ADRIANA

 

Not for the first time that morning Adriana wonders what she had been thinking when she’d agreed to come here. She’s standing outside of the gym that Grayson had directed her to, contemplating if it would look really bad if she just texted him with a bullshit excuse and left.

 

“Adriana?” West’s voice calls from behind her.

 

Busted. She plasters a smile on her face and turns around. “West, hey!”

 

“You looking for Grayson?” The bald man looks at her with interest, clearly trying to gauge what the situation is between her and the man he thinks of as a son.

 

“Yes, I mean no.” Adriana reminds herself that she’s a smart, professional woman and should be able to string a sentence together. “He invited me to training today, but I was just thinking that I should probably go. I don’t want to interrupt you guys.” She makes a move to head back towards her car, wincing at her lack of cool.

 

“You’re not interrupting, little lady. The guys will work even harder, showing off in front of a pretty girl like you. Come on, I’ll show you around.” West doesn’t wait for her reply before he throws a muscular arm around her tiny shoulders and leads her through to the gym. The testosterone in the place is palpable. There are some young guys in the ring, ostensibly working on their footwork. They wolf-whistle her as she walks past, and she blushes like a teenager.

 

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you—unless you want to try your luck with ‘The Punisher.’” West doesn’t even break stride as he throws out the threat, but Adriana steals a look at the boys and watches them pale. She has to stifle a laugh at the effect Grayson’s name has on them.

 

There are some more men in the weights section, going to town on the punching bags and lifting heavy weights. Then, she sees the person whom she’s been seeing in her dreams virtually every night for ten years. He and Tommy are on the mats contorting themselves into what look like impossible positions.

 

“They’re practicing submissions,” West explains quietly, motioning her over the bench to take a seat and watch the action unfold. 

 

Tommy catches sight of her and smiles broadly, taking his eyes off of his sparring partner which seems to be a pretty bad idea. Grayson kicks Tommy’s legs out from underneath him and applies pressure on Tommy’s neck with his shin. Adriana covers her mouth, wanting to shout out at Grayson not to hurt the other man before she remembers where she is. She’s in their world now, and they do this all the time. They don’t need her interfering.

 

“That’ll teach you not to take your eye off of your opponent, Smiler!” West barks a laugh, ignoring the look that Tommy shoots him. “Grayson, your guest is here.” West nods towards Adriana, who is sitting as straight as a board on the bench.

 

She can tell the exact moment that Grayson’s eyes land on her. Heat floods through her, and she feels like the sun has just come out. He jogs over to her; his muscular arms making her stomach do a little flip.

 

“Hey, I didn’t realize you were here.” He’s breathing heavily, like he and Tommy have been at this for a while.

 

“Hey, yeah West showed me around.” She gestures towards the coach who is busying Tommy with some slow-motion flip. “It’s pretty impressive.”

 

“It’s not much, but it’s home.” Grayson laughs, and it’s one that reaches his eyes, a laugh that she gets the impression he doesn’t let most people see.

 

She can feel the butterflies in her stomach fluttering like crazy. How did she think she was going to be able to be friends with this man when his very presence turned her inside out with desire?

 

“Anyone give you any trouble?” Grayson’s eyes darken, as he looks around at the other men behind her. “We don’t get a lot of women in here, turns some of them a little…basic.” He looks almost apologetic, and Adriana tries to put out of her mind how nice it feels to know that he cares what she thinks and that he wants to look after her and make sure that she’s okay.

 

“They were on their best behavior then.” She has no intention of telling Grayson about the wolf-whistles, not after what she had just seen him do to Tommy.

 

Adriana watches as West takes Tommy through the move again. Grayson notices her interest in what’s going on. “You want a turn?” He raises an eyebrow at her, as he nods towards the mats.

