Page 12 of One Time Only (One Time Only 1)
Lust is dangerous when it gets in the way of duty.
Of responsibilities.
I have so many of those. Like anyone else, any other guy who has debts to pay.
Choices to own up to.
Guys like me don’t get to act upon impulses.
Acting on impulse leads down a deadly road.After I finish a punishing six-mile run, I lob in a call to a guy I know in Los Angeles who finished his service commitment with the Marines and is now training to be a bodyguard. I’ve been a mentor of sorts to Ryan, helping him navigate his path to a new career.
“Finished my CPR renewal last night,” he says.
“I trust you didn’t kill the dummy?”
“No dummies were harmed by me,” he says.
“Excellent,” I say, then we review the next steps I’ve mapped out for him to prep for some upcoming job interviews.
A half hour later, we’re done, and I want to pat myself on the back for focusing solely on Ryan and not on last night. Not on Stone.
We say goodbye as I walk back into The Extravagant.
But that run and that phone call only skirted the surface of what I need to clear my head.
Time to hit the gym.
I head to the state-of-the-art fitness center, where I pump iron, lift weights, and burn my muscles until they scream at me. I burn them some more, doing push-ups, crunches, then another round of weights on the bench press.
More than an hour into my workout, Terrence wanders in. The daytime bodyguard is the spitting image of Taye Diggs. He’s older than I am by about ten years, forty to my thirty, and is still as strong as a tank, with the reflexes of a ninja. He’ll relieve Cruz, the overnight guy, in an hour or so.
Terrence lifts his chin and grunts out a morning hello.
“Hey there,” I mutter as I move to the Nautilus machine, getting ready to work my triceps.
Settling in at the biceps machine next to me, he adjusts the weight then flashes a grin at me. “How’s it going?”
As I yank down the triceps bar, my muscles flexing, I answer with a simple “Can’t complain.”
Since truly I can’t.
In the scheme of life’s challenges, a little lust is nothing.
I’ve been through worse.
Much worse.
He lifts a brow, like he doubts me. “Are you sure? Looks like you’re ready to rip that weight machine apart.”
I push out a laugh as I ease the tension on the bar. “Some days it feels that way, doesn’t it?”
As he works the biceps machine, he nods sagely. He does that a lot. Nearly two decades in the business have made him a wise man, a rudder for the rest of us. “I hear you, bro.”
I say nothing as I keep working the weights, each move shoving Stone further from my mind.
Then further still.
Then, please, dear God, please, out of it.
“You sure though?”
I finish the set, furrowing my brow. “I’m positive. Why are you asking?”
He stops lifting. Blows out a long stream of air. Offers an apologetic smile. “Look, Melody wanted me to check in with you.”
I tense, a knee-jerk reaction that’s not his wife’s fault. “Ah. And everything makes sense now.” His wife is as cool as Imagine Dragons, but it’s hard to think of her without thinking of Fabian.
Because she was his best friend.
Was being the operative word.
“I’m fine, man. Tell Melody I’m all good.”
He chuckles, shaking his head. “You think it’s that easy, Jackson? You think I can tell Melody you’re all good and then I’m off the hook?”
“Why can’t you tell her that?” I move to another biceps machine, settling in on the bench.
“Women aren’t like that.”
I laugh. “Shockingly, I’m not that familiar with how women are in relationships.”
“C’mon, man. You have two sisters and a mom. You know plenty about how to handle the fairer sex, and you ought to know that ‘all good’ is nowhere near satisfying to a lady.”
“Pretty sure the only thing I know about how to satisfy a lady is to give her a dress with pockets.”
Maybe even in spite of himself, Terrence laughs—a loud, boisterous chuckle. “Exactly. You know more than you let on. And in this case, you know I can’t take an ‘all good’ back to my wife. Melody worries about you. She saw some Facebook memory. From three years ago or something.”
I groan, bile rising at the mention of that godforsaken place. “I swear, social media should be outlawed. It only causes intense bouts of loathing, agony, annoyance, or some combination of the three. That’s why I’m not on it.”
“I hate it too. But Melody doesn’t hate it. And Fabian didn’t hate it.”
I let go of the weights, jerking my gaze to Terrence, all my latent emotions snapping to the surface. “I know he didn’t hate it. That was kind of the problem. He lived for it and did so much dangerous shit for the sake of it.”
