Ethan Quinn
“I’m telling you—she’s a lesbian,” I said, stepping out of the shower. “Not a single lingering fucking look my way. Not one. And you’ve seen me.”
“Sometimes I wish you’d hear the shit falling out of your mouth,” Ave replied.
What? I was just speaking the truth. I wrapped my towel around my hips and headed for the sauna, and Ave followed. In a way, so did Natalie. The ghost of her. Man, she bugged me. She’d been in my head all weekend.
“So is this a client or a Tinder date?” Ave asked.
“I met her upstairs.” I didn’t specify further than the gym. There was a slight chance Natalie was related to my brother-in-law, and seeing as Avery was myotherbrother-in-law, I had another reason to keep my mouth shut about personal shit.
I blew out a breath and got comfortable on the top bench, and I rotated my shoulders. Today’s workout in the boxing ring had been brutal. Ave must’ve had a taxing weekend, becausehe usually—aw, fuck. I winced as pain shot through my left shoulder.
“Jesus, man. What did Elise do to you this weekend?” I rubbed my shoulder carefully.
Ave chuckled. “All the things her big brother doesn’t wanna hear about.”
I side-eyed him. Fucking dick. “Then why did you come at me like I was one of your snotty students?”
That made him laugh. Then he shrugged and wiped a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I feel like I should step up my game. We had Willow over for dinner on Friday, and long story short, she placed me in the dad-bod category when they were discussing celebrities. She was talking about some actor, and she looked me up and down and went, well, he’s got that dad bod like you.”
I lifted my brows. He shouldn’t read too much into that. Both my baby sisters were autistic; Avery had married the one who thought alittlebit before she blurted things out, and the other one was Willow. Lord knew I loved them—they had everyone in the family completely wrapped—but their unfiltered truths could pack a punch. Never ill intended. They were sweethearts, the babies in the family, significantly younger than the rest of us, and…utterly fearless around their brothers.
Willow couldn’t be around people too much, so that was why I’d agreed to two midnight workouts every week when my gym was empty.
“You’ve known her since she was two shits high—she’ll blurt things out?—”
“And that’s how I know it’s the truth,” Ave pointed out. “I’ve grown too comfortable. You try being married to a pastry chef and see how that works out for your abs.”
I wasn’t going down that road with him. Ave and I didn’t have much of what one might call a sweet tooth, so unless thathad changed, I didn’t wanna know the details. Fucking everyone I’d grown up with was married off and blissfully happy. It was sickening.
Once Avery had gone home to his family, I changed into a new pair of workout pants and a QFC tee, and I braced myself for my session with Natalie.
Daily messages helped in the way that I knew she’d handled the weekend somewhat well. She’d beaten herself up a bit for eating too much ice cream on Saturday, and I’d detected traces of guilt and self-hatred. She didn’t seem like a person who talked down to herself on an everyday basis; instead, I believed it stemmed from her stubbornness. She was a strong woman, and on the off chance that she was related to Gray and the Nolan family, she was probably competitive too.
I met up with Laurie at the front desk and took a swig of my coffee. She was busy with a longtime member, so I logged in from the backup computer and checked this evening’s classes. Most were fully booked, so that was nice.
I heard Laurie mention happy hour on Friday but didn’t bother commenting. At some point, I’d lost my invite privilege. I was just the old boss now. Someone they called sir.
I was forty-fucking-one, not a senior citizen. A few years ago, we’d had a chill group of friends who went out to eat together. A couple of the guys had quit since then, two women had become moms, and the new recruits were in their early twenties.
Maybe I should dye my hair. Get rid of the gray. Try some face cream?—
“Ethan, hi.”
I glanced over my shoulder and spotted Natalie. Time to get back to work. With that frustrating woman. She had to be a lesbian—right? I may have become irrelevant to my staff, but clients always fucking gawked. Or at least commented on my physique. But not her.
Definitely lesbian.
“Hey, Natalie. I see you came prepared.” If I lived across the street, I would’ve changed clothes at home too. “We’re actually heading out, so you can just leave your stuff here behind the counter.” No need to go downstairs to the locker rooms for just a pair of sneakers.
“Oh! Okay.” She handed me the shoes—Christ, her feet had to be tiny—and I placed them next to the lost-and-found on the bottom shelf. Then I wrote a quick note on a Post-it in case anyone got any ideas. “Where are we off to?”
“Just out.” I smiled and left the desk, grabbing a hoodie on the way. The weather was great for early September, and I didn’t wanna waste the last of the summer warmth indoors. “This might make me the worst gym owner out there, but treadmills are for logging results and rainy days.”
She followed me out, and I gestured up the street.
“We’ll do a thirty-minute walk, and then we can lift some weights when we get back,” I said.
