by Brynne Asher
He grins and simply says, “No.”
I look around and take in my surroundings. To be honest, the only reason I didn’t throw a fit about coming was because I wanted to see his business. But now that I’m here I realize I should have stopped by later in the day, namely, after boot camp.
I take a small step closer to him, yet not too close since we’re in front of other people, and let my eyes go big when I say in a low voice, “Cam, I don’t work out. At all. I honestly don’t even know what a boot camp entails, but I have a feeling I’m not going to be able to keep up. Plus, some of those women don’t look very nice.”
Cam brings his hand up to cup my chin, not caring about everyone around us. Now, in a perfect world, the man who just gave me my first orgasm by someone other than myself and spent the night in my bed would say, “It’s okay, baby. Don’t worry about boot camp. Sit here and straighten my desk, then I’ll take you home so you can bake your cookies.”
But not in my rollercoaster world. Nope, Cam leans down to kiss me fast and smiles, “You’ll be fine. If you can handle fucking Bekki, you can handle the bitchy mom club. They’re not all bitchy, a couple of ‘em are good women. You’ll figure it out. Come on, I’ll introduce you to Zeke.”
“Zeke? That’s the name of someone who’ll kick my ass.”
Putting his arm around my back to move us out, he says, “His name’s Ezekiel but trust me, if you call him anything but ‘Zeke’, he will kick your ass.”
I look where Cam is directing me toward the bitchy mom club. Most of them look like they’re in good shape and I’m glad I put on my nicest workout—lounge—outfit, because most of them are dressed to the nines. The nines from the ATHLETA catalogue, that is. I love ATHLETA. Hardly anyone carries workout clothes in petites—they’re my go-to for loungewear. But some of these moms are even wearing makeup. Who puts on makeup to workout first thing in the morning?
As we approach the group, I see an enormous black man who’s taller than Cam by at least four inches and looks like a lean, mean, ass-kicking machine. His hair is clipped short, he’s clean shaven and his medium-toned skin looks as smooth as silk. He’s downright beautiful. He’s a brick wall too, but his brick is leaner than Cam’s. Although, he does have his clothes on and I haven’t seen him in his underwear, maybe I shouldn’t make that judgment. On the other side of the group is a smaller white man, but he’s still built in a way you can tell he’s a workout fanatic. He has dark brown hair with sleeves of tattoos running up and down both arms with a few on his legs. The inked guy is eyeing me up and down and the ass-kicking machine is half-grinning at Cam with a raised eyebrow.
“Paige, this is Zeke.” Cam directs me to the big, beautiful black man. “You’ll be with him.”
Zeke turns his eyes on me, smirks, and sticks out a hand to greet me. “Paige.”
“Why don’t I get her?” Tattoo Man asks from our side.
“You know why you don’t get her.” Cam frowns and I still haven’t gotten a word in or run away for that matter. He looks back to Zeke. “She’s new to boot camp. Take good care of her.”
Zeke looks amused but retorts, “Sure thing, boss.”
For some reason I have a feeling Zeke isn’t going to take care of me by going easy on me. Before I can make a last plea to leave, Cam turns me toward him and leans down to kiss my forehead in front of everyone telling me to, “Have fun,” and walks away.
Damn him.
I turn around and everyone is staring, glaring, and amused at what they just saw. I decide the best thing to do is put a smile on my face and make the best of it. I start, “Zeke. I hope you teach beginner’s boot camp.”
He smiles. “Sweetheart, there’s no beginner’s boot camp. Boot camp is boot camp.”
“Well, as Cam said, I’ve never done this before. I’ll just hang out in the back and observe until I get the gist.”
His smile turns into a beautiful white grin when he informs me, “You’ll get the gist. Let’s go.”
And with that, the trainers and the bitchy mom club move out the door, obviously anxious to get their asses kicked.
Crazy people.
I think I’m going to die.
