world was listening to this conversation. “Did Jenna put you up to this?”

  “She didn’t put me up to it, but she did say it would be nice to hear how it went.”

  “It went fine if you consider two friends going to a movie and then walking home and not talking to each other again yet fine.”

  “So, no post date texting?”

  I stopped, trying to keep my calm and glanced at Hailey just in time to see her hide her smirk.

  “You’re just giving me a rough time, aren’t you?”

  “Am I? Am I really, Kasey?” Hailey grinned, not quite as dangerous as Jenna’s, but enough that it made me wonder.

  “Anyway, Max and I...Yeah. No. I couldn't think of a worse idea.”

  “Oh, I could.”

  “Really?”

  I thought about the few single guys in my age box who I knew and…nope. Max was the worst idea out of all those bad ideas.

  “Plus,” I added. “He can't stand me.”

  “Yeah. A guy who can't stand you always invites you out to the movies.”

  “Well, it was more of a calling my bluff than an actual invite.”

  I hated to fess up about my stupid comment about culture or how Max called me snob...or how I was really struggling with if that were true or not. Where I came from, being a cop was one step up from working on a farm or in factory. Families were absurdly proud of sons who made it onto the force. But then, you saw those guys making the same dead-end mistakes their brothers did. Not what I wanted at all.

  Hailey shook her head at me as she pushed the door to the gym open and led me inside.

  “Kasey, you know where Max, Ben, and Dane met, right?”

  Not really sure where this was going, I shook my head. Unless they met at a gym I was pretty sure it had nothing to do with me.

  “Law school.” She dropped the door as she passed through, leaving me to catch up. When I joined her at the front desk, she shook her head and turned to give me her full attention. “You did not hear this from me, and I’m not even sure I should tell you. I don’t want this to become a thing, or to ever doubt you when you stop being stupid. But, how exactly did you think Max could afford to live in The Village?”

  I shook my head. It wasn’t something I’d thought about.

  “Old money.”

  Well, crud. Not only had I been snotty to someone who didn’t deserve it, but I’d been snotty to someone who could be snotty. You know, if snotty was okay.

  And, Max, annoyingly classily, had said nothing.

  “Okay, shifting you out of that panicked look, let’s move on to the fun stuff! First off, I should warn you, my trainer is ridiculously fit. Don’t let that freak you out. He’s good at dealing with us normal people.”

  And with that warning, Hailey signed us in.

  I was worried enough about the actual working out part of this adventure. The last thing I needed was to worry about the trainer, too.

  “Hailey! You're early. It's a minor miracle. If bringing a friend gets you here on time every session, I may comp her membership.”

  The man standing before me was pretty much perfect as far as fitness. Luckily, he wasn’t gorgeous too. His hair wasn’t dark enough, and he looked too angular. Also, he could really have used a dimple.

  Where did that thought come from?

  I pushed dimples out of my head and focused back on the fitness god standing before me.

  “I’m Shawn. Hailey tells me she dragged you in here by force.”

  “Not quite by force.” I left out the pleading that felt slightly like threats.

  At least he didn’t make a comment about me needing to get back in shape or lose weight.

  He led us into a semi-private room and grabbed three yoga mats, motioning for us to stretch out on the floor.

  “Hailey tells me you’re new to working out.”

  He let it sit out there like I had to defend myself, politely, but still.

  “I wasn’t really coordinated as a kid, so instead of watching me hurt myself over and over again, my mother entered me into 4-H.”

  “4-H still exists?” He sounded both shocked and horrified. It was as if I’d said they had a dowry set aside for whosoever won the joust tournament for my hand in marriage.

  “Um. Yeah.” He continued to stare as if I could pull out digital proof or something. “You know you have 4-H here too, right?”

  “We do?”

  “For real. It’s not that weird.” At least I didn’t think it was.

  I glanced at Hailey to see if she was giving me the shock-and-awe treatment as well, but she was just leaned over flat, hands wrapped around her far foot. I looked down, way down, at my foot and thought this was going to be a very long hour.

  “Okay, so ignoring the lack of sports, dance, and apparently coordination, we’re going to dive right in.” Shawn gave me a sunny smile I could only assume was encouragement and turned to Hailey. “Twenty minutes on the treadmill. I want you doing the speed program. Kasey, you’re going to start at a walk. Add an incline and a speed jump every four minutes. I’ll see you ladies in twenty.”

  He rolled his mat up and stuck it in the corner while I gave the treadmill a once over. It was just walking, right? How hard could walking be?

  “Come on, Kasey. It’s going to be fine.” I had resorted to self-pep talks. “Easiest piece of equipment in the gym next to the badge scanner.”

  Right. Walking. I totally had this.

  After a moment, I found the right combination of buttons and started moving. Piece of cake. I was born to walk. I’d been walking almost my whole life. Heck! I walked here.

  I waited two minutes, and then got bored with the initial speed so I bumped it and the incline up. Seriously? I couldn’t even feel the slant change even though I heard the little motor doing something to adjust my machine.

