“He prefers to call it a turban.” Jacob rolled his eyes. “I told him that Methodists don’t wear turbans, and he informed me black Methodists most certainly did wear turbans, but not in public.”
“Many do wear them in public,” I contradicted. “Not outside of their close friend groups or outside their neighborhood though.”
“Ah.” Jacob chuckled and shook his head. “Must be why I haven’t seen any guys with turbans, or bonnets, or even doo rags at Morgan Stanley.”
“I can imagine not.”
“Either way.” He turned to me, his expression serious. “You’ve seen beneath the surface of this guy you’ve been sleeping with. And he doesn’t sound like the kind of man who lets anyone see that side of himself. Don’t discount that. If you truly think there might be something more between you two, then give it another shot.”
“Yeah, I’ve got nothing to lose except my heart. Which really can’t take much more shattering,” I told him.
“Hearts are more sturdy than you give them credit for. Would you rather wrap that heart in fluffy gauze and Kevlar and wonder for the rest of your life what might have been? Or take a chance and keep the glue ready just in case?”
“I’ll never be his princess,” I confessed, feeling raw and exposed.
“Are you sure? The joy about finding a prince or princess is that they show up where you least expect them, looking like you least expect them.”
For a brief fleeting second I had hope. Then I sensibly crushed the feeling and put my phone back in my coat pocket.
I wouldn’t respond. No matter how much I wanted to, I wouldn’t respond. And tomorrow when I saw Eng, I would be all business.
31
WILLA
Twenty orcs stood across from me. I looked at their muscled bodies and thought that this should have been the easiest job I’d ever done. For years I’d been helping men and women work out at the Charm City gym, slowly growing my personal trainer side-gig, but this? Opportunities like this came once in a lifetime, if at all.
Me. A trainer for a professional sports team—a sports team made up entirely of orcs.
There wasn’t much to train, honestly. These guys were jacked. The improvements they needed were in game strategy and skill, not in personal fitness. Either the Tusks had a darned good exercise routine already, or they were just genetically gifted.
Looking at them, I was guessing the latter.
But while I wouldn’t need to turn twenty flabby couch potatoes into athletes, I did have a detailed workout plan to maximize what these guys would need to succeed on the ice.
The new coach, some guy named Bill Rencovitch, would be responsible for turning these guys into an actual hockey team. I’d complained for weeks about how the Tusks needed a trainingroutine that focused on flexibility, speed, and fast-twitch muscle development. I’d run them through what I’d put together and tweak based on how they did. Then I’d evaluate each of them and develop personalized training plans for all twenty orcs.
I had a meeting scheduled with Coach Rencovitch for when he started on Wednesday. I wanted to be able to give him my preliminary impressions and to hear what he’d like each of his players to focus on based on his own assessments.
I’d love every minute of it. Well, every minute aside from the orc who instead of propping up the back wall like I’d expected was front-and-center of the group.
I hadn’t seen Eng since Friday at McHenry’s post game when I’d told him I never wanted to see him again.
I steadied my breathing, refusing to let that jerk derail me and ruin this job.
Ignoring Eng, I instead focused on the other orcs. Ozar was all attentive respect. The equally jacked guy next to him, Ugwyll, seemed prepared to do everything in his power to best his teammates. The others were a mix of bored, confused, and worried based on their expressions. They were the ones I’d focus on, the ones who needed all the help they could get.
“My name is Willa, and as Mr. Johnson said, I’m the new team trainer. We’re going to do some cardio to warm up, so let’s hit those treadmills.”
One enthusiastic orc ran for the nearest machine and promptly put his fist through the control panel.
I winced. “No!Don’thit them. We’re going to run on them.”
“Sorry,” the guy said with a grunt, dipping his head. He stood on the tread of the broken machine and poked at the dangling section with the green quick-start button. Inexplicably, the thing actually started.
The other orcs made their way to the other machines. Someone must have showed them how to use the treadmills atsome point because they all seemed to know how to operate this particular piece of exercise equipment. I instructed them to increase speed to five miles per hour at an incline of one, then watched.
My first thought was that the team owner hadn’t cheaped out on the equipment. The pounding of the orcs’ feet would have quickly broken most treadmills. These were clearly some sort of industrial strength design beyond what we even had at Charm City.