I’m going to die a virgin who’s only had one really great orgasm since, now, after getting one from Cam, I realize I suck at giving them to myself. I was really looking forward to the Promised Land, especially after Cam’s orgasm last night. I want more, much more. But no, I’m going to die during boot camp and, just like Moses, I’ll be denied the Promised Land. And ironically, it will all be Cam’s fault.
If I’m honest with myself—and I have no other choice but to be honest since the entire bitchy mom club witnessed my demise—the warm up did me in. If Zeke’s warm up wasn’t a full-on cardio workout, I have no idea what is. Then he forced us to walk in lunges around the entire warehouse carrying medicine balls. Zeke said he gave me the lightest one, but that sucker was heavy—I’m pretty sure he lied. Then we jumped rope, which I used to be pretty good at. Jumping rope sort of goes along with hula hooping in the playground sports category. But after all the lunging, my legs were noodles.
This was followed by more torture known to these people as burpees, jumping jacks with front kicks—which made me look like even more of an idiot—high plank rolls on a soccer ball, and then more planks incorporated into push-ups. By the time we got to the last planks, I just laid on the ground. And we were only forty minutes into the sixty minute torture.
Zeke said it was time for more upper body so we moved to the fire hoses where we had to heave them up and slam them onto the ground. I could barely pull it up as high as my shoulders. Zeke disappeared around the building and came back with a garden hose. I’m not quite sure it was possible to be more humiliated, but slamming my garden hose into the ground when everyone else was doing the real thing, topped me off. If I had to guess, I bet my garden hose has never been used for anything other than what it should be used for—watering something.
Thinking this is the longest hour of my life, Zeke tells us to lay on the ground for some ab torture. I was contemplating a quick nap—or even slipping into a coma since I’m going to die anyway—but Zeke wouldn’t have it. He bent in front of me to hold my feet, informing me he’d count.
Ha. Like there’d be anything to count.
“So, I have to know,” I hear a fake, cheery voice coming from beside me.
I look over and see one of the makeup moms looking at me, barely out of breath, as she crunches her abs away. She’s tall with big, bleach blonde hair and it’s up in a mess near the top of her head, but in a way I can tell she worked really hard to make it look that way. She has enormous boobs and is fit as a fiddle everywhere else. She’s got to be at least ten years older than me. She looks like she works really hard at keeping herself in shape, as opposed to me, who’s small and can stay the size I am because I keep busy and have a good metabolism.
She’s looking at me with full on interest with a counterfeit smile. “How do you know Coach Montgomery?”
There are six in our group. I’ve categorized them into makeup and non-makeup moms—three with makeup and two others including me, without. Everyone slows their crunches when the big-boobed-blonde asks me about Cam. I, on the other hand, did not have to slow down since I’m practically passed out on the ground.
“Well…” I think about how to answer, because a couple of these moms have been eyeing me with interest the entire workout. I can tell they’re catty and probably hold officer positions in the bitchy mom club. I look over and say, “I guess we officially met when he threw his drink on me.”
She stops mid crunch and sits up, not hiding her surprise. “He threw his drink on you?”
“Yeah, he was an asshole,” I say and struggle to pull up to my knees. Zeke is looking down at my feet trying to hide a grin.
“How long have you known him?” she demands, downright frowning.
I fall back down to the ground breathing hard. “A little over a week.”
; She’s gone from fake to frowning to shocked. “A week?”
“Uh-huh.” I groan, trying to pull up to my knees again. If Zeke was being technical, this crunch should only count as half.
“Wow, Rachael,” I hear from my other side where a non-makeup mom is kicking some ab crunching booty. “It only took her a week to get in there. You’ve been trying for what, a year or more?”
“Amy, I cannot believe you said that. I have not!” she yells. Looking back to me, she reiterates angrily, “I have not.”
“Um, okay,” I widen my eyes and look up to Zeke who’s now biting back his full-on smile. “You haven’t.”
“How much money have you laid out at The Shed in the last year-and-a-half, Rach? Between you doing boot camps and putting your kids in every training class under the sun? You should really use your alimony for something more productive than snagging Cam Montgomery,” another mom adds. Surprisingly, this came from a makeup mom. I guess they aren’t teamed up the way I thought.
