The Warehouse

by Jason Collins

  “I think that’s a great idea,” he replied. “If you think about it, I could easily walk up to your balcony from the beach and call out your name.”

  “That might disturb the other hotel guests,” I said, hoping to call him on his earlier bluff about all the rooms being reserved.

  “I don’t think there are very many other guests,” he confessed, looking out at the water.

  “So, you were bluffing about all the rooms being reserved?” I asked. “I think you just wanted to get me a suite.”

  12

  Clint had spent most of the afternoon with me, and I was surprised that he wasn’t worried about what Kelly might think. Then again, I could sense from our conversations that their relationship had all but ended. Looking back into the living room from the balcony, I smiled as I remembered that Clint had mentioned the fact that they never had sex.

  Conservative girl, I thought. Well, her loss is my gain.

  Still, as I waited for Clint to come back from the bathroom, I couldn’t understand why he would even waste him time on this situation. I understood that it was difficult to end something convenient, but I wasn’t going to be patient much longer. As if on cue, Clint walked back through the living room and out toward the balcony where I was seated.

  “What do you think about the view?” he asked, as if he hadn’t already asked me that several times that day.

  “I think it’s stunning,” I replied. “But it’s even better when you’re sitting next to me.”

  Looking out at the water, I watched as the blue-grey waves crashed against the sandy blonde beach, inviting us to go out and take a walk along the water. The sun was beginning to set, and I knew that it was our last chance to admire the ocean before nightfall.

  “Do you want to walk along the beach?” I asked, nodding back toward the kitchen. “We can make a couple of drinks and slip them in plastic cups; no one will be the wiser.”

  Clint chuckled, and looked over directly into my eyes as he replied, “Yes, I’d like that.”

  “But?” I asked, sensing that he was hesitating about something.

  “But nothing,” he replied confidently, pointing down the beach to the left. “We’ll need to walk in that direction though.”

  “Why?” I asked, before realizing that the direction he was pointing was the opposite direction from Kelly’s sister’s house.

  “Never mind,” I mumbled, looking down at my feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he replied. “But there’s something else I need to tell you.”

  “What?” I asked, sensing doubt in his voice.

  “I’d like to tell you how I met Kelly, and why it’s so hard for me to walk away right now. You don’t know everything; and I think you have a right to.”

  My entire body filled with dread, and I began to wonder if he was going to tell me that he’d never be able to leave Kelly. Looking up from my feet, I gazed over into Clint’s eyes and watched as the last beams of sunlight grazed over his body.

  “I’ve been working at Rock Fitness for several months now,” he said with a sigh, “and, to be honest, it’s the best money I’ve ever made as a personal trainer.”

  “Oh?” I asked, smiling slightly. “Well, that’s a good thing.”

  “It’s good,” he replied, “but it’s also restricting. I’ve been wanting to leave Rock Fitness for a while now, but there’s no way I’d ever make even half as much money anywhere else.”

  “So why would you want to leave?” I asked.

  “Kelly’s father,” he replied, “he’s the owner of the place. He rarely comes in, and we rarely see him, but…he’s the person who introduced me to Kelly.”

  “I see,” I replied, starting to understand why Clint couldn’t walk away from her.

  “So now you understand,” he replied. “Kelly’s father thinks I’m the man of her dreams. He knows how much I’m making at his gym, and he wants someone who will be able to take care of his daughter.”

  “I didn’t know you were earning so much,” I replied.

  “It’s not just the money I earn directly from training,” Clint replied, looking out at the ocean and avoiding my gaze. “It’s the endless opportunities which arise from being there. I work with celebrities, politicians, you name it. I have a chance to build a brand there in personal fitness and branch out into other things.”

  “Other things like what?” I asked, hoping to steer the conversation away from Kelly and into a more positive direction.

  “Well,” he replied with a smile, finally looking over at me, “I’ve always wanted to be huge in personal fitness. You know how you see celebrity trainers on television, talking about their products and their lifestyle brand?”

  “Yep.”

  “That could be me,” he said. “And since I started working at Rock Fitness a few months ago, the opportunities have literally been knocking on my door. I have so many things planned for the next few months, and so many of them hinge on my connections at Rock. It’s difficult to walk away from that.”

  “I think I understand,” I said with a sigh, looking back out over the water.

  “Do you?” he asked, rising to his feet and moving his chair closer to mine before sitting again. “I was hoping you would.”

  “I do, but –” I began, but he interrupted me as if he could read my mind.

  “But you’re worried that I won’t be able to leave Kelly?”

  I looked back over at him, studying his chiseled face, and taking all of him in.

  “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you what to do about Kelly,” I finally said. “I was just under the impression that the relationship was coming to an end. I didn’t realize that you were tied to her in so many ways.”

  The words I had spoken were the truth. From the moment we met, I had gotten the feeling that he and Kelly would not last. The first time I saw the two of them together, I could sense that there was no chemistry.

  “I wish I had never accepted the owner’s offer to meet his daughter,” Clint added with a frustrated tone in his voice. “If I would have declined – or even told him that I was already seeing someone – I wouldn’t be in this position today.”

