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I wasn’t sure what to say. Dane’s hands were white-knuckled fists.
“Keeping to a schedule…makes things organized. Keeps me in control.”
“Of what?”
He leaned back against the bench slowly.
“Everything.”
I slid my hand over his clenched fist where it rested on his knee. He didn’t relax, but he didn’t move his hand away either, so I left it there.
“When I first started NA—” He glanced at me quickly like he was double-checking that I remembered, and I nodded. “It was all about not using. Just getting through each day, then another, then another. Seemed like it’d be that way forever. Then later, when I could pay attention to other stuff again, I went to meetings every day. Sometimes more than once a day. Mostly to have something to structure the day. Something I knew I had to do. Made me feel…”
He scrubbed his free hand over his head and sat up.
“Anyway, Reggie and I—my sponsor—came up with this whole schedule. Meetings. Gym. Grocery store. It helped. After a while I added other things. Cooking. Working at the bar. A daily schedule. When I break it, I get all…”
I slid my hand from his fist to his wrist and felt his rapid pulse under my fingers.
“Scared?” I offered.
He shrugged, like that wasn’t a word he would’ve used.
“I can do it, though. I do it sometimes. Something comes up with a sponsee, or an emergency at the bar.”
“What if…” I ventured. “What if I went with you to the gym and we got food after? Then you don’t have to change your schedule and we can still hang out.”
His eyes cut to mine sharply.
“Too much? We can just do it another day,” I said quickly.
“You’d do that?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, fair warning—I’m not really a gym person, so I’ll probably just embarrass myself, but, sure.”
Dane stood quickly and pulled me upright. For a moment I thought he was going to push me away but he just hadn’t quite known his own strength.
“Yeah,” he said, voice rough. “Okay.”
Chapter 5
Huey
I went at my routine hard, trying to lose myself in the mindlessness that I could usually achieve when I pushed my body. But I couldn’t stop scanning the gym for Felix.
So he wouldn’t have to work out in street clothes, I’d torn a few inches off the bottom of an undershirt and dug out an old pair of bike shorts that I’d only worn once when I realized how uncomfortable they were. On Felix, they were baggy.
He’d arched an eyebrow at the bike shorts, then tied his hair up in a ponytail and given his reflection a rueful shrug.
He looked ridiculous.
I couldn’t stop staring at him.
His flush glowed against the white of my shirt, which kept slipping to the side, showing the elegant curve where his neck met his shoulder. The thin shorts hugged the pert swell of his ass even though they were loose around his thighs.
When we got here, he’d waved me away, saying he’d do his own thing. It turned out to be a leisurely stretching session that demonstrated he was quite flexible, then running on the treadmill for a while at an easy, loping pace, then more stretching.
The whole routine suggested someone who possessed no need to do more, go faster or heavier. No sense of competitiveness, no urgency, no ego.
After he finished stretching, he made his way toward me, running a finger along a barbell. I was nearly done with my arm and back routines and was going to finish with some ab work. Felix’s ponytail had half fallen out, strands curling around his face and clinging to the sweat on his neck. He was lightly flushed and held himself with loose-muscled post-workout ease.
“Have you always lifted weights?” he asked, gaze curious, appreciative. It sent a dim tingle of lust through me to see how much Felix seemed to enjoy my size. I’d spent so long wishing I could disappear.
I nodded. “Since high school.”
I’d always been big for my age—tall and broad since puberty. I put on muscle easily, and when I began lifting at thirteen, gaining in strength meant gaining in power. Gaining control.
After addiction blasted my sense of control to smithereens, lifting had felt like I was wrestling myself back.
“You wanna try?” I asked as Felix’s eyes roamed the equipment.
He gave me a half-smile and wrinkled his nose.
“Nah, I’m okay.” He looked me up and down slowly. “You carry on, though.”
* * *
—
We went back to my place afterward, and I was almost disappointed when Felix emerged after a shower wearing his own clothes again. As I took my own shower, I couldn’t stop picturing what his wet hair might look like during a shower, plastered to the curve of his skull, dripping down his neck. How he’d close his eyes and melt against me under the relaxing heat of the water.