  After two more minutes I was feeling pretty good and bumped both up a couple more pushes of the button. Seriously, what was so difficult about the treadmill? I walked along, just starting to get a little warm as I pumped my arm to head up the tiny hill I’d created. I was still nowhere near running like the woman two over, so maybe I could bump it up a bit more and still just be walking fast.

  It was amazing what a small hill and a brisk pace could do. I found myself jogging every couple steps to get back to the front of the little belt before I might slip off the end. I was definitely kicking treadmill butt.

  This was great practice if I was going to be walking more since my new place wasn’t right on the train line.

  I stared at the little buttons wondering if I should push them again, wondering where the line between walk and jog—a line I had no interest in crossing—was. And then, the new, daring Kasey decided to go for it. Real quickly I hit both buttons twice and waited to see what happened.

  The treadmill rose to a no-longer-little hill and threw me over that jog line faster than Usain Bolt ran a forty meter dash.

  I grabbed at the dashboard, trying to keep myself going while desperately poking at any of the buttons that might slow things down. Instead, I changed the channel on the TV I hadn’t even been watching.

  My legs started screaming that they couldn’t take any more. I dropped one foot on the side board on my left, knowing my only chance to live through my warm-up was to get off this darn appara
tus of torture. I lifted my opposite foot to drop it on the other runner and, of course, missed.

  Then, of course, chaos ensued.

  This must be what Max was alluding to.

  My foot hit the treadmill and threw my body around, crashing my face into the corner of the dashboard, tossing me across to the far guardrail, before finally spitting me off the back of the darned machine where I hit the wall and slunk to a heap on the floor.

  You’d think someone would have noticed. But, not so much.

  The woman two treadmills down just glanced over her shoulder, then went back to her running. Hailey was faced away on the treadmill on the other side of the small room. And the two trainers were going over something on a clipboard.

  I glanced toward the entry way considering crawling through it before anyone noticed me.

  “Kasey!” Shawn had rushed over before I could make my escape. “What happened?”

  “Oh, you know.” I grinned up at him and stretched out on the floor. “I thought I should stretch more.”

  “While lying in a heap on the floor?”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  He shook his head, obviously not believing a word I said as he glanced at the super sonic treadmill and offered me a hand up.

  “Maybe that’s enough cardio warm-up for you today.”

  He shook his head again as he stepped on the runner to reach over and shut it down, as if seeing a woman thrown from an apparatus didn’t happen every day. I couldn’t be the first person it had abused. There was something evily genius about it. Look at me, so safe. All you’ll have to do is walk. You know how to walk, right? It was all to lull you into a false sense of safety.

  I’ve got my eye on you, treadmill.

  I gave the machines a wide berth as I followed him over to some huge mats like the ones we had in high school that in no way made falling easier.

  Yeah, I was eyeing those, too.

  Hailey stood there looking at me as if she expected the roof to drop in and kill us all if I got too close.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Just fine.” I swung my arms about like I was loosening up to get my athletics on, but probably looked like I was trying to teach myself to fly instead. “What’s next?”

  Shawn glanced at Hailey who just shrugged.

  She was probably thinking that new friends were expendable and, as long as they could hide the body and never told Jenna, everything would be fine.

  “Okay, then let’s move on to lower body.” Shawn handed Hailey a set of weights that read twenty and then turned back and grabbed a pair that said three on the side. “We’re going to do some squats.” I want to see your butt get perpendicular with the floor. Ready?”

  I glanced from my weights to Hailey’s, the miniscule heft of mine making me barely notice them in my hand.

  “I started with threes, too.” She smiled at me, a reassuring smile that was the same one she’d used when she told me I’d love working out.

  I was now going to refer to this as The Lying Smile.

  “Kasey, watch Hailey and then join in. We’re going to do three sets of twenty.”

  He stood on the far side of her, pointing out how low she went, how her body stayed in a certain position, how she lifted the weights up and over her head to touch as she came out of the squat.

  I figured six extra pounds shouldn’t be that much over my body. I just needed to worry about not falling over. I totally had this one.

  After number four, I was contemplating falling over. It seemed like the better plan.

  “You’re doing great.” Shawn came to stand behind me, helping my arms as I came out of the squat go up and over my head. “Keep it up, that’s ten. Half way done.”

  At twelve I was thinking about all the ice cream this meant I could eat tonight. At seventeen, I was plotting Hailey’s death. At twenty I dropped the weight, barely missing my foot and thinking I was never even walking past a gym again.

  “Okay, ladies, good go. Hailey, that stretch looks lazy. I want to see you really putting your arms into it.” He showed me the stretch, then had me do it, adjusting my shoulder when I raised it up to my ears. “This time, Hailey does twelve and Kasey you’re going to do eight.”

  I would not take that as a sign of failure. I’d take that as a sign of a man who could spot a woman with blunt objects at her disposal.

