Tipping the Balance (17 page)

Relatively light weights and lots of reps gave him an excuse not to make eye contact again as he returned to his sets and focused on doing them right. Dead lifts for his legs and core; push presses to work arms, shoulders, and upper back; and then, because that alone wouldn’t make him sore enough, thrusters, taking the barbell from a squat up and over his head, arms thrust up and out.

Sweat dampened his shirt, causing it to cling and bind. He pulled it away from his skin a few times, fanning himself with it, even though the gym’s air-conditioning cooled him quickly.

As Brad sipped water, he glanced around the gym floor. It seemed like all kinds of guys were looking at each other. He’d thought the student gym at California Pacific was a meat market, which was why he’d always used the equipment at the boathouse. But this gym? Wow. Brad shook his head and wondered how long this had been going on. He felt like the air held hidden music he couldn’t quite hear, or that they spoke a language he could almost but not quite understand, and if he only listened hard enough, it would come to him.

Just before he got to the elliptical trainers, he glanced at the ergs. Some guy using one was just massacring it. He grimaced.
They’re such nice machines. What’d they ever do to you?
he thought.

He swerved and sat down at a free erg. Suddenly Brad felt like erging.

He started with the old drills from crew. First his arms, twenty strokes. Then he added the forward motion of his trunk, and twenty more strokes. Finally he added the legs, first taking the catch at half slide and then lengthening out to the full rowing stroke.

Feeling his neighbor’s eyes on him, Brad set the monitor for a reasonable distance and went to work. The distance was enough to give him a good cardio workout without punishing him unduly. It wasn’t like he had to qualify for a seat in the boat anymore.

As Brad warmed to his workout, he glanced over to the neighboring monitor and noticed that the guy next to him was trying to match him.

Good and loose and warm, Brad kicked it up a notch, pulling harder on the handle to drive faster, taking a bit less time on his recovery.

Then the man next to him sped up. Brad could tell by the increased noise coming from his erg’s air-fed flywheel.

So that’s how it is
, Brad thought, rowing a little faster.

The man next to him matched him, but badly. His form, not good to begin with, grew increasingly erratic the harder and faster he rowed.

Brad smirked and picked up the speed.

His shadow followed.

Brad rowed faster and harder. He was working hard now, his breath coming in gulps on the recovery, but he knew he could sustain this pace for a while.

“Shit!”

The man next to him let go of the erg handles. He slowly toppled off the erg and lay gasping on the ground.

Brad just looked straight ahead and finished his workout at the fast pace.

Later, after his shower, he stood before his open locker, a towel straining to stay wrapped around his waist.

“Hey, I saw you out there on the rowers. You were working pretty hard there.”

Brad glanced over at the man next him, a tall blond who slowly toweled himself off while facing Brad. The man was a little shorter than Brad and a lot less hairy, but chiseled and, he had to admit, pretty good-looking.

Brad shrugged. “I’ve done worse on those things and for a lot longer.”

“Yeah?” the guy said, smiling at him.

Another shrug. Why was this guy talking to him? “I rowed in college.”

“And I’m guessing that wasn’t that long ago?” the blond said. He stopped toweling, holding the towel over his crotch, but Brad was pretty sure there was something going on down there, even as the other man idly scratched one pec.

“I graduated in June. That guy didn’t stand a chance,” Brad said, shifting uncomfortably. He stared straight into his locker, refusing to look at the other guy anymore, even though he felt the blond’s eyes on him. There was something going on, something in the other guy’s stare, that made him nervous. He felt it stirring, a tingling at the base of his spine, a tightening of his sac.

He felt like a doofus, but he quickly shimmied his underwear on under the towel and then dropped it and pulled his pants up fast, even as he felt the eyes on him. Shirt and sandals made Brad good to go. The rest could wait until he got home.

Brad didn’t exactly run out of the locker room. He was nervous. He had a feeling that guy was hitting on him, like it was more of that language he couldn’t quite understand, although if he stuck around, Brad was pretty sure that guy would be willing to translate.

Brad had never really thought of guys as attractive before, but that wasn’t quite it. They just drew his eye in a different way than women did, but now that his eyes were opening, he realized there were a lot of hot guys around.