“I haven’t been trying to snag anyone!” Rachael yells louder this time. Then she says like she’s accusing me of something, “You’re just so young.”
I fall to the ground, my abs burning like a wild fire. I know I can verbally spar with anyone, but I’m exhausted and not on my game today. I could probably come up with something sweet but snarky, however I’m just not feeling it.
“You know what? I can’t help how young I look. So I might be six years younger than Cam, it’s not like he was my teacher or anything. Trust me, we’ve already been over that. I think I look young because I’m petite, I can add a few years with makeup. But who wants to wear makeup when you workout, anyway? It’s just going to clog your pores and make your skin breakout,” I go on talking to the sky.
I realize everyone has stopped their crunches and I look over to see Amy smiling big. When I look the other way, Rachael is frowning and the other women are either grinning or biting their lips.
“You know he has kids,” Rachael spits, as if she’s telling me something I don’t already know.
I look up and roll my eyes. “I know.”
“You think you’re going to scare her off from the most eligible man in eastern Nebraska? Keep at it, Rach. She seems to be able to hold her own,” Amy retorts.
“Well,” Racheal huffs and hops to her feet like she’s been knitting for the last hour. She ends on a turn before making a dramatic exit, “I’m going to cool down on my own.”
I watch Rachael stomp off and hear from my side, “Don’t mind her.” I look over and Amy continues. “She’s been trying to get her claws into Cam Montgomery forever. Her kids go to school with his. He’s nothing but professional with her which pisses her off. I really don’t think he’s ever given her a second glance. I’m Amy, by the way.”
“Hey, Amy,” I greet her, without moving.
“That’s Hannah, April, and Steph.”
I look over to the other crazy women. “Hey.”
“You women need to cool down in more ways than one. Time to stretch.” Zeke stands, holding out a hand for me.
I shake my head. “I’m just going to lay here.”
He smiles. “Get up, girl.”
“No, I’m good. You all go about your program,” I insist, watching the remaining moms stand and start to stretch.
Zeke leans down and grabs my hands, yanking me up. “Cam’ll have my ass if you don’t stretch your muscles.”
Zeke has been really nice, even though he’s kicked my ass like I thought he would. I don’t want him to get in trouble with Cam. I do my best to follow his stretches without falling over.
Five minutes later, I see Cam walking out of the warehouse. His eyes on me and a smirk is playing inside his goatee. He looks like he’s had a shower and changed clothes, wearing more workout attire with a clean Shed t-shirt. As he gets closer, I see this one simply reads “Kick It”. His short hair is damp and he’s clean shaven around his lush goatee. He looks really good making him hard to hate, not to mention I’m jealous. I really need a shower.
As he approaches, I point to him with the water bottle in my hand and lie, “I hate you.”
His smirk turns into a lush smile and he looks to Zeke. “How’d she do?”
Zeke crosses his arms. “She kept up.”
“I did not,” I say to Zeke before looking to Cam. “I did not keep up. It was awful and embarrassing. He even had to get me a garden hose. Never again.”
The moms laugh as they start to walk away with Amy calling, “Good to meet you Paige. See you tomorrow.”
“Oh, it was nice to meet you, too, but I won’t be here tomorrow.”
“Yeah you will,” Cam argues.
“No, Cam. I will not.”
“Darlin’, you’ve got grass in your hair,” he ignores me and starts picking the grass out of my pony-tail.
I slap his hand away and turn to Zeke. “Thanks for getting me the garden hose. Maybe I’ll see you at the company picnic.”
“Baby, we don’t have a company picnic,” Cam says as he keeps picking at my pony-tail.
“Why not?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” He starts to brush grass off my back.
“Well you should. It’s a nice thing to do, don’t you think, Zeke?”
“Yeah, man. You should have a picnic,” Zeke declares. He turns to me before he starts walking away. “See ya tomorrow, girl.”
“I won’t be here,” I call to him.
