Nick

3

“You know what you should do, Nick?” Jackson Popov asked.

“Nothing good has ever been said after that opening question,” I replied, taking a quick inhale as I lowered the 275-pound barbell to my chest. I could feel the bunch and clench of my pecs and biceps, and it grounded me. With a soft grunt, I dug deep into my core and lifted the weight to a full extension while exhaling.

“I’m going to tell you anyway, you ingrate,” Jackson said. He held his hands wide as he stood at my head, getting ready to grab the bar if I maxed out.

Jackson was a big burly man, a walking wall of muscle mass, with a shaved head, pale gray eyes, and an improbable goatee that came to a wicked point, like he was the villain in a silent film.

He was the youngest of many siblings—I could never keep track of them all—which had crafted him into a person who talked too much, laughed too loud, and was stubborn as fuck. I supposed he had to be all those things to get any attention being raised in such a crowd. I didn’t particularly like him, but he’d come into my life after my world imploded, and I hadn’t had the wherewithal to get rid of him, especially since I’d gone through four physical therapists before he showed up. It seemed some of them found me difficult to work with while I found them to be incompetent. Whatever.

I racked the weights on their holder and used the barbell to pull myself up to a seated position. Jackson tossed me a towel, and I wiped off the sweat that was pouring down my face and neck.

“By all means, tell me what you think I should do,” I said. “I’m as giddy as a schoolgirl to hear your thoughts.”

Jackson shook his head and pointed one beefy finger at me. “That attitude right there. You need to lose that shield of sarcasm.”

“It’s not a shield,” I said. “It’s who I am. It’s who I’ve always been. You just don’t appreciate my cutting wit.”

“Cutting?” he scoffed. “Cutting what exactly? Farts?” He smelled the air as if checking for a rogue funk.

I pressed my lips together, refusing to laugh. “I’m sorry, whose name is on your paycheck?” I asked. I didn’t care if I sounded like an asshole.

He should have been duly chastened; instead he laughed. It boomed against the walls of my home gym. I glowered. Why had I fired all of my previous trainers? Even Dougie, the wake-and-bake potato head with the weed problem, seemed preferable to Jackson right now. Maybe I should fire him.

Oblivious to my dark thoughts, Jackson tossed me a bottle of water just far enough out of reach that I had to lunge for it. Prick.

“Get up, Daire,” he barked. He always used my last name when he was about to torture me.

“No,” I said. “I don’t feel like it.”

“I’m sorry, who is the physical therapist in this room?” he asked.

I ignored him. His eyebrows went up and he crossed his arms over his chest while he waited. I stalled, taking a long drink of water.

“If you’re going to reach your goals, you have to stick to the workout, brother.” His gaze was steady on mine. I knew he wasn’t going to stop badgering me until I did as he asked.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, for the millionth time. “We’re not related.”

I put down the water and rose from the bench. I stood for a moment, checking my balance and getting a feel for the floor beneath my feet. I hated this. I’d never felt weak a day in my life until it all came crashing down nine months ago. I moved my weight from side to side. I felt off, which gave me a burst of panic, but I forcibly shook it off and decided to power through it.

“Let’s do some balance exercises,” Jackson ordered. We’d been doing these for a few months. I hadn’t seen that they’d made any difference, but I dutifully began to work through the yoga positions he’d taught me.

When I was warmed up, he gestured to the treadmill. I wanted to balk. I hated getting on that thing. It made me feel vulnerable, but since the docs hadn’t been able to pinpoint what precisely was wrong with me, there was really no reason not to give it a go.

We started slow with Jackson hovering. I walked. He upped the incline. I could feel my anxiety rising, but I pressed on. One foot in front of the other until I had a rhythm going. I was feeling pretty good about it. I upped the speed, and Jackson sent me a considering look. I pushed on, keeping my hands suspended over the rails in case I needed to catch myself.

I increased the incline again and upped the speed some more. Now I was breathing heavily but it felt good. I felt whole and strong. I broke into a light jog. Jackson moved in closer. I thought I might be making him nervous. I wanted to laugh but I was too winded and it was taking all of my concentration to keep the pace. This was the best I’d felt in months.

A memory of that horrible day flashed through my mind. The feeling of complete helplessness, being unable to speak or think clearly while they’d slid me into the MRI machine. I could feel my heart rate picking up, and I was sweating harder than I should have been from just jogging on a treadmill. Suddenly, I couldn’t get enough air and I thought I might throw up.

Bam! Just like that, I was falling, crashing into the handrail before I could grab it, my muscles limp and unresponsive no matter how hard I tried to control them.

Two big burly arms grabbed me around the middle and Jackson hauled me off the treadmill as if I were no bigger than a child. And wasn’t that just the humiliation cherry on top of the shit sundae?

