Font Size
Line Height

Page 43 of Gym Bros (Bay Area Bros #2)

CALYX

“ T hat was rude,” I tell Rachel as she hauls me several feet away from Samuel. “We were having a moment.”

“Were you?” she asks, moving in a way that forces me to dance with her. My boner is so swollen, it’s going to look like a fishnet cock if I ever get someone to take this body stocking off me.

“I thought so,” I say.

“Speaking of which…have you had a moment to tell him about how well you know his father?”

All the alcohol I’ve ingested takes a nasty turn in my stomach, and I’m pretty sure I turn green. “No,” I hiss at her.

“And why is that?”

“ Because .” I lean in to speak directly into her ear. “He doesn’t need to know. I’m not fucking proud of it, okay, but it’s got nothing to do with us.”

“And if he finds out from someone other than you…”

“You wouldn’t fucking dare,” I say, appalled.

“I’m not talking about me, babe. Or Pri. I’m talking about Marcus.”

“Why the fuck would Marcus tell him? ”

“Who knows? Why the fuck is he so obsessed with getting you back to work? I have an idea—maybe so he can see you more often.”

“Stop,” I say sharply, refusing to consider that after the bullet I recently dodged with Marcus showing up in town unannounced. “I’m going back to work soon enough. If you want to make me feel bad, you can start with guilting me about not telling Samuel that .”

“I’m pretty sure that amazing man over there will forgive you for needing to make a living. What he might not forgive you for?—”

“I know . That’s why I think it’s best that everyone just puts the past in the past.”

Rachel gives me a look like she knows something I don’t. “You forget I’ve seen you with Marcus.”

I scowl. “What does that mean?”

“It means he looks at you a little bit like Samuel does.”

I stop dancing. “No. He doesn’t.” I know from the bottom of my heart that’s not true because no one looks at me like Samuel does.

Maybe he’s got his dad’s eyes, but the resemblance ends there—at the physical.

Samuel’s gaze is the polar opposite of Marcus’s.

Marcus may want me here and there from time to time, but Samuel—he—he loves me.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure of it. He’s just trying to make me say it first, but when I don’t, he’ll come out with it eventually. Maybe even tonight. He’s so close.

I walk off the dance floor, but Rachel’s not far behind me. She stands next to me at the bar while I order another drink. “Well, on the off chance it gets out, I think it’d be better if he heard it from you.”

“Why?” I ask tensely.

“Because you can ease him into it. Explain it. Tell him whatever you need to say to make it less weird. ”

I shake my head. I think about this literally every day. Since I kissed Samuel on his birthday, this is an ongoing conversation I have with myself. My conscience and I have both come to the logical conclusion that what Samuel doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

And there’s no way in hell Marcus would want it out in the open either since apparently he’s gone to great lengths to hide his infidelity from his family to the point of outright lying about it.

Samuel wouldn’t be surprised his father isn’t faithful, but he wouldn’t like it.

Also, it’s one thing to know it happens—another to know who precisely it happens with .

That it’s happened with me ? I shake my head.

Everybody has secrets. At first, I thought I wouldn’t be able to get past it and really give myself to Samuel, but I fell for him like I’ve never fallen in my life.

Marcus is totally in the past aside from the occasional email or text, all but two of which were totally professional.

I haven’t even seen him since he asked me to teach Sam yoga.

And who knows? I might decide to quit modeling altogether.

I don’t know what the fuck else I’d do besides leverage my social media following, but I wouldn’t need a manager for that.

I’m not ready to think that far ahead yet, though.

I want to see how the trip to Europe goes first. If it’s awful, then I’ll be forced to consider my options. But it might be fine.

For now, I’ve got enough stress worrying about Samuel getting hurt to add to it by inflicting my own brand of damage by telling him about my past with his dad. “It would only hurt him,” I say.

“So, in terms of a future, you don’t foresee a time when he might want to bring you home to meet the parents?”

She’s acting like she’s the first person to think of this when I’ve literally played through every possible scenario in my mind. “I have a plan for when that happens. ”

I’ve had to, because I think I’m dangerously close to being invited to Thanksgiving.

We’ve settled Christmas, but once Samuel’s made it out of his fight alive, he’ll realize what season we’re actually in, I’ll let him know I’ll be in London for the first two weeks of December, and he won’t be worried about what I’m doing while I’m there.

I’ve casually asked him whether he’s told his parents about me—us—and he said he hasn’t. His actual words were, “No, my dad gets weird when it comes to you. He’ll think I’m distracting you from your true purpose or something.”

