“I do.” He killed the engine.
“Because you aspire to vampirism? Or maybe you can’t get enough of those bulging muscles in your dreams, so you need to see them in the mirror for yourself?”
“Sometimes I can’t sleep. I end up here.”
“And why are we here now?”
“You need a job. Maggie is hiring.” He got out and walked around to my side, then opened my door. “And I know she needs some help with her books, and you’re good with math.”
“How would you know that?”
“Ember.” He made no apologies for prying into my life, just waited for me to get out.
I made a mental note to give my best friend a call. “And someone I’ve never met is going to hire me because you say so?” I asked as I reluctantly climbed out.
“Actually, you’ve already met her,” he answered, opening the glass door to the gym.
The air conditioning was heavenly. “What? When? I know every application I’ve put in.”
“Hi, Flyboy!” a smiley red-headed girl in an Anytime Fitness polo called out, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Hey, Avery. This is Samantha. Is your mom around?”
I gave the girl a small wave, which she returned. “She’s in the back. I’ll grab her.” She ran off in jeans that were easily two sizes too big for her frame.
Grayson leaned over the counter and brought an application back with a pen. “I spend a lot of time here,” he explained with a shrug. “Now fill it out.”
“How do I know her?”
He fidgeted with the pen attached to the sign-in sheet. “She owns Oscars, too.”
Oh, shit. Oscars, where I’d given my impromptu Coyote Ugly impression. “The bar?”
“Yeah, she was tending the bar the day you…visited.”
This was not happening. There had to be hidden cameras somewhere. “Oh, hell no. She’s going to take one look at me and laugh, and that’s not something I can take right now.”
He took a deep breath. “You are so frustrating. You’ll take your clothes off for a room full of men, but you won’t ask Maggie to hire you?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.” Like he’d ever made a mistake in his life, let alone left a trail of them in his wake.
He turned, leaning one elbow on the counter, dangerously invading my space, and my head. “Understand what? That your skin is a lot easier to expose than your pride?”
I sucked in my breath and tore my eyes away from the gray ones that were currently cutting through my defenses. “Yes.”
“Then I understand just fine, and I’m telling you they’re equally important. Now fill out the application, Samantha.”
“She’s going to throw me out,” I whispered, looking up at him.
Grayson arched an eyebrow. “Not everyone judges people on a first impression.”
“You did.”
“Something I’m still paying for when it comes to you.”
“There’s…people here.” I counted at least fifteen people working out in the immediate vicinity who would all bear witness to my humiliation.
“Are you going to let them stop you?”
I weighed my options as Maggie walked toward us with her daughter. I couldn’t get by without a phone or gas money, and at least this would keep my clothes on. Head high. Let’s do this. “Something you might not know about me, Grayson? I don’t let anyone stop me.”
“Something you might not know, Sam? I was depending on it.” The corner of his mouth lifted into what I could almost define as a smirk, but that might mean a smile was possible.
“Here she comes,” Grayson said into my ear, his lips barely brushing my skin. Chills raced down my neck. “Hold on.” He walked through the line of treadmills to meet Maggie halfway. At least two spandex-clad girls eye-fucked him, but he didn’t seem to notice, and not in the way a cocky guy would ignore it, but more like…he didn’t see.
What was a guy like him doing single? Sure, he still had a stick up his ass, but there was more to him than the wall he used to keep people out.
Maggie smiled when she saw Grayson and met him near the entrance to the locker room. Her gaze jerked toward me, and I gave a half wave. Nausea rolled through me, but I fought the urgent need to puke. I’d made my bed, I was strong enough to lie in it.
Maggie made her way to me and cocked her head to the side. “If it isn’t my personal show-stopper. Grayson tells me you need a job.”
I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “Yes, ma’am. I’m so sorry for how I behaved. I promise that’s not my normal”—anymore—“and it won’t happen again. Ever.”
“Well, you got Grayson here up on the bar, so I have to give you credit there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Another time he’d saved me from being an idiot.
She sized me up. “You’re a math girl?”
