You’d think when they built the arena—which is partially owned by Dominik—they would have put the workout room in the basement near the locker room, but Dominik wanted it on the top level, which is encased in floor-to-ceiling glass with a gorgeous view of downtown Phoenix with the mountainscape behind the glass buildings. The gym is open and available to any member of the organization, as well as their families.
It’s why I’m here on a Sunday. To get in a workout but I’m also going to do a few hours of work at my desk. While I can just as easily work from home, I get a motivating vibe from this arena.
Plus, I have dual monitors on my desk that I don’t have at home and that’s a game-changer.
Before I get out of the car, I turn to Jenna. “I love you.”
She blinks at me in surprise, because while we are incredibly close and always have been, we don’t spontaneously affirm our feelings. “I love you too,” she says hesitantly.
Almost suspiciously.
I grin at her. “I just want you to love yourself the same way. Okay?”
She flushes but gets my message. Her eyes drop for a moment but she nods her agreement. “Yeah… I know.”
I hop out of the car, grabbing my workout bag from the floorboard. I shut the passenger door and immediately open the back door where Felicity is sitting. She ignores me completely, still engrossed in Elena. I lean in, kiss her on the head and manage to get a brief glance and a smile before she’s lost again.
God, I love my kid. She can be incredibly co-dependent and stuck to me like glue, then other times she’s fiercely independent and has no need for me.
I love that she is both.
I close the door and throw a wave to Jenna, who will be back to pick me up in three hours, then head into the arena.
The elevator ride up to the top floor takes no time, and rather than cut right to the executive offices, I go left toward the gym. When I enter, it seems quiet, although I see a few of the players and some family members working out. The place is cavernous, and I head over to a rowing machine to get warmed up. I’m already dressed in my workout clothes, the gear in my duffle a clean change of garments that I’ll slip into after a shower.
There’s no one around the cardio equipment so I take the rower closest to me and do a nice steady pace for five hundred yards to get warmed up. It’s enough to get my heart rate up without killing me.
Grabbing a towel out of my bag, I give a quick wipe of my face and head over to the wall that houses all the free weights. I angle for a power rack, intent on doing some squats when my eyes land on Jett on the next one over.
He’s doing chest presses and a quick count of the plates and barbell tells me he’s handling three hundred and fifteen pounds with ease. He doesn’t know I’m standing there watching—ogling—as he completes a set of eight reps.
When he’s done and settles the barbell on the j-hooks, I say, “You know, you should have a spotter.”
His big body jerks as he curls up from the bench to look at me, one side of his mouth lifting up into a lop-sided grin. “For that puny weight? I could have done those one-handed.”
I snort and give him a chastising look.
Straddling the bench, he stares at me for a long moment before finally saying, “Want to join me? We can spot each other.”
And there’s no hesitation—in fact, a tiny thrill of excitement—when I say, “Sure.”
CHAPTER 6
Jett
I frown as I check my watch. I don’t have much time to get down to the team auditorium for our pre-game meeting. We play the San Diego Renegades tonight and they’ve been a surprise powerhouse in our division. It means Coach is going to want to spend some time on game film, which will extend our regular pre-game meeting by a bit.
But it might be worth being a few minutes late and incurring a scathing glare from Coach if I get a smile in return.
I enter the lobby of the executive suite at the arena, and with nothing but a few flirty words to the receptionist, I’m able to bypass any announcement of my arrival. I walk the maze of halls until I reach Emory’s office and find the door halfway closed. Rapping my knuckles on it a few times, I push it open to find her at her desk. Her head lifts and I’m instantly brought back to the first time I saw her and how fucking sexy her black-framed glasses made her look.
Of course, she doesn’t wear them all the time. In fact, only at work. I noticed she wasn’t wearing them during our dinner, and again yesterday when we were working out together, so I asked her about them.
She told me that for whatever reason, wearing them while navigating the corporate world seems to cause men to take her more seriously. As if she actually has a brain since she wears nerdy-looking glasses. I have no doubt that’s probably been true in her prior work experiences, but I assured her Dominik wasn’t like that. She’d just have to figure that one out on her own, though.
What is absolutely different from the first time I saw her and tried to flirt with her—only to be painfully shot down—is the wide smile she bestows upon me right now.
I hold up the plastic bag in my hand, and her eyes go wide when she recognizes the logo on it.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asks in amazement as she starts to rise from her chair.
“A double salmon poke bowl with brown rice, cabbage, radish, beets, eel sauce, and extra ginger on the side.”
Her eyes flare even wider that I would remember those exact details, but I remember every single thing we talked about yesterday.
Her love of poke and exactly how she likes it is one of the dozens of things I learned about her. Our shared workout—which should have lasted no longer than forty-five minutes—stretched more than two hours because we ended up doing far more talking than lifting weights.
I don’t know the reason for it.
I doubt she does either.
But somehow, conversation just seemed to flow as we switched out weights between sets. Sometimes it flowed so damn good we stopped working out and just stood and talked.
It wasn’t anything deep. We didn’t share secrets. But I now know her favorite way to eat a poke bowl, that she’s allergic to honey, and that she ran away from home when she was eight, only making it to the front porch because she was too afraid to go further. She spent an impressive full night on the stoop because she refused to go back in the house even though her dad and stepmom relentlessly begged her to. Admittedly, she accepted the pillow and blanket, along with the sandwich they brought out to her, but she felt she’d made her point.
Bottom line, by the time we finally made it through a complete workout, the dynamic between us had changed. We actually developed a friendship during that time, both of us realizing that we have a lot in common and enjoy the other’s company.
Of course, there was no mention of future dates and that was okay by me. I don’t want the complication of her having a kid and she doesn’t date co-workers.
In essence, it would be friends and nothing more, which isn’t anything strange. Over my life, I’ve had plenty of good female friends.
Except… well, I wouldn’t spontaneously bring one of them their favorite food for lunch, now would I? Maybe that only means I like her as a friend more than the others. And I’ve decided I can certainly overlook how gorgeous she is and push down any considerations that perhaps we could have something more.