“Yeah!” The younger man yawned. “I had a late night. Usually, I’d do energy drinks to stay up, but I was out, so I thought I’d try your juice instead. They were delicious and kept me from getting hungry!”
“It’s . . .” He needed a delicate way to say this. “It’s also a lot of fiber to consume in a short amount of time if your body isn’t used to it.”
“Fiber?” Avery frowned as a blush started at the base of his throat and worked its way up to his hairline. “But it’s juice.”
“Well yes, but it’s not like the juice you buy at the grocery store—”
“Oh I know. That stuff is full of sugar. But yours is healthy, right? Do you know Damian Marshall?”
Oliver frowned at the sudden swerve in Avery’s verbal onslaught. “The movie star?”
“Yeah!”
“Yes, I do.”
Avery’s eyes bugged out one more time. “You do? Like really? That’s so amazing! What’s he like? He’s so hot in the movies. I mean—”
“No.” Oliver waved him off. “No, I mean I know who he is. I’ve never met him.”
“Oh.” Avery slumped. Damian Marshall was the biggest action star on the planet. How the hell was Oliver supposed to actually know him?
“What does he have to do with all-nighters and energy drinks?”
Avery’s smile was back in an instant. “I follow him online. He’s totally into juicing right now. He says it’s the best way to help him get into shape when he starts shooting!”
Oliver sighed. Avery was clearly lacking some research.
“He also definitely has an army of trainers and nutritionists monitoring everything he does. For everyday people like you and me, you can’t make wholesale instantaneous changes like that. Your body needs time to adapt to what you’re putting into it.”
Avery’s face clouded over as he clutched at his throat. “What’s going to happen to me?”
This poor kid.
“Your first coaching session isn’t supposed to be until Monday, but maybe we can do a quick one right now?”
Since opening for business, Oliver only had a few coaching clients. Most had been fairly well-informed when they walked through the door. They’d been looking for ways to enhance their existing lifestyles, so Oliver helped them customize the meal plans, and they checked in from time to time with questions or to pick up juice for busy weeks. But within a few minutes, it became clear that Avery was starting from nowhere.
“I mostly drink energy drinks. I know they’re not good for you, but they work. But I thought maybe there was some kind of juice you could make that would work too.”
The disappointment on his face when Oliver explained that wasn’t really how it worked was almost comical, but Oliver was sympathetic. Energy drinks had gotten him through his last year of law school, and that year in the public defender’s office before Cooper had found him a spot with the corporate firm he’d joined after they’d graduated. How Oliver’s diet of coffee, cigarettes, and energy drinks hadn’t resulted in any serious health effects could only be described as a miracle, and Cooper had finally convinced him to stop.
Cooper, who had dragged him out of his apartment where he’d been working for nearly seventy straight hours. He’d taken Oliver down the block to a diner and forced some food in him.
“You’re going to kill yourself if you keep going like this.”
Oliver had been too busy trying not to bite his own fingers off while he inhaled his burger to really acknowledge what Cooper was trying to say. He hadn’t eaten anything in days.
“Oliver?” Avery asked.
Oliver blinked back to the present. “Sorry, what?”
“I asked how you started this business?”
“What if we gave this up? God knows we’ve made enough money. What if we did something else?”
“My boyfriend and I came up with the idea a few years ago.”
“Your boyfriend?” Avery’s eyes widened, and Oliver bit his lip. His newest customer’s guilelessness had made Oliver careless.
