Tipping the Balance

by Koehler, Christopher

  “Thanks, Nick. I know you don’t,” Drew said, putting a hand on Nick’s. “I guess all I can do is listen at this point.”

  “A few strategic suggestions might not hurt, either,” Nick said. “Sometime when we have time, I want to hear more about your adventures with Brad. It sounds like I’ve seriously misjudged him.”

  “You looked at him and his behavior, and you expected something, so that’s what he gave you,” Drew said, thinking. “But I expect something different, so that’s what I get.”

  “What do you expect?” Nick asked.

  “I’m not sure how to put it into words, but I know he’s more than a beer-soaked poon-hound, and so far, that’s what I’m seeing,” Drew said.

  “You sound like you’re planning a future with him, and he’s not gay,” Nick said.

  Drew thought for a moment. “You may be right. It’s just… damn it, I only want what you and Morgan have.”

  “But can Brad give you that?” Nick said softly.

  Drew refused to meet Nick’s eyes. “I’ll take what he’ll give me, even if it’s only friendship.”

  “Oh, Drew, you’ve got it bad,” Nick breathed.

  “Speaking of friendship, you need to sit down,” Drew said, “because Brad’s told me something that proves he’s a good friend to you too.”

  “Oh?” Nick said, sinking into one of the chairs in front of his desk.

  Drew sat in the other one. “Yeah. He’s been invited to join that alumni oversight committee thingy you’ve mentioned once in a while.”

  “He has? Isn’t that interesting,” Nick mused.

  “No, what’s interesting is one of the agenda items for the first meeting he’ll attend.”

  “Oh?” Nick said, freighting the word with a wealth of meaning.

  “There’s no gentle way to say this, but it’s you, babydoll. According to Brad, they’re not happy about your romantic life,” Drew said.

  Nick blanched. “But the school….”

  “From what Brad told me, it sounds like the committee doesn’t care that the college dropped its investigation or that the NCAA and USRowing aren’t getting that wound up yet,” Drew said.

  Nick closed his eyes, resting his head against the back of the chair.

  “It gets worse,” Drew said quietly.

  Nick looked at him. “Do I want to know?”

  “I think you need to,” Drew said. “According to Brad, the head of the committee referred to your relationship as ‘deviant behavior’ and wanted to make sure this wasn’t part of a larger pattern of you preying on your athletes.”

  “‘Preying’? Apparently he’s never met my boyfriend, who’s not shy about what he wants. I practically had to pepper spray him, and I’m not sure even that would’ve gotten him to back off,” Nick snorted. “This is great, just great. How the hell am I going to shut this down?”

  Drew was silent for a moment. “Give Brad a chance. He’ll come through for you.”

  “You think so?” Nick said.

  “Nick, the only reason he joined the oversight committee was to spike this,” Drew said.

  “I’ll have to talk to him, then,” Nick said.

  Drew considered that for a moment. “Actually, I think for Brad’s sake that’d be a bad idea. If word gets out that you and he are in cahoots, it undercuts his credibility. Let me funnel information.”

  “I guess that’d be best,” Nick said, nodding slowly.

  “I’m not telling you to cool it with Morgan, but be careful, Nick. It sounds like this isn’t done.”

  “That’s just the distraction I need going into a new season with new people in the boat, and more people on the team,” Nick said. “Did I tell you we’re growing because of that big win last year? I’ve got some hotshot new junior-college transfer student from Orange Coast College coming here specifically because of that win. School starts in a week or so. Couldn’t they have done this earlier?”

  “Or never?” Drew said.

  “Never works for me,” Nick sighed. He was still pale.

  Drew stood up. “I’ve got houses to sell.”

  “And I’ve got one to renovate. Jeez, I hate the thought of telling Morgan about this, but that’s not how we work,” Nick said. “Thank Brad for me, will you?”

  Chapter Eleven

  Brad slammed his locker shut and secured it with a battered old combination lock, the same one he’d had since junior high. Men filled the locker room of the trendy midtown gym that evening, but Brad didn’t mind. On a good day at work, he saw a handful of people. Crowded was good.

  He put the earbuds in and started his favorite playlist, and with the high-pitched death metal pumping through his iPod and water bottle in hand, Brad headed out into the gym, first to do a little cardio for a warm-up, then stretching, weights, and finally more cardio. It was past time to hit the gym. His last regular workout regimen had ended with graduation, and he was getting doughy, he thought, poking himself in the side. Beer for dinner came with a price.

  Joining a gym on Sundstrom Homes’ corporate account had another benefit, as well, really more of a two-fer. Brad not only consumed something besides beer and cold cereal for dinner after his workout, he escaped Randall and his barbed comments for an hour or two.