When I asked if we’d be keeping the secret forever, he’d laughed and said no. And then he cracked some stupid joke-not-joke about how I had to prove I was serious about him first.

I try to do that by doing things like offering to cover up his black eye with concealer and makeup, but of course he told me that was weak and wouldn’t let me. I swear he’s proud of it—the same way I am when I achieve a perfect cat eye.

“What’s the plan, then?” Rachel presses.

Not that she has any right to know, but I tell her anyway. “I’ll talk to Marcus first.”

“You don’t think he’ll be pissed?”

“I don’t care whether he’s pissed. It’s not really his business.”

“I mean—that’s his baby boy.”

I shut my eyes and try to gather my breath. The buzz of alcohol makes me sway slightly. Maybe I’ll just sip this next drink. “Exactly,” I say. “And neither one of us would want to see him get hurt.”

“If you say so.”

“Look, I know this is hard to believe, but I do think about this,” I tell her. “It’s why I tried not to get involved in the first place, but as I recall, you’re the one who pushed me into it.”

“I mean, I didn’t hold your head on his cock.”

“Bitch,” I mutter .

“I think you’re missing my point anyway,” she says. “I love seeing you this happy. Like—it’s amazing. And I love Sam, too, and he’s so happy. That’s why this secret needs to get out of the way of things. I want this to work for both of you.”

“If you want it to work so bad, maybe you can talk him into some other career that won’t end up with him having permanent brain damage.”

She looks surprised. “He’s really good though. Have you seen any of his film?”

I shake my head, wishing I hadn’t brought it up because I don’t want to think about that either.

“It’s all over his Insta. You never look at it?”

“Why would I do that?”

“Um…because he’s your boyfriend, and it’s obviously important to him?”

“Yeah, well, it’s actually super important to me that his bone structure remains intact.”

“You don’t seriously want him to quit do you?”

“Yes. I mean—no. I don’t know. I just want him to be okay.”

She puts an arm around me, letting me know nice Rachel is making a rare appearance. “Did you know fighters in long term relationships are more successful?”

“Where’d you read that?”

“Statistical fact.”

“Yeah?”

“Gives them purpose.”

“Right.”

“Okay, fine,” she says. “I made that up, but I bet it’s true.”

“It sort of makes sense, I guess,” I say.

“Anything that helps you get through it, babe. He’s so, so good for you.”

“Yeah?” I ask, that ever-present sense of hopelessness threatening to creep through the barrier I put up in my mind to protect myself from it.

“Aside from your stellar genetics, I’d daresay he’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”

“Why’d it have to be him , though?”

“Ah, well…if he were perfect, you wouldn’t be half as interested.”

“He’s almost perfect,” I hear myself saying.

“And cute too.”

“We’re not allowed to call him cute. It bruises his ego or something.”

She laughs and hugs me to her. “He’s a keeper, babe. I’m happy for you.”

“He’s twenty-one. I’m probably just a phase,” I say, the alcohol doing that melancholy thing to me it sometimes does.

She ruffles my hair. “Oh, stop. He’s one of the most focused people I’ve ever met. I don’t get the sense he goes after anything with less than his full chest.”

“Maybe,” I say quietly. Then, not wanting to think about it anymore, I ask, “What about you? Are you any closer to settling down?”

“Ha!” she barks. “As if there’s a man alive who could handle all this.”

I laugh. A tattooed arm shows up on the bar next to me, and I turn toward Ryan, extricating myself from Rachel’s stifling hug.

Here’s a perfect example of someone who totally changed once he found his person.

He gives me an easy grin that shows off his tiny dimples.

“Someone’s got a natural glow tonight,” he says.

“Oh, thank you for noticing. Tinted moisturizer.”

He laughs. “Not what I meant.”

“Oh, you mean because you think I got laid recently? I should set the record straight. It’s been three days. ”

“He looks pretty roughed up. Didn’t know whether to assume you guys got freaky or he’s been going hard at the gym.”

“Jesus, Ryan. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to you like this.”

“Is his nose broken?” he asks.

I gawk at him. “No! Why?”

“The only time I ever had a black eye like that, my nose was broken. But I guess it was both eyes in that case.”

“Who broke your nose?”

“What can I say,” he says. “High school sucked. Some fucking lacrosse player probably. Those guys were assholes.”

Ad If ads affect your reading experience, click here to remove ads on this page.