“I won’t.” But the twinkle in her eye made me feel uneasy. What Lea didn’t understand was that Jackson and Oliver weren’t the hard part. Those two were a cakewalk as far as the Allendale Four went. Sweet. Fun.
The problem was that if I opened that door again, really opened it, there were two others I’d have to deal with. The two that had really moved on, and I wasn’t sure my heart could take it.
During a quiet moment that day when everyone else had left for lunch, I sat in the makeup chair and opened my laptop. I’d never been comfortable spying—not after my high school experiences—but in my mind, I called this research.
In the search bar I typed in A5 Gym, and it only took a moment for links and photos to appear. The building wasn’t that far away from my loft—just further into the industrial area. It was a large warehouse, with a basic sign out front. No one knew what that name meant—no one but the five of us—and it was a kick in the gut to see it in the photos. It meant that they were still carrying this with them. As much as I did.
Lea was right. We needed to talk.
I clicked the link to their Facebook page, which was surprisingly active. Videos of workouts and training sessions seemed the most popular. I clicked on one and watched RJ flip a tractor-trailer tire down the football-length mat; his defined muscles rippling with every turn. There were other tutorials; images of guys running through a Parkour course. Basic weight training. A few other notable celebrities that worked in our area. The client list was impressive. There were a few actual superheroes in the bunch.
I scanned down the page and stopped on a link, pressing play. It’d turned into a game; Guess the Celebrity. A broad, shirtless, back came into view, focused on the hard muscles. After a moment the man jumped, hanging from a pull up bar. Quickly he dipped up and down, the muscles in his back quaking, the lines of his sides tapering to a slim waist. Loose shorts hung from his hips, revealing lower muscles, ones that ran to the curve of his ass. The video played through and I watched like a woman dying of thirst. I couldn’t get enough…until the very end when the man dropped from the bar and turned around, a bright smile on his face.
Oliver.
I pressed pause.
Oliver had always been in shape—all the boys had been. Athletic and fit…but Anderson dominated with his swimmer’s physique; long and lean with a wingspan to die for. Hayden was a monster of hard-packed muscle. Jackson and Oliver had a more basic fitness.
Not anymore.
My eyes grazed to the bottom of the screen, looking for a glimpse of what I knew hung between his legs, when footsteps sounded on the metal stairs of the trailer and I snapped the computer shut.
Too much. Too much. How was I ever going to establish a friendship-only with them if they kept getting hotter?
The conflict lingered in my mind all day as I applied and reapplied the makeup on the actors coming in and out of my trailer. I hadn’t stopped thinking about them even after I got home and put on a cozy pair of pajamas. I opened the laptop again and found the page still open.
I didn’t watch the video again—that was a test I’d likely not pass twice, but I did go to the box that let me make an appointment. It was shady as hell and it gave me an out if I wanted to bail. I signed up under a fake name, securing an appointment the next day right after work.
Lea was right, I thought, scrolling through the photos of the gym and seeing the testimonials from the clients. It was time for all of us to move on—to work through the breakup instead of lingering in the purgatory of the past few years. From the look of it, their business was successful. I was successful. We had lives. We could do this.
Maybe.
6
Jackson
Keeping an eye on the ball, I waited as the pitch flew through the air, passing right over the plate. I swung, catching the rawhide with the edge of my bat, tipping it foul.
“Fuck,” I mumbled, waiting for the next pitch.
Crack!
That one slammed hard into left field, catching in the mesh net hanging from the ceiling. I took a step back, letting the next one pass and shaking out my arm and elbow.
“Dude, you’ve been in there for an hour,” Oliver said from outside the cage.
“I’m just getting warmed up.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
I stepped back to the plate and eased into position, the next ball flying toward me. Again, I nailed it, hitting the sweet spot and watching it sail into the outfield.
I waited but the machine spun endlessly, out of balls. I hit the stop button and the pitching machine came to a halt. I moved to collect the balls scattered all over the batting cage, but Oliver shouted for Tony, one of our employees, to clean up.
“I’m not done,” I said, hooking my bat into the rack near the door.
“Yeah, you are.”