  The vast main floor of the gym was divided in two, with elliptical trainers and treadmills and a few unloved and rarely used ergometers occupying one half and weight machines and free weights occupying the remainder. In between lay a no-man’s-land of mats and medicine balls for stretching and toning. A flight of stairs led up to rooms for aerobics and spin classes and a gallery where people on the exercycles watched those on the floor below when the canned offerings on television monitors failed to hold their attention.

  Brad walked right by the treadmills for his warm-up, aiming for the elliptical trainers. He hated their awkward gait, but he was a big guy and had never been much of a runner, and the ergs? He knew what a great warm-up the ergs gave, but no. It was just too soon.

  Back and forth, up and down, Brad quit the elliptical as soon as he completed his ten-minute warm-up, promising himself he’d do more after he lifted.

  From there, he hit the mats for a good stretch, just like Coach Bedford had taught him. He started with his arms and upper back and worked his way down, sticking one leg out at a time for a revolved single-leg stretch, hand to opposite ankle, trying to feel it in a line from one end of his body to the other. Then he switched, closing his eyes, enjoying the release, even if his side grew cold when his shirt pulled up.

  He sat up and opened his eyes… and met the eyes of the man on the gallery above who’d been staring at him, who didn’t look away quite fast enough.

  Brad frowned slightly and returned to the exercise mat and the movements that he’d been taught as a rower, movements he was pretty sure were based in yoga, not that he’d ever been to a yoga class. Those were for chicks and… guiltily, he thought of Drew.

  He got up to stretch his hamstrings by leaning into a pillar, one leg out behind him. The he realized he’d pointed his ass directly at the guy he’d caught staring at him. He hesitated, and then kicked himself mentally. The last thing he needed was to pull a hamstring from deadlifts with cold hammies. Flushing slightly, he stretched anyway, counting to thirty and then switching legs.

  Then Brad did something that, later, he still couldn’t believe. He looked over his shoulder and winked at the guy.

  Then panicked. He just winked at a man who’d been checking out his ass.

  He hightailed it to the weight room and the free weights, pulse drowning out his iPod, his face red.

  His hands shook on his first sets on the free-weights. He watched himself in the mirror, face still burning. Who are you? he wondered. What’s really bothering you? That guy who looked at you, or the fact that you kind of liked it?

  Brad settled down as he concentrated on his form. The weight room was no place for daydreaming, but in between sets, he looked around. Sometimes, he saw guys looking at h
im. Most of the time, they glanced away, but sometimes, they kept looking, their eyes lingering on his like they were sending him a message he could almost but not quite make out.

  Relatively light weights and lots of reps gave him an excuse not to make eye contact again as he returned to his sets and focused on doing them right. Dead lifts for his legs and core; push presses to work arms, shoulders, and upper back; and then, because that alone wouldn’t make him sore enough, thrusters, taking the barbell from a squat up and over his head, arms thrust up and out.

  Sweat dampened his shirt, causing it to cling and bind. He pulled it away from his skin a few times, fanning himself with it, even though the gym’s air-conditioning cooled him quickly.

  As Brad sipped water, he glanced around the gym floor. It seemed like all kinds of guys were looking at each other. He’d thought the student gym at California Pacific was a meat market, which was why he’d always used the equipment at the boathouse. But this gym? Wow. Brad shook his head and wondered how long this had been going on. He felt like the air held hidden music he couldn’t quite hear, or that they spoke a language he could almost but not quite understand, and if he only listened hard enough, it would come to him.

  Just before he got to the elliptical trainers, he glanced at the ergs. Some guy using one was just massacring it. He grimaced. They’re such nice machines. What’d they ever do to you? he thought.

  He swerved and sat down at a free erg. Suddenly Brad felt like erging.

  He started with the old drills from crew. First his arms, twenty strokes. Then he added the forward motion of his trunk, and twenty more strokes. Finally he added the legs, first taking the catch at half slide and then lengthening out to the full rowing stroke.

  Feeling his neighbor’s eyes on him, Brad set the monitor for a reasonable distance and went to work. The distance was enough to give him a good cardio workout without punishing him unduly. It wasn’t like he had to qualify for a seat in the boat anymore.

  As Brad warmed to his workout, he glanced over to the neighboring monitor and noticed that the guy next to him was trying to match him.

  Good and loose and warm, Brad kicked it up a notch, pulling harder on the handle to drive faster, taking a bit less time on his recovery.

  Then the man next to him sped up. Brad could tell by the increased noise coming from his erg’s air-fed flywheel.

  So that’s how it is, Brad thought, rowing a little faster.

  The man next to him matched him, but badly. His form, not good to begin with, grew increasingly erratic the harder and faster he rowed.

  Brad smirked and picked up the speed.

  His shadow followed.

  Brad rowed faster and harder. He was working hard now, his breath coming in gulps on the recovery, but he knew he could sustain this pace for a while.

  “Shit!”

  The man next to him let go of the erg handles. He slowly toppled off the erg and lay gasping on the ground.