I nodded. “That’s my major. I’m only a junior, but I’m a fast learner and a hard worker.”
She clucked her tongue and glanced from Grayson to me. “Well, Grayson vouches for you. I need some part-time help behind the front desk. Mostly secretarial duties, mail, schedules, phones, supply orders. Are you up for that?”
Wait. What? “Really? You’re going to let me work here?”
She laughed, showing perfectly straight teeth. “Darlin’, you’re not the first girl to dance on my bar, and chances are you won’t be my last.” She glanced down at my button-up. “We’re pretty informal around here, so why don’t you grab a shirt off my desk, and my daughter will show you the ropes? Take her back, would you, Grayson?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He put pressure on my lower back and guided me toward the door past the locker rooms. The office was neat, and I easily spotted the stack of shirts. “Here,” he said, thrusting a white polo shirt with Anytime Fitness embroidered on the front.
“She sure knows you pretty well,” I questioned, taking the shirt and pulling it on over my blouse.
“Like I said, I’m here a lot.”
I glanced over the huge muscles of his arm as he curved the brim of his baseball cap. “I can see that.”
He shook his head and walked me back out to the desk. “I’m going to lift a little while you train up. Avery, take care of her.” He abandoned me for the locker room.
“Hi there, Sam.” She smiled, revealing a set of sparkly braces. “Ready to get started?”
“Sure,” I said, and we began with the computer system. There were four managers, three receptionists, five trainers, and Avery, who filled in behind the desk when she wasn’t at school.
“Mom doesn’t want me at the bar, of course, so I’m here.”
“It’s cool that she owns two businesses,” I said as I familiarized myself with the mail system.
“She got the bar in the divorce, but she’s trying to sell it. This is pretty much our place, now.” She reached into her bag, pulling out a heavy math book.
“Aren’t you on vacation?” I asked.
“One more week and it’s finals. Junior year algebra three is kicking my butt.”
“Want some help? I used to tutor high-school math back in Colorado.”
“You wouldn’t mind?”
“Not in the least,” I answered with an easy smile.
“Nice to see you again,” a vaguely familiar guy said as he signed in, a bag slung across his shoulder. He flashed me a smile. He was good-looking, but my usual hot-guy response must have been broken, because he didn’t so much as stir my interest.
“Welcome back,” I said with a polite smile, trying to remember where I’d seen him before.
He laughed. “You don’t remember me. It’s okay. I’m Will. I’m the one who called Jagger a few weeks ago.”
Ugh. The hot one from the bar. Because I wasn’t embarrassed enough already today. “Nice to meet a friend of Jagger’s. Well, officially meet since I’m guessing you didn’t exactly get my best side last time.”
His grin was contagious. “Well, if you’d ever like to show me your best
side—”
“No chance, Carter. Not happening.” Grayson said as he walked over, dressed in shorts and a loose tank. My heart jumped and my breath caught at the possessive glance that swept over me before glaring at Will. Maybe I wasn’t broken; I was simply having a hard time comparing guys to Grayson. Shit. That was inconvenient.
“Whoa, you marking territory, Masters?” Will teased.
“She’s my new roommate, so hands and eyes off, or I’ll explain the many different ways in which you really are second-choice Carter.” The muscle in Grayson’s jaw flexed.
“You’re an asshole.” Carter tipped his hat. “Ma’am, you have my most sincere sympathy at your living situation.” He turned back to Grayson. “We still on for Memorial day?”
Grayson smacked his back. “You bet. Barbecue starts at two, but I’m missing out. I’ll be home.”
“Ah, yes, the mysterious trips. We’ll catch you when you’re back.” Will nodded and headed to the locker room.
“He’s an acquired taste,” Grayson explained.
“Yes, you are,” I responded, tossing him a flirtatious smile and digging into the algebra book with Avery. Crap. I’d just flirted. With my roommate. I needed to watch that. I also needed to not ogle him lifting weights between learning my job and helping Avery out.
Epic fail.