 

Adriana’s breath quickens. “I don’t think I’m really made for doing that. I’m about as coordinated as a seasick donkey! Besides I’m pretty sure I’m not strong enough to flip any of you guys; so, unless you have a small child hiding somewhere round here, I think I should just stay on the bench.” She’s rambling, but it’s the effect that Grayson has on her; she becomes all hot and bothered—as Willow would say—and unable to behave like a rational human being.

 

“Well, that’s the beauty of this move, you don’t need to be stronger than the person you’re flipping. Come on, give it a try. Besides, you can’t trick me, I know your dad taught you how to box; you can’t be that uncoordinated.” Grayson gives her a look that tells her he’s not taking no for an answer. She thinks how well he and Willow would get along, both as stubborn as mules.

 

“She’s beautiful, and she can box! Get her over here!” West’s voice rings out in the gym, making it clear that their private exchange hadn’t been all that private.

 

As Adriana looks around, she sees that West’s outburst has caught the attention of pretty much every guy in the place, and now they are all looking at her expectantly. If there was one thing that Adriana can’t back down from, it is a challenge.

 

“Lead the way, Punisher.” She smirks at Grayson before following him out onto the mats. She notices that the other guys aren’t wearing shoes, and she toes off her sneakers, realizing how inappropriately dressed she is. Denim shorts and a tank top aren’t exactly workout gear.

 

“Hey Adriana, good to see you again.” Tommy beams at her, looking between her and Grayson. “So are you two…?” He leaves the question hanging, and Adriana can feel herself blushing like a virgin.

 

“We’re hanging out, Tommy. We’re friends.” The look that Grayson gives him seems to speak volumes.

 

“Right, friends, that’s cool.” Tommy nods in understanding, but he can’t help but look confused. The idea of women and men being friends clearly hadn’t reached the MMA ring yet. “So how’s your friend, Willow?”

 

“Nice segway.” Grayson shakes his head at the younger man in amusement.

 

“She’s good.” Adriana doesn’t give anything else away. She knows from Willow that Tommy had made the rounds at the after-party and spent time with pretty much every woman there before getting to her. Adriana figures that if he’s really interested, then he’s going to have to work for her friend.

 

“Cool, cool.” Tommy nods, rocking up and down on his toes.

 

“Shit or get off the pot, Tommo!” West slaps him on the back.

 

Adriana laughs at West’s romantic way of putting things. However, seeing the embarrassment plain on Tommy’s face, she decides to throw him a bone. “Do you want her number?”

 

He looks at her gratefully, and she thinks how young he looks when he’s not trying to give the impression of being a baller.

 

“Can we get on with training now that we’ve sorted out your love life, Tommy?” West taps his foot impatiently. “Grayson, show Adriana the flip and let’s get moving.”

 

Grayson gets into position in the center of the mat. “I’m going to show you the move slowed down, alright? I won’t actually flip you though, don’t be scared.” Adriana nods quickly, feeling her pulse quicken as Grayson takes hold of her shoulders and leans her over his hip so that she’s off-balance and almost falling to the ground. He rights her again and repeats the move a couple more times.

 

It’s an effort for her to concentrate on the instructions he’s giving her when all she wants is to let him hold her. Wake up, Adrie, she tells herself. You’re the one who said you wanted to be friends just because you couldn’t let go of him. You’ve gotten yourself into this mess.

 

“I think I’ve got it.” She looks up at him and realizes that she’s breathless. She wishes that she didn’t feel like her heart was pumping out of her rib cage.

 

“Try it out on Tommy.” Grayson nods behind her.

 

Tommy is lighter than Grayson…there’s no way around that. Adriana bristles a little at the intimation that she won’t be able to flip Grayson. “What’s up, Gray? You scared?” She lifts her chin, throwing a cool look at him.

 

“Ooh, I like her!” Tommy’s enthusiastic voice boosts her confidence.

 

“Sounds like the lady’s thrown the challenge out there, Gray.” West’s tone is goading, and Adriana wonders how these men ever get anything done when they’re so busy winding each other up.

