Page 38 of Gym With Benefits

“We don’t have enough wine for this.”

"Brock was correcting my form from behind, and Hunter was holding my ankles, and then they were... trading me back and forth. Debating the mechanics.”

“Go slow,” he said, holding up a hand to stop the flow of my words. “I’m gonna use this later when I touch myself.”

I aimed a scatter cushion at his head. Hard enough to make his silk hood slip off. “I’m being vulnerable with you, goddammit.”

“Okay, okay,” he said with a laugh. “Carry on.”

“It was the way they were touching me,” I breathed, picking my way through the words that sounded most correct. “The way they were looking at each other over my head. I'm into Hunter, too. Like, exactly as much as I'm into Brock."

David sat frozen for five full seconds, processing the configuration. Then, gradually, a look of profound, religious awe spread across his face. He raised his hands toward the ceiling like a preacher at a tent revival.

"Praise the Lord," he whispered. "The potato has sprouted. She has sprouted into a magnificent, multi-stemmed exotic flower."

"David, it’s a mess," I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "I don't do this. I'm an archivist. I organize things into neat, acid-free boxes. I don't get tangled up with two men who work at the same gym and share a mutual competitive complex."

"Shut up," he said emphatically, reaching over to smack my shin. "Listen to me. You have spent five years living like a nun because Sharter and Amberlizard made you feel like you weren't allowed to have nice things. Now you have two gorgeous specimens of the male form practically fighting for the privilege of checking your alignment, and you're complaining about the filing system? God knows you could use some excitement that doesn't involve white gloves and nineteenth-century tax records."

"I don't even know if that's a thing people do," I muttered, looking up through my fingers. "Like... do they both know? Would they even want to? The whole thing feels like I’m heading for disaster."

David leaned back, his mind already spinning three steps ahead, his eyes gleaming with the sinister light of a master strategist.

"We need a field test," he said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial purr. "A controlled environment to see how the variables perform under pressure."

"What are you talking about?"

"The wedding," he said, a wicked smile spreading across his face. "Amberlump’s big, expensive production.”

“Seriously. How many of those do you have ready to fire?”

He shrugged. “I’m well-read. I could go for days… Amberleech, Amberliar, Amberleper— My point is: you need a date.”

I shook my head vehemently. “No.”

“You were going to go alone and look dignified and miserable while she did her victory lap. But imagine the optics, Jess. Imagine walking into that reception with one of them on your arm. Just one. To start." He winked at me, and I sank deeper into the couch.

The image of showing up to Amberleigh’s curated, high-society event with Brock or Hunter—men who looked like they had been chiseled out of granite—was an incredibly potent fantasy. It would completely rewrite the narrative. That was if either of them even wanted to go. What if Brock just wanted sex? What if I’d read Hunter all wrong and he wasn’t, in fact, interested in me that way?

"But which one would I take?" I asked, the question slipping out before I could stop it.

"Exactly," David said, snapping his fingers. "Which is why you’re going to bring one of them to my firm’s summer mixer.”

“I’m not going to your summer mixer.”

“You are. And you’re bringing one of them,” he said, fixing me with a no-nonsense stare. “Think of it as a trial run. Pick one, bring him as your date, and let's see how he handles the D.C. wolves before we deploy him against the final boss."

14

Jess

Choosing between Brock and Hunter was like trying to decide whether to get hit by a freight train or an avalanche. Both options promised total structural devastation, but the intricacies of the delivery system differed wildly.

Sabrina Carpenter’sPlease, please, pleaseblasted through the tinny speakers of my Civic, while the air conditioning did its best to fight the mid-morning swamp heat of District line traffic. I stared at the dashboard, my fingers drumming against the worn plastic of the wheel as I tried to calculate the social fallout of David’s proposed field test. If I brought Brock to the mixer, his shoulders alone would cause a minor legislative gridlock in the lobby. If I brought Hunter, he would probably spend the evening dissecting the subtext of the managing partner’s passive-aggressive small talk.

Both scenarios were terrifying. Both scenarios were infinitely better than showing up to Amberleigh’s wedding looking like a tragic historical artifact.

I turned the corner into the Capitol Fitness lot, my eyes locked onto a glorious, empty space three slots down from the main entrance. It was shaded by a scraggly oak tree, clean, andcompletely devoid of broken glass. I flicked my blinker on, a tiny surge of victory warming my chest, and cut the wheel.