He got me a job. Thank God. Such a simple thing, but simply knowing it made breathing easier, like I’d been under water for so long that coming up had me drunk on oxygen and possibilities.
He took me home a couple hours later.
“Thank you,” I told him as we walked up the stairs to our bedrooms. Josh and Jagger were both on the main floor, which gave us the entire second story of the split level.
“You’re welcome. You’ll be on your own next weekend, since I’ll be going home.” He gave me a nod and headed into his room.
“Why do you go home so often?” I asked, curiosity getting the better of me. “Will wasn’t the first person to say something about it.”
He turned, hand on his doorknob. “What’s the pool up to?” He countered with that half smirk that was sexy as hell. Oh, so inconvenient.
“No pool, just wondering.”
He studied me for a moment, making me wait so long that I figured he was going to blow me off. The intensity he wore so easily was exhausting to be around, draining me mentally because I couldn’t stop wondering what he was thinking.
“Everyone is accountable for something, Samantha. Me included.”
He shut the door on me and the topic.
The sirens woke me, piercing through the haze of sleep better than any latte could have. My legs didn’t get the we’re awake memo and buckled under me as I stumbled from the bed.
The clock flashed 1:37 a.m. Wednesday morning. Wait. Thursday morning. Whatever. With the late shifts I’d been pulling at the gym for almost a week now, I’d only been asleep an hour.
“What the hell?” I called out, peeking between the mini blinds. A few neighbors stood on their porches, all wrapped in robes or pajamas.
“Grayson?” I yelled, tripping into the hallway. His door was open, the bed as messy as I figured I’d ever see it, but he wasn’t in it.
I raced down the stairs, shouting “Guys?” before I remembered that Jagger and Josh were out of town for a few days on a detail. Holy shit, that siren was loud. Like being bombed at Pearl Harbor loud, or tornado in Kansas loud. Shit. Tornado.
There was no way. Right? We were in southeast Alabama, not the Midwest. Did we have a shelter? That close call while we were stationed at Fort Leavenworth was bad enough, but we’d had a shelter.
I adjusted the girls inside my shelf-bra, those things never were enough support, and then swung open the front door. Humidity, thick and heavy, hit me in the face, almost as if I could drink the air. Wind gusted, whipping branches of the lilac tree against the porch railing.
The siren blasted from the electric post four houses down. “What’s going on?” I yelled toward our neighbors.
“Tornado warning,” Grayson answered from behind me, his voice low and raspy from sleep. He reached around me, showing me his cell phone alert.
Tornado Warning, Coffee County, AL until 3:30 a.m. Seek shelter immediately.
“Where are we? Kansas? This is so not right.” A knot formed in my stomach. There were very few things that scared me, but tornadoes were on that list. They made me small, insignificant, and powerless to my own fate. I’d had enough of that lately, thank you very much.
“’Tis the season, and warning means they’re not kidding. One’s been spotted in Elba, not far from here. Now get inside, get some clothes on, and meet me in the bathroom.” He pulled me back gently by my elbows until we were inside, and then shut the door.
“But we’re in the south, and not like…Tennessee south. Like Deep South.” I turned around, my hand brushing the skin of his chest…his bare chest, and damn, but he was warm, and cut, and smelled better than chocolate. His hair was sleep-mussed, but his face was still set in stern lines. Did he even relax when he slept?
“Yeah, and you live in a town where a tornado destroyed the high school and killed some of those teenagers a decade ago, so get your ass in the bathroom. The weather doesn’t care if we’re in Oklahoma or Oz.”
“Okay.” All thoughts of naked Grayson fled as I bolted up the stairs to my bedroom.
“And put on some clothes!” he called out.
I threw a sweatshirt over my head, unplugged my phone from its charger, grabbed my iPad, and skipped back down the stairs to the bathroom. “Grayson?”
“The little bathroom.”
I moved quickly down the hall to the powder room, where I found him pulling a shirt over his head. His sweatpants hung low enough on his hips to see that V of his muscles that was probably illegal in a dozen states…or should have been. Those hours he spent every day at the gym seriously carved the guy. “Being invited to the bathroom by a guy is definitely a first.”
