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“Was it hurting when you started?” Luke asked.
“Well, no,” Hayden said. “Not as much. But I’ve been pushing it a bit, so—”
Security was here. Brilliant. Luke could tell, because it was a man in a black T-shirt with “Security” printed on it in white, in case you’d missed the overdeveloped upper body. He’d skipped a fair few leg days, Luke noticed, which meant he’d go over like a ninepin the moment you gave him a push. Power came from the lower body.
“We’re just going,” Luke told him. “He’s been overdoing it, that’s all, after his injury, and as I’m his, uh …”
“Trainer,” Kane said. “We’re his trainers. Saw him in here and had to pull him out. Contraindicated. With his injury.”
“You can not disrupt my class,” the instructor said from behind the security bloke. “I don’t care who you are.” His shorts really were short. Also red. He added, “People pay for this. People plan for this. I plan for this.”
“Right,” Luke said. “Apologies. We’ll just put this bar back and go.”
“I think you’d better leave, mate,” the security guard said. A bit late, but Luke reckoned he had to earn his money. He wasn’t trying to grab Luke, but then, that would’ve been a bad idea.
“Yeh,” Luke said. “I agree. Cheers. Talk to you about it at home?” he asked Hayden.
“Fine,” Hayden said. “I’m searching for a witty comeback, but I don’t have one, so … fine. Let’s go. But I will note that I’m desperately embarrassed, so cheers for that.”
“Yeh, sorry,” Luke said. “I should’ve thought, probably.”
“You think?” Hayden asked.
“You too, mate,” the security bloke told Kane.
“Yeh,” he said. “I’ve had my workout anyway. Sorry,” he told the room. “Carry on. Looks like, uh, heaps of fun. The music, and the, uh, shouting and all. Great class. We’re just going.”
“Aren’t you—” the security guard started to say. Not to Luke. To Kane.
“No,” Kane said. “Never met the fella. I get that a lot, though.” And fled.
CHAPTER 15
A Hard Bargain
“All right,” Hayden said, when they were out on the pavement again. Time to assert himself. “Why? That’s my regular Saturday morning class, for your information. My support group, you could say. The crème de la crème of queer Auckland, we like to think, and are they ever going to have questions. Also, I think you just outed yourself,” he told Kane.
Kane looked startled. “No, I didn’t. I said we were your trainers.”
“Excuse me,” Hayden said. “Nobody is going to believe that.”
“Oh.” Kane digested that for a moment. “Good thing I don’t live in Auckland, then.”
Hayden wanted to tell him that Christchurch wasn’t exactly halfway around the globe and that Kane wasn’t exactly anonymous, given that he was probably pushing six foot eight, had biceps like young trees, and wore black-rimmed specs, but he didn’t. He was still embarrassed as hell, he was narky, and he was confused. When Luke had snatched that barbell away … he didn’t know what he’d felt.
They hadn’t even slept together!
Kane said, “Well, I’ll be shoving off. See you at the airport tomorrow.”
Hayden didn’t say goodbye. Neither did Luke. He was still looking like a baffled and enraged bull. Possibly mostly baffled, but how could you tell? Luke said, when Kane was gone, “Your place, or my hotel. Choose.”
“No,” Hayden said.
“No?” Definitely a baffled bull.
“You can’t just haul me out of there and expect me to go with you! Where’d you go to relationship school? No.”
“Oh.” Luke seemed to consider that. “OK. What do we do, then?”