“Quit sayin’ that,” Cam huffs and grabs my hand to drag me back into the warehouse.
“Today was it. I only came because I was curious about this place. Plus I don’t think I’ll be able to move tomorrow,” I say before downing the rest of my water.
But I almost walk into Cam as he stops abruptly in the parking lot, saying gruffly, “You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“What’s wrong?” I look up to see him glaring at something across the way. I follow his glare and see a big man-boy getting out of a newer Camaro heading toward us. Cam lets go of my hand as he takes a small step in front of me crossing his arms. I lower my voice, “Who’s that?”
“Michael Gheer. My asshole star quarterback,” he answers without looking away from the man-boy.
“Is it bad that he’s here?”
“It is since he was just arrested last week under the influence with pot and the date rape drug.”
“Oh. That is bad,” I agree and watch the young asshole star quarterback who looks about as happy as Cam stalking our way.
The morning air around us has turned as tense as my muscles from boot camp. And trust me, that’s pretty damn tense.
Chapter Thirteen
Inferno
Paige
“Coach.” The man-boy frowns as he approaches us and greets Cam, but his eyes are on me.
“You want to talk to me, Gheer, you need to set up a meeting,” Cam says crossing his arms, definitely not welcoming him to The Shed with a complicated man handshake, let alone a slap on the back.
The man-boy, who’s as tall as Cam but not nearly as built, ignores his request for an appointment. “Word is you’re pulling me from first string.”
“It just happened last week. I know you can’t forget why you’re suspended for the first three weeks of the season. After that, it’s anyone’s position to earn or lose. The shit you pulled should’ve earned you a longer suspension. You’re giving Brett Sullivan a shot at starter, not me. I know you’re so far up your own ass to remember, but I’ve got two receivers ranked top ten in the state. They’re able to make most decent quarterbacks look good. I’ve told Sullivan he’s starting out the season as my number one and it’s his to lose. I guess you’ll just have to sit back and see how it plays out like the rest of us,” Cam informs him.
“He doesn’t have my range or accuracy. You’ve got the stats to prove it,” he accuses.
“Yeah? I’ve also got the police report from last week not to mention your student records with grades that barely keep you eligible. You
add it all up, guess whose stats win?” Cam rebukes.
“You’d rather lose? You start losing games, you’ll lose your job,” he spits back at Cam.
“Season hasn’t started, I haven’t lost a game yet,” Cam says. “You get your shit together and keep your grades up, we’ll see. Brett’s a decent quarterback, he’s a hard worker and he wants it. He sees the opportunity that’s fallen in his lap. My guess? He’s gonna take it and run. We’ll see who’s starting by the end of the season.”
“You’re gonna lose games if you keep him in. He’ll tank,” the boy sneers.
“Keep digging, Mike. You’ll bury your football career before you come off suspension in the fall.” Cam narrows his eyes on the delinquent quarterback. “Now, I’ve confirmed what you’ve heard, you need to get going. You know state regulations say I can’t coach or train you until opening day of practices. If you want to talk to me in the future, call to set up an official meeting. Unless you have a scheduled time with one of my trainers, I don’t want to see you on my property.”
Michael Gheer’s jaw hardens and he narrows his eyes at Cam before they come back to me. Demonstrating his stupidity, he sneers, “Hopefully, she’s yours. Maybe if you get yourself some, you won’t be such a dick.”
Cam proves how fast he is because one second he’s standing next to me and, the next, he’s closed the distance between him and Michael. He isn’t touching him, but he’s so far in his face, Michael’s forced to lean back.
“Don’t talk about her and don’t try me. You want to find yourself third or fourth string, keep at it,” Cam threatens, his voice low and full of warning.
Michael finally shuts up and works his jaw as he eyes Cam. He retreats one step and shakes his head before turning back to his Camaro. We watch him bend into his sports car and take off before Cam finally turns to me. And just like last week when Bekki showed up, he doesn’t utter a word.
I decide to break the silence. “He … um … isn’t happy with your decision.”