  “I understand,” I said. “It sounds like you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

  “That’s how I feel,” he said, leaning over so that he was only a few inches from me.

  In any other situation, it would have been the makings of a beautiful moment: sitting on the balcony overlooking the beach, looking into the eyes of the man I was falling for, and waiting for him to make his move. But, in this case, I knew that my dream wouldn’t become a reality.

  “I am,” he replied, “and I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “Maybe you could end things with Kelly,” I replied, “and just hope that it wouldn’t affect your job.”

  “I don’t know about that,” he replied. “And I was actually starting to think about something else.”

  “Something else?” I asked inquisitively. “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Clint replied with a smile, “if something else were to happen between Kelly and I, it might work out. I mean, if her father wasn’t able to place the blame on me, that is.”

  “You mean…” I replied with a smile, my voice trailing off in a dramatic fashion. “You want us to kill her?”

  Clint laughed and the sound of it carried all the way down the lonely beach.

  “No,” he replied, “that’s not what I had in mind. But I’m happy to know that you’d include yourself in those plans, if I had them in the first place.”

  “So,” I said with a chuckle, “what did you mean?”

  “I meant that if Kelly breaks up with me,” he said, “I might not have to give up my job.”

  “Right,” I replied, “but if you do something horrible so that she breaks up with you, I think her father will still be pissed.”

  “Right,” he replied. “That’s the one problem with my plan. I either need Kelly to break up with me, o
r I need to catch her doing something horrible which would end the relationship.”

  “That might work,” I replied. “If she did something to cause the end of the relationship, I doubt her father could fire you; he’d know that you could sue.”

  “That’s what I was thinking,” Clint said.

  “What kinds of things might she do?” I asked. “You said she’s a conservative girl.”

  “Therein lies the problem,” Clint said, leaning back into his chair.

  “Well,” I replied with a melodramatic sigh, “I guess the future is clear: you’ll marry Kelly so you can have a career, and I’ll disappear into the distance.”

  Clint turned to me and said, “Stop it. That’s not going to happen. As time goes on, I’m thinking more and more about just calling it quits. I mean, even if I did break up with her, and even if her father fired me, it doesn’t have to mean the end of my career.”

  “Absolutely not,” I said.

  “Thanks for listening to me complain about this for a while,” he said, pausing to look over at me again. “It’s nice to get it off my chest.”

  “I can imagine,” I replied, as I began to understand how he must feel.

  “Nic,” he said, calling me by the nickname which I was starting to love.

  “Yeah?” I asked, looking away from the beach and back at his face to see that he was leaning in closer to me.

  “There’s something I want to do.”

  “Oh?” I asked, feeling pretty confident about what it was.

  “It’s just that…” he began, but his voice trailed off.

  “It’s just that what?” I asked, trying to encourage him.

  “It’ll be my first time,” he replied, and I knew that he was referring to the fact that it would be his first time kissing a guy.

  Not wanting to leave it up to him any longer, I leaned forward and waited for him to come closer so that our lips could meet. As they touched, I began to understand a different part of Clint. I felt him melting into me, and I realized that we both knew – in that moment – that this was meant to be.

  Our lips remained entwined, and I heard the sounds of Clint’s chair as he moved closer to where I was. I felt the gentle pressure from his hand as it wrapped around the back of my neck, pulling me in closer. Waves crashed against the beach and provided the backdrop for the most wonderful kiss I had ever experienced.

  Clint pulled back and looked into my eyes, smiling like someone who had just experienced pure, untainted happiness for the first time in his life. In the distance, we heard the sounds of laughter coming from further down the beach, and I looked beyond Clint to see a group of three smiling, carefree people as they walked toward the bed and breakfast.

  Looking back at Clint, I asked, “How was that?”

  Without hesitation, he replied, “The best I’ve ever had.”

  “Get out of here!” I said, reaching over and playfully nudging him. “The best?”

  He gazed into my eyes, without smiling or joking, and answered, “Yes.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’m flattered. And it was…pretty good…for me too.”

  “Stop that,” he said. “How was it?”

  “It was great,” I replied, pointing down the beach to the people who were approaching as they laughed and shouted. “It looks like everyone’s in a good mood tonight.”

  Turning to face them, Clint paused as he stared in the opposite direction. As he turned back around to look at me, there was an expression of horror on his face. I furrowed my brow, and pursed my lips to speak, but Clint cut me off.

  “It’s Kelly,” he said in a panicked tone, locking eyes with me and refusing to look back at them. “It’s Kelly, her sister, and one of their friends.”

  “Are you joking?” I asked, furious that our moment had been ruined.

  “I’m not joking,” he replied, his face and body tense. “It’s them.”

  Without hesitation, he rose to his feet and quickly walked through the sliding glass doors into the hotel suite. I did the same, and followed him inside. Closing the doors behind us, I walked directly over to him.

  “Do you think they saw us?” I asked, starting to feel concerned.

