Chapter 12

Ian

I was at the gym on Tuesday when Jason showed up. Abigail wasn’t there, so I ignored him and continued to work my way through my exercises. After the first time Abigail and I had had sex, I’d found myself totally distracted at the gym. But this time, I felt curiously calm, like something had settled inside me. I had a feeling it was because I was now settled into what we were doing. Things were still a little off between Zach and me, but things between Abigail and I were all good.

So good.

I smiled at the memory of her from the previous day. I could barely believe how audacious she’d been. She knew exactly what she was doing, coming in here and working out the way that she had. She’d been making sure I was looking at her ass the whole time. It was totally unprofessional, but I hadn’t been able to stop myself.

And it wasn’t like the gym was going to fire me anyway. I was one of the best personal trainers they had.

“Hey, Ian!” Geoff, my boss, called from the other side of the gym.

I sighed and set down the weights I’d been using before tidying up my area. Jason was still lurking in the front, right next to Geoff. I wondered what he wanted.

“Ian, this guy here, Jason Dean, is looking for a new trainer.” He grinned at me. “Apparently, he was told you’re the best.”

I scowled at Jason and folded my arms across my chest. So that was the way he was going to play it, was he? For a minute, I tried to figure out what his plan was. Did he think that if he hung around me enough, I would slip up and admit Abigail wasn’t my fiancée? That had to be it. I rolled my eyes. The dude needed to move on.

I tried to keep things professional, though. “Geoff, you know my schedule’s pretty full at the moment,” I said. “I’m not looking to pick up another client.”

“I’m willing to pay double,” Jason said quickly.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass,” I snapped, unable to stop myself.

Geoff raised an eyebrow at me and then tugged me over to the side. “You got something against this dude?” he asked. “I know you don’t usually work with guys, but that’s just because the girls request you more often. If this guy is willing to pay double, though, we can shuffle your schedule to fit him in.”

I wanted to explain to him that it wasn’t that, that this guy was Abigail’s ex and he was just there to stalk her through me or something, but that would mean explaining who Abigail was to me, and I wasn’t sure how to do that. My best friend’s sister didn’t seem to cut it, and my fuckbuddy also didn’t sound right.

I shook my head. “Look, I know this guy,” I said, trying to be as frank as possible, “and I don’t like him.”

“I don’t really care whether you like him or not,” Geoff said, looking like he was one step away from rolling his eyes. “The guy’s willing to pay double. That’s a lot of money coming into the gym, and not just into your paycheck.”

“So you’re saying I have to take him on as a client?” I asked.

“Pretty much,” Geoff said. “I get that you don’t like the dude, but you know we’ve been going through a bit of a slump lately. And I know it’s not you—your clients are just as eager as ever—but until we hit the New Year’s resolution crowd, we can use all the intake we can get.” He paused. “Anyway, the guy looks like he’s in at least decent shape. You probably won’t have to do all that much.”

Oh, the guilt trip. But I knew Geoff was right. It cost a lot of money to run a gym, and even though we were one of the top gyms in the city, there was always room for improvement in terms of our numbers. I sighed and nodded at Jason. “Fine,” I said.

I would have to warn Abigail first. One bonus of having Jason train with me was that I could push him hard enough that he would be too exhausted to come back to the gym outside his training sessions. As long as I kept telling Abigail when he’d be there, they’d probably never run into one another there.

I still didn’t like the idea of it, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

“Why don’t you come back tomorrow for our first session?” I told Jason through gritted teeth. “I can fit you in around two in the afternoon. Does that work for you?”

“I was really hoping we could start now,” he said, sounding surprised. He looked around the gym. “It’s not too busy, is it?”

“No, it’s not too busy,” I said, “but I’ve already got a full workload today, and I can’t fit you in. If you’d like to work with someone else, though, by all means.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Jason said. But he kept lurking there, looking suspiciously happy about the arrangement. He was definitely planning something. I just had to figure out what.

And maybe a reminder wouldn’t hurt. “Abigail’s doing really good,” I told him. “We’ve set the date for our wedding, and she’s planning everything. April thirteenth.”

I heard Zach laugh, and I whipped around to see him behind me. I hadn’t realized he was there, and I felt a sinking feeling in my gut. He had clearly just heard what I’d said. He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Good one, man,” he said, shaking his head. “You and Abigail getting married? That’ll be the day.”

Shit, this wasn’t good. Zach was about to give it all away!

Jason raised an eyebrow at me. “Wait, you didn’t even tell your soon-to-be brother-in-law? Classic.” He snickered.

I looked at Zach and saw the confusion on his face. Then I looked at Jason. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said again, more finally this time. I scowled at him, making it clear that he had better leave.

Jason gave one final look between Zach and me and then shrugged. “Sure. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said. “Looks like you really have your hands full today.”

“You want to explain what that was about?” Zach asked hotly as Jason walked out the doors of the gym.

I sighed and ran my hand through my hair. There was no playing this off as a joke. I wondered if Zach knew Jason had been bothering his sister still. Somehow, I doubted it. Otherwise, I didn’t think Jason would be anywhere near any place Abigail might be. Zach might not be as strong as I was, but he had the advantage of brotherly protectiveness. He’d do everything he could to make sure Abigail was safe.

No matter what he thought about her current life choices.

“Look, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you this, but Abigail and I have been pretending we’re engaged in front of Jason,” I told Zach. I paused. “Hopefully you didn’t just ruin that.”

“What?” Zach asked, his voice dangerous. “What kind of pretending?”

“Nothing like that,” I lied. “I’m not dating her or anything. It’s mostly just been words. We held hands once.”

“That’s it?” Zach asked.

“That’s it,” I said. I felt terrible for lying to him, but I tried to rationalize it with that old saying: what he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

“So, is there a reason you’re doing that? Besides some mean-spirited feelings toward Jason?”

I shrugged. “You’d have to ask Abigail. The dude’s been bothering her, still following her around and calling her, trying to get her to get back together with him.”

“And the reason he just showed up here is?”

“He apparently wants me as his personal trainer,” I said, rolling my eyes.

Zach frowned. “That seems weird,” he said. “If he is really into Abigail like you say, wouldn’t you be the last person he would want anything to do with? If he thinks you and Abigail are engaged, I mean.”

“You’d think so,” I said, shrugging. “I don’t know.” I paused. “But you’re okay with the whole fake engagement thing, right? I know it’s weird, but we’re not going to kiss in front of you or anything.”

“I’m okay with it,” Zach said, clapping me on the shoulder. “I’m not going to lie. It’s really weird, and I don’t really like it, but I guess I’m glad you’re always there to take care of Abigail, too. You’re like a second brother to her.”

I had a flash of what Abigail and I had gotten up to in the gym shower the previous day. That had been decidedly unbrotherly, but I couldn’t tell Zach about that. Even more so than before, I was sure that if he found out about our roomies-with-benefits situation, he’d flip out.

“I’m going to take off for the day,” Zach said, nodding at me. “See you around.”

“Yeah,” I said. “See you around.”