 

“You sure about this?” Grayson dips his head down a little so that only she can hear his whisper. His face is only inches from hers, and she has to actually stop herself from leaning into him like she so desperately wants.

 

“Let’s do it.” Adriana plants her feet as Grayson has taught her and gives him a determined look.

 

“Alright, but be careful, you don’t want to—” Grayson doesn’t have a chance to tell her what she should be careful of before she lands him on the mat.

 

He looks up at her in shock, his eyes comically wide in surprise. “You cheated!”

 

“Umm, actually I think you’ll find that she just handed you your ass in front of the whole gym.” The note of satisfaction in Tommy’s voice is unmistakable, and it makes Adriana giggle. Tommy holds his hand up for a high five, and she obliges, feeling pretty slick.

 

“Okay, so you’ve got that one down. Let’s see how you do with something a little tougher.” Grayson plants his feet and starts showing her another move, a Muay Thai punch. Then, they move onto another and another. It’s not long before they’re the focal point of the entire gym.

 

“Back to work, guys.” West’s commanding voice encourages them all back to whatever they should be doing, and it cuts through Adriana’s concentration.  She looks at the clock on the wall, almost an hour has gone past since Grayson had started showing her the flip.

 

“I guess I should let you get on with your training.” Adriana takes a step back from Grayson, needing that physical distance from him. The smell of his maleness and his nearness was a heady mixture. It threatened to completely overcome her.

 

“You’re really good, Adrie.” She’s about to tell Grayson not to humor her, but there’s no mistaking the expression on his face; he’s seriously impressed.

 

“Good teacher I guess.” She shrugs off the compliment, just as she always does.

 

“Stick around. We’ll take a break for lunch in a little while.” It’s not a request, and the way that Grayson looks at her makes her feel like she’s going to be the one on the menu. She feels her knees go weak and reminds herself that’s exactly why she can’t stay.

 

“Thanks, but I have um…plans for lunch.” Adriana looks anywhere but at him, not wanting to get into this now.

 

Grayson frowns at her, like he knows she’s hiding something. “Coach, I’m gonna walk Adrie to her car.”

 

West nods curtly and throws her a look. “And Adriana, if you ever think about going pro, you know where to come.”

 

She smiles at the sweetness of the older man. “Thanks West, you’ll be the first to know.” She turns to Grayson, not wanting to spend any more time with him, especially not alone and away from the prying eyes of his buddies. “You really don’t have to walk me.”

 

“I know I don’t have to. I want to.” The words are said so gently and so simply that all of Adriana’s objections fly out of her head.

 

As they head outside, she concentrates on putting one foot in front of the other and not on the smell of him, the heat of him, and the memory of his hands on hers, as he showed her the flips, kicks, and punches.

 

“I’m glad you came.” The sincerity in Grayson’s eyes mixed with the unimpeachable gorgeousness of the man is almost enough to crumble her resolve. “So where are you rushing off to?” The question seems casual, but the way he narrows his eyes at her is anything but.

 

Adriana gulps, she had hoped to avoid this conversation, but there’s no point in lying. If they were friends, then these things were bound to happen. “I have a lunch meeting.” She hopes that she’s not blushing like Willow tells her she does when she’s not telling the whole truth.

 

“A lunch meeting? On your day off?” He looks askance at her, clearly not buying her story.

 

“It’s a date, a lunch date.” She doesn’t look at him, as she admits to her deceit, and once she’s started she can’t stop. “A colleague at the hospital, he’s been asking me out for a while now. I guess I figured, why not?” She can’t look at Grayson as she says the words, but she can feel his shoulders slump at her words.

 

“Right, why not?” The sarcasm in his voice is clear, but he seems to pull himself together. “This guy, you like him?” The words sound like he’s forcing them out, like it’s not a question that he really wants to hear the answer to.