I wanted to push him off but that was stupid as I’d only succeed in falling on my face. Jackson pulled my left arm over his behemoth shoulders and dragged me back to the bench. He turned so I could sit and then he went back to the machine to shut it off.

I sat there, feeling a level of anger and frustration that I had never felt before, not even during my most desperate days as a kid, and believe me, I’d had more than my share of those.

“I told you I didn’t feel like it,” I snapped.

“You did,” he agreed. He handed me my water bottle. “You also managed to go longer and harder on the treadmill than you ever have before. I call that progress.”

“Progress?” I scoffed. I gestured to my body. “I collapsed—again. How is my life ever supposed to be normal if I keep collapsing?”

Jackson raised his hands. “You have to talk to your doctors about that. I am a trainer. I know how to make you strong. I don’t know how to fix what’s broken on the inside.”

“It’s not broken on the inside,” I insisted. I knew what he wasn’t saying—that he thought the issue wasn’t with my body but rather my mind. We’d had this argument before. But as I’d told him, repeatedly, that was a load of horseshit. I was in here, wasn’t I? Wouldn’t I know if I was mental? “How am I supposed to live like this?”

“I don’t know,” he said. His gaze was full of sympathy, which made my stomach turn. I glanced away. Shame at my own weakness bubbled up in the back of my throat like bile, and I desperately wanted to punch something until my knuckles bled.

As if he knew I needed a minute, Jackson strode over to the windows that overlooked my backyard. He stood there, looking out over the lawn and the pool, while I collected my shattered sense of self and reined in my temper. It took a minute or ten.

These episodes didn’t usually last very long, five to ten minutes but sometimes more; still they freaked me out all the same, because I never knew when or where they were going to happen or if they would be a precursor to something worse. The anxiety I felt anticipating these episodes ate at me day in and day out and was almost worse than my body betraying me. Almost.

When I felt my strength return, for the most part, I glanced at Jackson, preparing to call him back. Even though I’d had an episode, I knew he wouldn’t let me shirk the rest of my workout. Which was fine. I wasn’t a quitter, and I wasn’t giving up on myself. Not today.

As he gazed out the window, a small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. He must have felt my stare, because he turned to me and said, “She’s out there.”

He didn’t need to tell me who she was. I lifted the water bottle to my lips and drained half of it. “So what?”

He turned back to the view and let out a low whistle.

“She’s a looker.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, and one of his eyebrows quirked up in challenge before he returned to the window.

“Right, your idea of a good-looking woman is whether or not she can bench-press a car,” I said. “If you think she’s good-looking, then she’s definitely not my type. I don’t go for women who wrestle hogs for fun.”

“If you say so,” he said. He didn’t turn away from the window but kept staring, clearly enjoying the view.

I sat impotently—which, for the record, is not a word I liked to use in reference to myself in any way, shape, or form—on the bench. Oh, sure, I could try to get up and walk to the window. In fact, I suspect that’s exactly what Jackson was trying to goad me into doing. Jerk.

It would take a lot more than the promise of a good-looking woman for me to give up the security of my safe seat, especially after an episode. Still my curiosity was yammering at me to get a look at the woman Miguel Vasquez had foisted upon me.

“All right, all right, I’ll take a look,” I said. I waved my hand at Jackson. He understood the unspoken command and yet chose to ignore it.

“Walk,” he said, and turned back to the window.

“No,” I said. It was the voice I’d used on construction guys who were slacking and bank loan officers who were weasels. It was supposed to make the person I was speaking to fall in line. Jackson was impervious.

“You need to—” he began.

“Dut dut dut,” I interrupted him. “I didn’t hire you to tell me what I need. I hired you to train me and to be around as needed.”

“You don’t need me right now,” he said.

He didn’t even bother turning around to speak to me, so riveted was he on the woman he could see from the window. My new tenant. What was her name? I couldn’t remember. Fuzzy brain, damn it, another gift from that horrible day. No wonder I never left my house.

I gauged the distance from where I was sitting to my wheelchair parked beside Jackson at the window. I could get there, spotting myself on the line of equipment in my personal gym if I was so motivated. Jackson was still staring outside, ignoring me. All right, my curiosity was most definitely getting the better of me.

I pulled myself to my feet. The fatigue that occasionally clobbered me, also without warning, made me inch my way to my wheelchair beside the window. I absolutely did not want to slide to the floor in a heap. I’d had enough humiliation for one morning. I felt my heart rate accelerate as I got closer. My nerves were snapping just beneath the surface. Being picked up by Jackson twice in one day was more than my ego could bear. I tried to distract myself.

