I wanted to know them both a lot better. I wanted to see them, to be around them, to hear her giggles and feel his hands on my skin and . . . shit, I wanted so much more.
Two canceled dates didn’t change any of that.
Hell, twenty canceled dates wouldn’t change it.
I had no clue if this could work out long term. Dating, especially in the gay world, inspired less confidence than one of those glass-bottom pools dangling a thousand feet in the air between buildings. And dating someone with a kid was terrifying. It was also uncharted territory for me, full of complications I’d never had to navigate before; but I was determined to find out, determined to prove that I could be the kind of man who rolled with the punches, who understood that sometimes babysitters flaked and children got sick and plans had to change.
I was determined tobethe man I always dreamed of finding.
By the time traffic finally started moving, I’d made a decision. Instead of going home to sulk, I was heading to Iron Temple. I needed to work out this frustration, channel it into something productive. At the very least, I needed to punch a bag or lift a bar or anything to make the knot in my chest release.
The gym was busier than usual for a Saturday afternoon, but I managed to claim a bench in the corner. I loaded more weightthan I probably should have and started lifting with the kind of focused intensity that came from having something to prove.
To myself, if no one else.
I was three sets in, sweat dripping and muscles burning, when I heard a familiar voice behind me. “Excuse me, but are you using that incorrectly on purpose, or do you just have a death wish?”
I turned to find Mateo standing there, tanned arms crossed, looking at my loaded barbell with the expression of someone who’d just witnessed a crime against fitness.
“Mateo? What are you doing here?”
“Apparently preventing you from crushing yourself under two hundred pounds of poor life choices.” He gestured at my setup. “That’s way more weight than you can lift with good form. What happened? Did someone challenge you to a stupidity contest?”
I sat up, wiping sweat from my forehead. “Bad day. Working through some frustration.”
“By attempting suicide via bench press?” He shook his head. “That’s not working through frustration; that’s working through common sense. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
Mateo’s Italian accent was impossible to resist. Oddly, it also made me hungry. I was suddenly craving Alfredo sauce and meatballs.
Despite myself, I began telling him about my canceled date, the babysitter crisis, the growing feeling that maybe dating a single father was more complicated than I’d bargained for.
Mateo listened with the serious attention of someone receiving a medical diagnosis, occasionally nodding or making thoughtful humming sounds. I imagined this was how he listened to his players when they were in a slump or going through something at home.
“So let me get this straight,” he said when I finished. “You’re mad at a guy because his five-year-old daughter is more important to him than you are?”
Put like that, it sounded ridiculous.
“That’s not—”
“Because that’s what it sounds like.” Mateo shifted his stance and cocked a brow. “And your solution to this perceived slight is to add fifty pounds to your bench press and hope for the best?”
“I wasn’t—”
“What you need,” he continued, ignoring my protests, “is a plan that doesn’t involve emergency room visits. The weights will be here tomorrow, but your rotator cuff might not be.”
I stared at him, then at the overloaded barbell, and suddenly burst out laughing.
“You’re right,” I said, starting to unload the excess weight. “This was stupid.”
“Idiotic. Also ineffective. Has bench pressing ever solved a babysitter crisis?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
“Then maybe we should brainstorm something that actually addresses the problem instead of just tearing vital organs apart.”
As I worked through my sets with a more reasonable weight, Mateo spotted and peppered me with questions about Theo and Debbie, about what I actually wanted from this relationship, about whether I was looking for solutions or just looking for excuses to give up.
“You know what your real problem is?” he said as I finished my last rep.
