Page 26 of Gym Bros (Bay Area Bros #2)
Soon enough, I’m in a very uncomfortable position that’s stretching the fuck out of my inner thighs and challenging my elbows.
“I don’t really feel this in my back.”
“Yeah, I know. Just find the stretch first?—”
“I got it.”
“You can readjust until it’s not pulling too much. I’m gonna have you moving here in a second.”
Thank God, because I don’t know how long I can hold this one.
I readjust on my mat until my inner thighs are screaming a little less and try to balance my weight between my elbows and knees.
Meanwhile, behind me, he’s moving my calves, pulling them parallel to my center line.
“So now,” he says, “I want you to kind of…drop your lower back between your legs and shift your weight forward onto your elbows. You should feel a mild lower back stretch.”
My lower back doesn’t do anything “mild,” but in following his directions, I’m positive I’m doing something wrong. It feels a lot like…
Fucking.
“There you go,” he says. “Now rock and back and forth from where you started. Go slow.”
“Are you enjoying this?” I ask.
“Shut up, Samuel.”
“Just saying, it feels a lot like?—”
“I get it,” he snaps. “Is it helping?”
“Yeah, feels great,” I say as I put a little more movement into it. My dick gets hard as I start to picture him beneath me, his legs around my waist, those pretty red lips parted on gasps.
“Am I doing it right?” I ask when he doesn’t correct me or anything.
Because this can’t possibly be what he meant for me to do. I’m literally mimicking sex, but all he’s got to say is, “Yeah. I mean you could go a little slower. Really feel the stretch.”
“Uh-huh.” Goddamn . “I’ve seen hockey players do something like this when they warm up.”
“It’s a really good hip stretch,” he says. “Makes sense.”
Now that he mentions my hips, I start to notice them, and I don’t like the way they’re feeling. Like they’ll be extremely sore tomorrow. “How much longer?”
“A few more thrusts—I mean?—”
I shake my head. “I know what you mean.”
“Okay, Jesus. Stop.”
I put my palms on the mat and close my legs, sitting back to kneel.
“Let’s try the forward bend again,” he says.
“Hang on,” I tell him. “Are you okay?”
He meets my eyes and winces. “Why? What do you mean?”
“I mean, I get why you’re not throwing yourself at me, but do you have to act like we’ve never met?”
“I’m not,” he argues. “I’m trying to fix your tailbone.”
“Look, I don’t expect you to sit on my lap or call me baby, but you’re still allowed to touch me if I could be doing something better.”
He flushes. “I didn’t realize I wasn’t.”
“Okay,” I say with narrowed eyes.
“I mean, I asked how your day went.”
“Yeah. You did.” I’ll give him that. “How was your run with Ryan?”
“Hard. He runs forever. ”
“You guys close?”
“I mean…we’re like—gym friends. I met him here.”
“You ever go out?” I ask.
“He has a boyfriend. Is that what you mean? Because yeah, sometimes I hang out with him—them. But he’s in a relationship.”
“So you never…hooked up with him?”
Calyx’s eyes widen. “No—I mean—is that your business?”
I shrug. “I’m just asking.”
“Okay.”
“But while we’re on the topic, have you been in a relationship recently?” I ask.
All the color drains from his face as fast as it rushed into it. “Why?”
“I’m sorry—are these not perfectly normal questions? I wasn’t asking if you have any weird fetishes or what your relationship with your mom is like—I’m just asking the guy I fucked yesterday if he’s recently been in a relationship.”
His lips part and he stares at me a moment. “Um. Okay. I uh…was dating a man named Isaac for a few months in the spring, but no one serious since.”
“He was a serious thing?”
“I mean, no…not really. It was mostly physical I guess.”
There goes my chest clenching up again. “You still talk to him?”
Calyx shakes his head. “No. I haven’t seen him since before summer.”
I nod.
“You?” he asks.
“Oh, no. I only have the one friend here, and there hasn’t been anybody. Ever really.”
“Okay.”
“I mean—if we’re being honest, my friend here did give me head one time a few weeks ago, but he says it was platonic head.”
“ He ?”
I nod.
“Platonic head?”
“Yeah, you know—head between friends.”
“I thought you said?—”
“Oh, I didn’t return the favor. He felt bad for me one night when I was feeling sorry for myself. I would have called it pity head, but platonic sounds nicer.”
“Okay.” Calyx takes a moment to take this in.
“That was literally my only other encounter with anything besides my hand since I moved here until…” I gesture at him.
“Is there some reason we’re having this conversation?” Calyx asks quietly.
I shrug. “Yeah, I saw that guy Ryan slap your ass, and I had questions.”
“Oh. Well, that was…platonic, too.”
“Got it.”
“Did it make you jealous?”
“If I said it did?”