 

Adriana shrugs noncommittally. If she’s being honest, the answer is not really; but, the doctor had been persistent, and she’d run out of reasons to say no. Aside from that, Willow had threatened her with indescribable pain if Adriana didn’t ‘get out there’ as she had put it. So, that’s what she was doing. She was getting over Grayson. It was the only sane thing that she could do.

 

But she doesn’t say any of those things. “He’s nice.” It sounds so banal, so ordinary as the words are out of her mouth, but it’s not untrue.

 

Grayson looks at her as if she’d just punched him. “You deserve to be with someone that’s good to you.” His voice is husky as he looks at her, and there seems to be so much more that he wants to say.

 

She feels her heart break a little at the expression on his face. She had assumed that he didn’t care enough about her and that’s why he’d never stuck around, but the way he’s looking at her now tells a different story. That’s what got you into this mess in the first place, Adriana, she reminds herself. Trust what you know, not what you think you can mind read.

 

“Thanks, but it’s just lunch.” Adriana brushes away his comment. She needs to get into her car and drive away right now. Otherwise, the way that Grayson is looking at her is going to take all her strength of will away. “Thanks for walking me.” She smiles at him gratefully, resisting the urge to reach up and smooth the frown furrowing his brow.

 

“Sure.” Grayson concentrates on the ground in front of him as if he’s seeing something intensely interesting there.

 

“What is it?” She curses herself for not taking his word as a goodbye, but how could she when there was so clearly something on his mind?

 

“Nothing, it’s no big deal. I’d just wanted to ask you something today. But…it doesn’t matter. You should get going.” He smiles at her bravely and starts to back away.

 

“Tell me. What did you want to ask me?” The question catches in her throat, and she wishes that she weren’t so desperate to know, but she is. That’s the sad truth of it. She would always care about what Grayson had to say to her.

 

“It’s stupid really,” he says, waving the thought away.

 

“Grayson Christopher Fletcher. Since when are you shy?” She plants her hands on her hips, wondering what’s made him break out in that goofy smile suddenly.

 

“You’re the only that calls me that outside of my sister.” He chuckles lightly to himself, and the levity of the moment has broken the tension.  “There’s this winner’s party in a couple of days…my new sponsors are throwing it. I wanted to ask if you’d come with me…as a friend.”

 

Adriana’s jaw drops, and she makes an effort to close it again before a bug flies in. “Well, umm, I don’t know if that would be such a good idea.” She wrings her hands nervously, knowing that there’s no way she can go to a function as Grayson’s date and see all the other women fawning over him.

 

“The whole black tie thing is so not my scene, but I have to go. It would be really nice to have a friend there. Someone who thinks the whole thing is as much of a pain in the ass as I do!” Grayson tilts his head, looking at her with his soulful dark eyes that just kill her.

 

“Isn’t there anyone else you want to ask? You know, like a date.” The words turn to ash in her mouth, but she has to ask.  After the display of women in his dressing room the other night, it’s perfectly clear that he could have his pick. She didn’t want to be anyone’s consolation prize.

 

“There’s no one else I’d rather go with.” The certainty in Grayson’s voice sends the memories of that brunette draped over him flying out of her head. “Besides, I don’t date.”

 

He doesn’t date, Adriana thinks. Of course he doesn’t, that’s why she was standing here trying to convince herself that the one night they’d had together was more than just that.

 

“And I don’t have anything to wear to a function like that…” Adriana stops as she realizes how pathetic her excuses are getting.

 

“You could wear a brown paper bag and still be the most beautiful woman in the room, Adrie.” Grayson says the words as if they were a statement of fact, and he completely floors her, rendering her literally speechless. “So what do you say, Adriana? Will you go with me and make it a little more bearable?”

 

Adriana swallows hard. The look he gives her is so sweet. Plus, with that devastating smile of his, he’s really pulling out the big guns. No matter how she tries to pretend otherwise, she’s powerless to say no to him.

 

She smiles with a confidence that she doesn’t feel. “Do I get to see you in a monkey suit?”

