Shane (Mallick Brothers 1)

But the whole point of moving and cutting ties had been to keep myself and everyone I cared about safe. I couldn’t create new circles. I couldn’t get wrapped up with people who could end up hurt or worse because of me.

And I certainly couldn’t make friends with Fiona.

She was my boss.

Worse yet, she was the sister-in-law to the guy I was trying very hard not to get involved with.

And it was her mission to get us together.

As if I needed more things pushing me toward him.

My sex drive was hard enough to overcome.

I just had to hole up and not go anywhere near the places I might run into him.

That was all.

Easy.FIVELeaMy avoiding Shane plan started with agreeing to go with Fee to the sex shop where we had loads of fun, but refusing to go back to her place for lunch because that sounded like it had ‘ambush’ written all the heck over it.

From there, it was easier since Fee was married with a litter of kids and therefore not exactly an ‘out on the town’ kind of friend. So I stayed away from Chaz’s and I checked for his bike in the lot of my apartment building.

It was smooth sailing.

Yeah, that was until the following week when I walked into my new gym, a little too excited to wear out my new galaxy yoga pants and the obnoxious purple racerback tank that boasted a picture of an avocado on a treadmill with a sweatband on his head, intent on getting my body moving.

I had never been, and would never be, a fitness freak. I just wasn’t built that way.

But that being said, I had an inactive desk job. I needed to get my ass in motion before it went from an appealing kind of jiggly to a tapioca pudding kind of jiggly. Plus, it got me out of my crummy apartment for a few hours. It was my way of treating myself.

That was until I stuck my earbuds in after a grueling session with the stair climber and punched up the speed on the treadmill. Just when I started getting into it, a motion at the corner of my eye stopped me. Why it drew my attention, I had no idea. But it did and I turned my head to see none other than Shane freaking Mallick walking toward the mens’ locker room.

“Of course,” I grumbled, turning off the machine with a mix of relief and annoyance. Relief because, well, it was my personal belief that anyone who actually enjoyed running was a fucking masochist. Annoyance because, masochism aside, I was pumped up for getting a good workout in.

Maybe more than a small part of that had to do with the fact that I was about as sexually frustrated a person could get before it drove them plum crazy. I thought the gym would be a good outlet for all that as well as the chronic worry I had about someone finding me, dragging me out of Navesink Bank, and then what would happen after.

On top of all of that, it got me out in the public for a little while. Which I needed. I lived alone. I worked alone. I slept, ate, showered, shopped, I everything’d alone. It was nice to be around people.

But not Shane.

Hell no.

I hopped off the treadmill and made my way down the hall toward the womens’ locker room, keeping my head ducked as I did so.

I would just have to find a different time of day to workout. Chances were, the afternoons were just his time. I had been in gyms enough to know that guys who worked out as much as Shane must have worked out, generally kept a tight schedule. They went in at such and such a time and did such and such things and talked to such and such people, then they left. So if I maybe switched my workouts to after my overnight shift, I would be good. Or maybe even right before my shift. With no one in the office, there was no one to care if I showed up sweaty.

With that, I grabbed the stuff out of my locker and headed toward the long row of closed doors that were the shower rooms. Really, it was a nice gym. All the equipment was state-of-the-art. Everything was clean. But the shower rooms, oh yeah, they went all out on them. You closed and locked a door that led into a very small seating area with a mirror, vanity, and blow dryer. Then through that room there was another door that led into a full shower room with a drain in the floor and warm sand-colored tile.

I stripped out of my sweaty clothes, taking my clean ones out of my gym bag so I could toss the old ones in, grabbed a towel and my bath products, slipped into my shower flip-flops, and let myself into the shower room.