“Um…” Calyx turns around to look at the clock. I stare at him, waiting for an answer, feeling slightly unhinged. “Can I think about it?” he asks.
“Sure. I assume you want to get back to yoga.”
He nods.
“Fine.”
Softly, he says, “I wanted you to try the forward bend again.”
I do, and to my surprise, I get several inches deeper into the stretch this time. “Damn,” I say. “That frog thing helped.”
“Try dropping the strap and holding onto your calves,” he tells me. “Then drop your head. ”
The deeper stretch burns my ass, but the sensation isn’t as dizzying as it’s been in the past.
I feel his knee against the middle of my back, and I check the mirror to watch him push me deeper.
“ Ffuuckk …” I groan. He lets up only to do it again. I guess I asked for it, didn’t I? But, after a few minutes of his help, I’m damn near holding onto my ankles.
I haven’t been able to do that since I was a kid.
His hands land on my shoulders. “Relax here,” he reminds me.
I force my elbows to drop, and then he pushes my chest even closer to my knees.
“Breathe.”
I do.
“That’s really good,” he says, and the words go straight to my dick.
“Yeah?”
“It’ll be a little different when you’re standing up, but yeah. How are those hamstrings?”
“Not bad.”
“Awesome,” he says. “Because this stretch is no joke. Great job.”
“Great teacher,” I say.
“It probably helps that you worked out all day.”
“Or you could just say thank you,” I tell him.
He stops leaning on me, and I sit up. A quick glance at the clock tells me we have a half hour left.
The torture is real.
“I guess we should work on your quads,” he says.
All business again, he introduces me to chair pose, which I instantly hate with every piece of my soul.
“I miss the goats,” I say, my thighs shaking .
He lets out a short laugh. It’s the first time I’ve heard it since I was tickling him yesterday.
It’s not really an opening, I get that, but while he might be okay with yesterday being a one-off, I want him to know I’d rather it not be, in case that wasn’t clear with all my questions earlier. “Plans later?” I ask.
His eyes widen. “Um. I—it’s Monday.”
“Is that a no?”
“Do you have plans?” he asks.
“Nope.”
“Then why do you ask?”
I look at him like seriously? “Have you had dinner?”
“I have food at home.”
“Yeah? So do I.”
“What does that mean?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I say. “What did you mean?”
“Nothing.”
I shrug and drop down into plank, sick of torturing my legs.
He lets out a breath. “While you’re there, bring your right leg forward and step into warrior one.”
I do, and he walks around me, turning and balancing my arms, and then he reaches my face, which he places his hands on and positions just so. We’re eye to eye like this.
His gaze drops to my mouth. I look at his, too.
“Were you asking me out?” he asks softly.
“You never said whether you were available or not.”
“If I said I am?”
“Then I might ask you out.”
“I need a shower,” he says. “I need to change clothes.”
“Your place?” I ask.
His thumb grazes my jaw, and his mouth feathers across mine. My stomach goes into freefall when he says, “Yeah.”
I’m feeling guilty about Beauty again while I pet Calyx’s cat on the couch and wait for him to come downstairs. What I really would like to do is invite him back to my place, but this is supposed to be a rest stop before we go out, so I doubt he’d agree to it.
The shower cut off several minutes ago, and after several more minutes when he hasn’t made an appearance, I go looking for him.
At the top of the stairs, I find the same sort of minimalist luxury as the living room.
Calyx’s bedroom is light and airy, his king-sized bed positioned beneath the bay window the same way mine is at my apartment.
The bed itself is covered in pillows, the thickest duvet I’ve ever seen, and a plush gray blanket.
His nightstands look like they were custom made to fit into the irregular spaces where they flank the bed.
Diamond-shaped pendant lights, rather than lamps hang over each one.
There’s an en suite I peek into, where he isn’t, but it’s just as fancy as the rest of the room with marble tile and a separate tub and shower.
Beyond it is an open door with the light on that I assume is his closet.
I knock on the door frame. “Can I come in? You’re taking forever.”
He sounds so defeated when he says, “I guess.”
I round the corner into a closet as large as my mother’s, and I thought no one’s could be bigger than hers. Calyx is at the center of a fashion explosion, dressed in a white linen robe.
“What do I wear?” he asks pitifully.
I’m personally happy with what he’s got on, but I say unhelpfully, “Whatever.”
He gestures grandly. “Pick something. ”
Another non-opening. “If it’s too much trouble, why not just throw on a t-shirt and sweats and come back to my place.”
He snorts. “Yeah, no. If we’re not going anywhere, just say so. It’ll save me a headache.”
“We don’t have to go anywhere,” I offer.
“No?” he asks, both pouting and hopeful.
I shake my head. “Find some pjs. I’ll order food, and we’ll watch a movie.”
His eyes widen in what could be terror. “A what? We’re doing what ?”