“You've walked past the same window eleven times in three days.”
“I like the view.”
“There's a brick wall and a dumpster.”
He didn't have anything to say to that. He went quiet in the way that meant he was done arguing but not happy about losing, which was good enough for me.
The drive took another twenty minutes through neighborhoods that got progressively quieter and more residential. The athletic club was tucked into an area that straddled the line between commercial and private.
I pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. Troy looked at the building like it had personally let him down.
“How old is this place?”
“Sixty-eight.”
“It looks sixty-eight.” He got out of the truck and stood there surveying the facade with his arms still crossed. “I feel like this building has opinions about me.”
“It's a building.”
“Old buildings have energy. This one's suspicious.” He followed me toward the entrance anyway. “Does anyone actually know we're here, or is this where you take people when you want them to disappear?”
“I take you swimming,” I said, “and this is the thanks I get.”
“You didn't ask. You abducted me from my coffee.”
Inside, the place smelled like chlorine and old concrete. The front desk was empty but I had a key card that got us through the turnstile and into the locker rooms without having to explain anything to anyone.
“There's suits in the bins if you didn't bring one,” I said. “Should be something that fits.”
Troy looked at the bin like it might bite him. “Community swim trunks.” He said it slowly, working through the implications. “You want me to put on a stranger's swim trunks.”
“They're washed.”
“You hope.”
“They're washed,” I said. “Just pick a pair.”
He made a sound of deep personal suffering and started digging through the bin. I grabbed my own suit from my bag and moved to the other end of the lockers to change, giving us both the space to pretend we weren't paying attention to each other.
Except I was paying attention and I hated myself for it.
I heard him moving on the other side of the lockers. The pull of a zipper. The shift of fabric. And I made the mistake of glancing over just as he was pulling his shirt off.
Broad shoulders. Muscle earned through years of hard living, not a gym. Old scars across his ribs I didn't remember being there, evidence of a life I hadn't been part of.
I looked away fast and focused on getting changed. This was practical. Normal. Just two people going to a pool. Nothing about this required me to notice the way Troy filled out space now, and nothing about the sharp twist of guilt that hit me for noticing was ever going to be useful information.
I finished changing and grabbed a towel. “You ready?”
“Define ready.” He came around the corner wearing swim trunks that were a size too big and looking deeply aggrievedabout the entire situation. “I want it on record that I'm doing this under protest.”
“Noted.”
“Also these trunks are humiliating.”
“Nobody's looking at you.”
“You're looking at me.”