As I got closer, I asked, “Scale of one to ten, with one being my great-aunt Madge with the long chin whisker and the faint odor of mothballs about her, and ten being Scarlett Johansson, where does she rank?”

Jackson glanced over his shoulder at me with an assessing stare then he shook his head. “I don’t rate women.”

“What?” I cried. “You’re the one who just called her a ‘looker.’ ”

“Just an observation, not a rating. I can objectively notice that a woman is very attractive without diminishing her as a person by assigning her a number based on society’s arbitrary standards of beauty.”

“Dude, you need to give me your man card,” I said. “You’re one of those ‘woke’ males, aren’t you?” Truthfully, I respected that Jackson wasn’t a dick about women, bucking the misogynistic stereotype of most muscle heads, but I would rather swallow my tongue before I’d admit it.

He stared at me with his unnerving gray gaze, and I got the distinct feeling I didn’t fool him one little bit. I definitely needed to fire him.

“An eight-point-five,” he said. “She’s a little scrawny for me.”

In spite of myself, I laughed. Then I choked on it, realizing that having a hot tenant was not good. In fact, it was bad, very bad. I did not want any distractions during my recovery, and Annabelle Martin—that was her name!—my unwanted renter, was an eight-point-five. Shit! Then again, maybe Jackson graded on a curve. Maybe his hotness meter would register as a five for me.

I took four steps, keeping my hand out to grab the rack of barbells I passed if I started to crumble again. It wasn’t necessary. I reached the wheelchair, turned, and lowered myself onto the seat with the familiarity that had come from the past nine months of hauling myself around in the stupid thing. I hated it. I hated that I needed it. I hated what it represented. But mostly, I hated that I was afraid to be without it.

I put my feet on the footrests and spun the chair so that I faced the floor-to-ceiling windows, which were curtained by heavy drapes. I cast Jackson a dark look, at which he wagged his eyebrows. He moved the curtain aside just enough to let me see out, too.

My tenant was seated on her patio in one of the two cushioned chairs that faced the pool. She was wearing a long-sleeved black shirt over a pair of black-and-white-plaid pajama bottoms. There was nothing sexy about the outfit and yet the sight of her in her sleepwear, with her painted pink toes peeking out beneath the hem of her pants, felt oddly intimate.

I watched as she lifted her coffee mug to her lips. She was pale, as if she hadn’t seen the sun in months, with long dark hair, and average features that were neither stunningly beautiful nor hideous. Compared to the women I’d dated back in the day, she was plain with a side of pretty, but nothing I would have looked at twice.

“Meh,” I said. “I’ve seen better.”

I felt Jackson’s gaze on the side of my face, but I ignored him, not wanting to get a lecture about my Neanderthal tendencies toward the female gender. As I watched my tenant, her sleeve rolled back and I could see a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. I squinted. Was she one of those girls who got the ubiquitous butterfly tattoo on her arm? Probably.

There was an effortless grace to her movements, and when she puckered her lips to blow the steam away before she sipped, I found myself watching her mouth a little too closely. I glanced away. My first assessment about her had been correct, and I wasn’t going to change it.

“She’s just average,” I said. I tried to sound dismissive, but my voice dipped a bit lower than normal and Jackson didn’t look like he believed me.

“Average for what?” he asked. “A goddess?”

“Goddess?” I choked. “Sure, if you’re sight impaired.”

Jackson laughed, that annoying booming laugh that came up from his belly and encompassed anyone in a hundred-yard radius. “If you say so,” he said.

He turned away to go grab more of his gear. He was whistling as he gathered several resistance bands, or as I thought of them—implements of torture. I turned back to the window and took just another quick peek at the woman who was going to be living in the little guest house on my property for the next six months.

All right, so with that long mane of curly dark hair and heart-shaped face, she was actually quite pretty. Since I had no intention of ever interacting with her during her time here, it wasn’t relevant to me in the least. As I watched, she opened an envelope and a sheaf of papers fell into her lap.

I felt my face grow warm. Those were the additional rules I’d had Miguel deliver to her yesterday. Why I felt a sudden surge of embarrassment, I had no idea. Probably because in my mind I had pictured Annabelle as a nerdy, man-hating graphic designer, with glasses, improbably dyed blue or green hair, who dressed from neck to knee in too big, secondhand store cardigans, ironic T-shirts, and old-school lace-up sneakers.

Instead, I watched this unexpected—What? What was she? A girl? A woman? The words swirled around my head, not quite locking into my fuzzy brain. The only word that clicked was Jackson’s. Goddess. I watched as this unexpected goddess—I rolled my eyes—read my rules with a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth, as if she thought I was joking. I wasn’t. Not even a little.