“Why not?”
“Getting fit for the job took over my life for a bit. Now I can’t be arsed. Seems pointless when I’m the only eejit kicking around.”
“You don’t need to eat?”
I give him a droll look. “They have apps for that too, ya know.”
Sab frowns, his gaze alive with the same disapproval I get from Logan sometimes. “Bien sûr, si tu veux te faire empoisonner à petit feu par de la bouffe dégueu—fuck. Sorry. Just come in, yeah?”
I’m already in, but I take that as my cue to toe my shoes off before I remember his gym stuff is on his back porch. “Are we going outside again?”
Sab shakes his head. “I brought what we need inside. I, uh, didn’t want you to be cold if you’re already sore.”
“It’s not that bad, honestly. You don’t have to have me in your house.”
“You’re standing like someone nicked your last walnut.”
“Walnuts, eh?”
“They’re good for you.” He inclines his head to a sideboard I haven’t noticed. A chipped ceramic dish is filled with the nuts in question, and despite the time of year bearing down on us, it’s the last thing I expect to see.
Sab must see it on my face. “Noix du Périgord,” he says in the rich accent that makes me feel like someone else. “My parents send tons of them from the Dordogne every winter.”
“That’s where they live?”
“These days, yeah.”
“You ever visit?”
“Not since Esme.” His expression shutters again, concealing the openness that brightens his whole face, old wounds hiding the real him away again.
I resent it. And I fecking loathe whoever’s hurt him. But I get hives when people push me too hard, and I’m not here to be his therapist.
If anything, I’m here for him to be mine. And so I follow Sab as he moves through his house to the living room that’s clinically tidy, save an itty-bitty pink dressing gown draped over the arm of the sofa. “No mess in here, either, eh?”
Sab crouches by some weights piled out of sight. “Ironically, I hate tidy things.”
I pause by the sofa, studying the back of his head.
Sensing my gaze, he turns a little. “I get restless when I’m alone. And if I don’t go to my brother’s, that’s every fucking night.”
“Single dad?”
“Yeah.” Sab stands with a few dumbbells in his strong arms. “You want to try some of these?”
I want to know more about him. Even the horrible shit that’s making him talk about himself as if he’s not worth anything. Even the best shit, which is clearly his brother and his kid, and the reason he brought home a mega-box of outdoor fairy lights this afternoon.
But Sab’s done talking. About himself, at least. He gestures to the open space in his living room and together, we move on to something far more painful forme.
Sab puts me back on my knees, kneeling behind me so I can’t see his face as he coaches me through a set of external rotations. Movement that hurts, but the dull ache has nothing on the slow-burn sensation of his searing hand cupping my elbow on my weaker side, keeping it tucked in, while the other hovers close to my forearm, guiding the movement.
It’s the oddest fecking thing that I feel his body heat most where he’s not touching me. That I’m hyper-aware of every minute movement he makes while the exercise he’s teaching me sends angry flares through my entire damn body.
“All right?”
His voice is a low murmur. A vibrating rumble that would get me hard if my shoulder didn’t bother me so much.
The pain is saving you from your over-horny self.