  After two more sets, we stretched again and moved on to lunges. Then bicep curls. Then something else I blocked out from the trauma of it all. At the end, Shawn did some weird stretches on the mat with us which were oddly awkward but definitely relaxing.

  “Hailey, why don’t you come in tomorrow and we’ll go through a whole routine?”

  What the heck was that? I tried to keep my eyes a normal size, but the idea that there was even more pain and suffering in a normal workout seemed…sick and twisted.

  And people paid for this.

  I followed Hailey to the women’s locker room where she washed her face and changed her t-shirt. Luckily, she’d warned me I’d want to do the same, so I was at least feeling fairly fresh as I wondered why my shirt was wet all the way through and hers was barely damp.

  As we packed up, I made sure to thank Shawn and tell him good-bye since I hoped to never see him again…in the best possible way.

  “Put some ice on that eye.” He pointed to my eye and headed toward the next woman waiting at the entrance.

  “Coffee?” Hailey asked as we headed out into the sunshine.

  What I really wanted was a shower, but after all but ruining her workout, it seemed rude to turn her down since she was obviously trying to be nice.

  “Sure.” Because walking the four blocks to The Brew sounded great.

  “I saw that.”

  “What?” I tried to look innocent.

  “That scowl.”

  Now I tried not to scowl.

  “The walk will help you stay loose. The last thing you want to do is sit down right away.”

  I was going to have to take her word on it. We headed east, walking toward The Brew with the sun overhead keeping me from cooling down too quickly.

  Once we got there, she held the door open and pointed toward the couches. “I got this.”

  “You don’t have to.” I was going to offer to buy hers as a thank you for inviting me along.

  “I have a feeling I have to win you back over. I’ll make sure it’s a large.”

  I wasn’t going to argue with that. I collapsed on the couch and closed my eyes, hoping my muscles would start forgiving me soon.

  “So,” Hailey placed my drink down in front of me and settled into her chair. “What’s going on with you and Max?”

  “Me and Max?”

  She gave me the universal girl look for Don’t play dumb with me and waited.

  “I thought we covered this.”

  “Yes. But now I’ve worn you out and gotten you carbs.”

  I tried scowling at her since it seemed to work for Max. She just looked at me like I was ill.

  “You guys were all cozy in the corner when Dane and I got there the other night and then all that tension and fighting and then he asked you out. Seems to indicate something is going on with you guys.”

  “We weren’t cozy. We weren’t even on the same furniture. What we were was where Jenna put us. She has a matchmaking streak.”

  “And the tension?”

  He’s almost arrested me three times, didn’t seem like the right answer.

  “I don’t know. There’s just something about him that rubs me the wrong way.” That was true. Sometimes I just wanted to punch him in his six pack and I couldn’t even figure out why. He’d just give me that unreadable look I was convinced meant he was judging me and wondering how long it was before an actual judge was judging me.

  “Really?” This seemed to intrigue her way more than I’d expected. “That’s weird because Max usually puts people at ease right away.”

  “I find that hard to
believe.”

  “The first time you met him he rubbed you the wrong way?”

  I thought back to when he’d stepped out of that cop car and into the street lights, pulling his cap over his eyes and glancing around the ridiculousness that had become my life.

  Sure, I’d noticed he was hot. And yes, I was impressed with how he’d handled Jason. And of course, I’d loved that he’d seen the humor in it all.

  But that was Officer Max. Just Max was a different story. Just Max seemed to see the humor in my situations far less than Officer Max did.

  “Oooohhhh.” Hailey leaned forward and set her mug down. “That look said a million things.”

  Crud.

  “You’re going to have to spill it at some point. That’s what small groups are like. We’re going to figure it out. You might as well tell me now.”

  I sat there knowing that if both Hailey and Jenna were at this, I’d never last more than a week. Unless I hid from them, disconnected all forms of communication, and changed my name.

  “Plus,” Hailey continued. “I always find things out last. You totally want me to have a leg up on Jenna on this one.”

  “So,” I drew the word out trying to figure out how much to tell her. But, with one glance at that devious smile, I knew I was toast. “I might have met Max when he was Officer Max and Jason was Ex-Boyfriend Jackass Jason.”

  “Oh, this is better than I expected.” She settled back into the chair and took the story as it came. At one point, she nearly snorted tea out her nose and raised a hand to stop me. “You know the I’m a Writer Disclaimer, right?”

  “No. I got exempt from social media, but what’s the Disclaimer?”

  “Anything you tell me may end up in a book unless you specifically ask for it to be off the record.” She glanced at her bag and I could all but see her trying to remember if she had a notebook. “I mean, that thing with the tires. That’s good. That would even work with Raven when she’s ticked off at the not-quite-a-demon guy.”

  Did these ladies know how to take no for an answer? If the gym thing was any indication, I was betting that was a negative. I didn’t know how much of my life I wanted slipping into the pages of books that would go out to millions of people.