 

“And you’re free to give me as much of a hard time about it as you want.” His eyes flash with humor.

 

“Then, how can I say no?” How indeed, she wonders.

 

“Great. I’ll send you the details. They’re sending a limo,” Grayson makes a face to tell her exactly what he thinks of the ostentatiousness of that, “so, I’ll pick you up from your place.”

 

“Great.” Adriana nods enthusiastically, asking herself how she managed to get herself into this position.

 

“Have fun on your date, Adrie.” Grayson sounds as serious as her father would’ve been if he’d ever had the opportunity to say the same words to her. “But not too much fun. Don’t do anything I would.” The tone of his voice suggests that he’s only half-joking, which makes her even more confused.

 

She fumbles her car key into its lock. “Hold on a sec. This is your ride?” Grayson looks at her in consternation.

 

“Yeah, did you think I was trying to break into a stranger’s car with my keys?” She waves the collection in his face, snatching it away again as his eyes settle on the embarrassing photo of her and Willow that makes up her key-ring. Willow had given it to her as a joke from some photo booth pictures they’d taken together the first year they lived together.

 

Grayson shakes his head, pointing at the red sports car on the other side of her. “I thought that was your car.”

 

Adriana raises an eyebrow; it would probably take up most of her salary just paying for the insurance on that thing. “You clearly aren’t up to speed with what nurses make!”

 

But Grayson doesn’t laugh. “This car is a deathtrap. Seriously, how old is it?”

 

Adriana lifts her chin. She’s been looking after herself for a long time, and she doesn’t need to be told by some guy that her car is a piece of crap. She already knows that, but it is her piece of crap. “My dad gave it to me, and I drove it up here from Philly. It may not be quite up to your new standards, Grayson; but, I knew you when the only set of wheels you had were on a bike!” She crosses her arms, giving him a look that would melt the polar ice caps.

 

“Easy there, tiger.” He makes calming gestures to her. “I was just trying to say that it doesn’t look all that safe. I’m concerned about you driving around in something that looks like a coastal wind would knock it into oncoming traffic!”

 

Adriana wonders if it’s possible that Grayson will ever stop surprising her. She had thought he was being all hoity-toity, but he was really just worried about her. “It’s fine, Gray. It’s not something you have to worry about. The car’s like me; we’re tougher than we look. Or do I need to get you back on those mats to remind you?” She gives him a knowing look and feels herself go all warm and fuzzy as he turns his genuine, boyish smile on her.

 

“No, no, I’m covered on that front, Adrie.” The awkward moment has passed, and they’re both relieved that it’s over. “Just drive safe, alright?” He looks at her from under his frown.

 

“I always do.” She locks eyes with him, and her heart skips a beat. She’s no longer sure if she’s talking about driving or herself anymore.

 

“G! Coach is threatening to come out here and drag you inside if you’re not back in the ring in one minute!” It’s one of the younger fighters who had wolf-whistled at Adriana. He’s breathing hard, as if West has put the fear of God into him.

 

“Goddammit.” Grayson snarls the word, frustrated, under his breath.

 

“You should get back.” Adriana nods towards the kid who is still watching them, as if he’s expecting Grayson to disappear into thin air and then have to explain to West why he wasn’t in the ring within the stated time.

 

“Yeah, sure looks that way.” Grayson scratches his head ruefully. “I’ll see you later?” He seems to hesitate then; but, he makes a decision and follows through with it. He reaches out, his arm encircling her shoulders, and he kisses her gently on the cheek. It’s a chaste kiss that Adriana tries to convince herself is purely platonic, but the expression in his eyes is anything but.

 

“See you later.” Her words are a whisper, as she tries to recover from the nearness of him. She watches him head back to the gym and eventually disappear inside, wondering if she’s ever going to feel the way she has felt about him for the longest time for anyone else. After ten years, it’s not seeming particularly likely. Not the best headspace to be in just before a date, she thinks wryly.