He raised an eyebrow before he shook his head. “No windows in here, and it backs up to the kitchen, so it’s the safest place to wait it out.” His eyes glanced down at my very bare legs. “You and I have different definitions of clothes.”
“Not the time, Grayson.”
“Right. Stay here.” He left.
“So, we’ll hang out in the bathroom for”—I checked my phone—“another couple hours. Good call,” I muttered to myself. The siren stopped, but if it was like Kansas, on a timer, it would be back while we were still under warning. I set the iPad on the counter and cued up the weather app. We were entirely surrounded by red on the Doppler. The knot in my stomach tightened.
Grayson walked back in, his arms full of his comforter, a couple bottles of water, and my shoes. “Just in case,” he said, dropping them to the floor.
The bathroom wasn’t big to start with, but with Grayson closing the door behind him, well, it may as well have been a porta-potty for how small it felt. He sat on the floor and leaned his head against the wall, closing his eyes. Where was I supposed to sit? On the toilet? Because that wouldn’t have been awkward or anything. Grayson occupied almost every spare inch of space in the room.
“Get comfortable, Samantha. We’re going to be here for a while.”
How could he be so calm? Oh, right, because the man had zero emotions. Maybe if I was a robot like he was, I wouldn’t be on the verge of using the toilet to vomit in. But then I’d be left sitting on a vomit-splattered toilet. Ugh.
He cracked open his eyes and held out an arm. “Let’s go.”
I swallowed. Being that close to him felt more dangerous than anything going on outside. “Samantha, I’m not going to bite you.”
“Well, you don’t exactly like me.”
He let out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t understand you. I like you just fine. Now sit down.”
If the distant way he’d treated me since I got to Alabama was him liking me, I’d hate to see how he treated someone he didn’t like.
/> I lowered myself slowly and slid into the space he left under his arm. He reached with his other arm and brought the comforter over us. God, it smelled like him. I physically restrained myself from burying my nose in the fabric. “So now we wait?”
“Yep.”
I swallowed and tried to ignore how easily I fit against him, but every sense was taken over by Grayson. The strength in his arms, how indestructible he felt next to me. Did he have to smell so good? For someone who spent that much time worshipping his body in the gym, shouldn’t he smell a touch…well…smelly?
Of course not. He had to torture me by smelling like the ocean, with a hint of cedar like the body wash I secretly sniffed when I showered. Don’t think about it. Think about anything else. Anything.
“So you’re headed back home tomorrow?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“You’re such a conversationalist.”
“It’s two in the morning, Samantha.”
“Well, it’s not like I’m going to sleep on the bathroom floor,” I pouted. Not that his warmth wasn’t relaxing me, because I hated to admit that it was, tornado warning and all.
He sighed. “Yes, I’m going home tomorrow.”
I’d shoved a car jack into the tiniest crack in his wall, and I twisted it a little. “Where are you from?”
“Nags Head, North Carolina.”
“The Outer Banks?”
“That’s the one.”
“Do you like it there?”
He sighed, but it was the short kind I was beginning to understand meant he was about to let me into his world a tiny bit. “I love it. My father builds sailboats, the racing kind, and he’s pretty certain I’ll come back to stay, but I just… Sometimes I need the space.”
“I’ve always wanted to go there. My mom spent a summer there in college and loved it. I was born right before she graduated UNC that spring after.” My stomach turned sour again thinking about her. “I still haven’t told her about Troy.”
“Scared she’ll lose it?” His arm flexed around me, pulling me closer.
“No.” I shook my head slightly, unintentionally burrowing into his shoulder. “I wanted to prove to her that I could do this on my own. That I didn’t need her approval, or disapproval, rather. That’s why I’m staying here. All she sees is this giant screw-up, and I love her, but she wants to fix me. This Troy thing proves that I’m a step beyond fixing.”
Beyond What is Given Page 5