  I realized now that it wasn’t just about Clint and whether he wanted to end things with Kelly; he had made it clear that he wanted to end them. It was about his career, his livelihood, and the future of his professional work.

  “No,” he replied, “they’re too far away, there’s no way they saw us.”

  “That’s good,” I replied, starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with our situation.

  Even though the terms were clear, and even though I knew Clint wanted out of the relationship, I still felt dirty for sneaking around with him. He and Kelly had never even had sex, but I still felt uncomfortable.

  “I wasn’t expecting her to walk this far,” he replied. “She never, ever walks this far down the beach. It’s a fifteen-minute walk!”

  “That’s not very far,” I replied, pacing back and forth and trying to cope with the guilty thoughts I was having.

  “It’s far enough that she wouldn’t walk it,” he replied. “At least, not normally. I never would have guessed that she would do that.”

  “Well, she did,” I said, walking back toward the sliding doors.

  Looking through, I watched as Kelly and the two other girls strolled along the beach, carelessly unaware that Clint and I were just inside.

  Turning back to face Clint, I said, “I’m uncomfortable with this.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know what I mean,” I replied, changing my tone. “I don’t like this. I know you’re worried about your career and your professional stability, but I don’t think I can do this.”

  “You don’t think you can do what?” Clint asked.

  “Stop,” I replied. “Don’t do that. You know what I mean.”

  Turning to look through the glass doors again, I could see that Kelly and her friends had turned back to walk in the opposite direction.

  “They’re walking the other way now,” I said.

  “Probably back toward the house,” Clint replied with a sigh. “That was a close call. What do you mean you can’t do this?”

  “Look,” I replied, “I understand your situation; I really, truly do. I don’t want to place ultimatums on you, so I won’t do that. But I need to tell you right now that I don’t like this situation and, for me, it needs to end right here before I get hurt.”

  “Hurt?” he asked, walking closer to me.

  I took a step back and replied, “Yes, I don’t want to get hurt. I’m starting to feel something for you, and I can’t let that happen if you don’t know where you stand.”

  “After that kiss,” Clint replied, looking me directly in my eyes, “I know where I stand; I know how I feel.”

  “Do you?” I asked. “Does that mean you’ve made your decision?”

  Clint avoided my question and walked over to look through the glass doors at Kelly and her friends walking away.

  “Clint?” I asked. “Does that mean you’ve made a decision?”

  As he turned back to face me, I could see that the answer was clear. He hadn’t made up his mind at all, and if anything, it hurt me to know that it wasn’t clear to him after our first kiss. I felt personally rejected, and generally uncomfortable with what we were doing.

  “I can’t do this,” I said, realizing that he wasn’t going to answer me. “I think you should leave.”

  “You want me to leave?” he asked, as if he couldn’t understand why.

  “Yes,” I replied hastily. “If I’m able to understand your position on this, you need to at least be able to understand mine. Imagine how you would feel if you were me.”

  Looking over at him, I could see that he was not imagining it at all. He was only concerned with himself, Kelly, and his career. It hurt me to realize that I was an afterthought for him.

  “I understand,” he said, “but I don’t –”
<
br />   “No,” I replied, cutting him off, “I don’t think you understand. I think you’re concerned with yourself and your job. And that’s totally fine, Clint, I’m not judging you for that. If you need to stay with Kelly to secure your future, I get that. I really, really do. But I need to be honest and tell you that it won’t work for me. I cannot hide myself from other people. I cannot go through life looking around to make sure Kelly isn’t around. It’s not fair to me.”

  Looking down at the ground, I could see that it was starting to make sense to him. Still, it didn’t help the pain I was feeling inside upon realizing that he was choosing Kelly and his career over me.

  “I think you should go,” I said, pointing toward the door. “I’m fine with leaving the suite if you want; you can probably still get a refund for the night.”

  “No,” he said, “I want you to stay here. I got this room for you, and I want you to enjoy it. Please…stay.”

  I didn’t see any point in staying the night, since I had no real reason to be there. As beautiful as the beach would be with the moonlight reflecting off it, I knew it wouldn’t do anything for my soul. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Clint wanted me to stay because he wanted to return later in the night. I knew that wasn’t fair to me, so I declined his offer.

  “I’d like to return to the city,” I said, looking beyond him toward the beach.

  “Please,” he said again. “Please stay.”

  13

  Walking through the doors of The Warehouse, I greeted Allen with a quick nod before making my back toward the locker room. I hadn’t wanted to go into work at all, but I knew that I couldn’t call out sick, and Greg wouldn’t want to work for me since I was never willing to work for him. It had been almost twenty-four hours since I had last seen Clint, and I wasn’t in a good mood. The bus ride back to the city had been agonizing, and I had mostly stared at my phone the entire time.

  “Hi,” Greg said cheerfully, looking down at me from where he was standing on the bar.

  It didn’t seem as if he was putting much effort into what he was doing, and I guessed that he was probably having another day where he didn’t feel like doing his job. Looking over at Allen, I could see that he was waving me over to talk, but I wasn’t in the mood so I continued walking toward the locker room.