  Brad just looked straight ahead and finished his workout at the fast pace.

  Later, after his shower, he stood before his open locker, a towel straining to stay wrapped around his waist.

  “Hey, I saw you out there on the rowers. You were working pretty hard there.”

  Brad glanced over at the man next him, a tall blond who slowly toweled himself off while facing Brad. The man was a little shorter than Brad and a lot less hairy, but chiseled and, he had to admit, pretty good-looking.

  Brad shrugged. “I’ve done worse on those things and for a lot longer.”

  “Yeah?” the guy said, smiling at him.

  Another shrug. Why was this guy talking to him? “I rowed in college.”

  “And I’m guessing that wasn’t that long ago?” the blond said. He stopped toweling, holding the towel over his crotch, but Brad was pretty sure there was something going on down there, even as the other man idly scratched one pec.

  “I graduated in June. That guy didn’t stand a chance,” Brad said, shifting uncomfortably. He stared straight into his locker, refusing to look at the other guy anymore, even though he felt the blond’s eyes on him. There was something going on, something in the other guy’s stare, that made him nervous. He felt it stirring, a tingling at the base of his spine, a tightening of his sac.

  He felt like a doofus, but he quickly shimmied his underwear on under the towel and then dropped it and pulled his pants up fast, even as he felt the eyes on him. Shirt and sandals made Brad good to go. The rest could wait until he got home.

  Brad didn’t exactly run out of the locker room. He was nervous. He had a feeling that guy was hitting on him, like it was more of that language he couldn’t quite understand, although if he stuck around, Brad was pretty sure that guy would be willing to translate.

  Brad had never really thought of guys as attractive before, but that wasn’t quite it. They just drew his eye in a different way than women did, but now that his eyes were opening, he realized there were a lot of hot guys around.

  He came to the gym for a vacation back into the territory he’d learned so well when he was in college, but the workout puzzled him. The gym was a familiar place, almost like home, and the notion that it held secrets he’d never imagined threw him off. Have gyms always been like this, guys looking at other guys like that? Looking at me like that?

  But Brad wasn’t upset—far from it—and hadn’t dropped the towel to dress because locker rooms made him nervous. He’d dressed under the towel to keep from embarrassing himself.

  “Thanks for coming over on a Friday evening, guys. I know it’s a lousy time, but I’ll be busy showing homes all weekend,” Drew said, ushering Emily and Brad into his dining room.

  “Not a problem,” Brad said, yanking at his tie until the knot came loose. He pulled it off and dropped it on the floor near the door.

  Emily shrugged. “Melissa’s working tonight, anyway, and we need to get the applications in.”

  “Applications, as in more than one?” Brad said.

  “Yeah, there are all kinds of grants and small-business loans from sources public and private,” Emily answered. “The more we ask for, the greater our chances.”

  “Wait… isn’t the city paying us?” Brad said.

  “Yes, but it typically takes time to get money out of the government, and if the city’s getting the money from the state, and the state’s budget is held up—again—we’ll need money to cover us,” Emily explained. “We’d be stupid to turn any source of funding down.”

  “Especially the grants,” Drew said.

  “Uh… what’re grants?” Brad asked, feeling stupid.

  “Free money,” Emily said. “They might make the difference between doing this project right and eating dinner too.”

  “Speaking of,” Drew said, “is Thai okay?” Without waiting for consent, he placed an order online. “Brad, if you get your laptop out, I’ll give you the password for my Wi-Fi network.” He smiled. “Something tells me you’ll be around to use it for a while.”

  Brad found himself blushing. “I hope so.”

  “So can we just take over the dining room? Because I’ve got file cases in the car too,” Emily said, setting her own computer down across from where Drew sat.

  “We might as well set up on the table. It’s not like there’ll be time to entertain before this is done, and there’s not room for all of us in my home office,” Drew said.

  And be bored to tears within two years. Drew sighed to himself. That was why he’d taken to flipping houses in the first place, for the challenge and the creativity.

  “If we get this job, we should look into renting an office or something,” Brad said as he set down one of Emily’s big file boxes. He sat down next to Drew. “That way we could come or go whenever we needed to without Drew sacrificing his house, because this looks like it’ll take over, and quick, if he lets it.”

  Drew and Emily looked at each other. “It’s an idea,” Drew said.

  “An expensive one, though. Commercial rent is pretty
high, and that’s one more line item to add to the budget projections,” Emily said.

  “Put a line in the budget for a trailer on the jobsite, one with power, phone, and Internet hook-ups,” Brad said. “You run the job from the jobsite. It’s how it’s done, and the city will be expecting something like that. If you leave it out, we’ll look like amateurs.”

  When Drew and Emily stared at him, Brad flushed. “Never mind, it was a dumb idea,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

  Emily shook her head. “No, it wasn’t, Brad. That’s why we want you on this project. You know construction on this scale, or better than we do, anyway.”