He came to the gym for a vacation back into the territory he’d learned so well when he was in college, but the workout puzzled him. The gym was a familiar place, almost like home, and the notion that it held secrets he’d never imagined threw him off.
Have gyms always been like this, guys looking at other guys like that? Looking at me like that?

But Brad wasn’t upset—far from it—and hadn’t dropped the towel to dress because locker rooms made him nervous. He’d dressed under the towel to keep from embarrassing himself.

“
Thanks
for coming over on a Friday evening, guys. I know it’s a lousy time, but I’ll be busy showing homes all weekend,” Drew said, ushering Emily and Brad into his dining room.

“Not a problem,” Brad said, yanking at his tie until the knot came loose. He pulled it off and dropped it on the floor near the door.

Emily shrugged. “Melissa’s working tonight, anyway, and we need to get the applications in.”

“Applications, as in more than one?” Brad said.

“Yeah, there are all kinds of grants and small-business loans from sources public and private,” Emily answered. “The more we ask for, the greater our chances.”

“Wait… isn’t the city paying us?” Brad said.

“Yes, but it typically takes time to get money out of the government, and if the city’s getting the money from the state, and the state’s budget is held up—again—we’ll need money to cover us,” Emily explained. “We’d be stupid to turn any source of funding down.”

“Especially the grants,” Drew said.

“Uh… what’re grants?” Brad asked, feeling stupid.

“Free money,” Emily said. “They might make the difference between doing this project right and eating dinner too.”

“Speaking of,” Drew said, “is Thai okay?” Without waiting for consent, he placed an order online. “Brad, if you get your laptop out, I’ll give you the password for my Wi-Fi network.” He smiled. “Something tells me you’ll be around to use it for a while.”

Brad found himself blushing. “I hope so.”

“So can we just take over the dining room? Because I’ve got file cases in the car too,” Emily said, setting her own computer down across from where Drew sat.

“We might as well set up on the table. It’s not like there’ll be time to entertain before this is done, and there’s not room for all of us in my home office,” Drew said.

And be bored to tears within two years. Drew sighed to himself. That was why he’d taken to flipping houses in the first place, for the challenge and the creativity.

“If we get this job, we should look into renting an office or something,” Brad said as he set down one of Emily’s big file boxes. He sat down next to Drew. “That way we could come or go whenever we needed to without Drew sacrificing his house, because this looks like it’ll take over, and quick, if he lets it.”

Drew and Emily looked at each other. “It’s an idea,” Drew said.

“An expensive one, though. Commercial rent is pretty high, and that’s one more line item to add to the budget projections,” Emily said.

“Put a line in the budget for a trailer on the jobsite, one with power, phone, and Internet hook-ups,” Brad said. “You run the job from the jobsite. It’s how it’s done, and the city will be expecting something like that. If you leave it out, we’ll look like amateurs.”

When Drew and Emily stared at him, Brad flushed. “Never mind, it was a dumb idea,” he mumbled, looking at the ground.

Emily shook her head. “No, it wasn’t, Brad. That’s why we want you on this project. You know construction on this scale, or better than we do, anyway.”

Brad looked up to find Drew’s eyes on him, which only made him blush.

Drew just smiled. “Dinner will be here soon. Let’s get to work before dinner gets here, though. It’s going to be a long night.”

His face still aflame, Brad opened the file folder in which he’d haphazardly stored his contribution to the paperwork and the applications, even as Emily and Drew did the same.

Brad had previously given what he thought he’d need in terms of salary, as well as help with tuition for classes toward his contractor’s license. Fortunately, he’d still be working part-time, even if it was at that hated job at Suburban Graveyard, and trade school wouldn’t cost that much. It was mostly to prep for the contractor’s exam. Also fortunately, all those summers working for his dad on job sites counted a long way toward the experience part of licensure, and working on the project would get him even more experience.

But Brad was the junior partner in this endeavor, more employee than principal, and he knew it. Drew and Emily could make a bid for the job without him, but with him, their attempt was so much stronger. That was cool with him; he was in this to learn, after all.

An excuse for spending large amounts of time with Drew, looking at Drew, thinking about Drew, was just a fringe benefit, and with Drew and Emily poring over the electronic applications, he was free to watch Drew.

And get caught looking.

Drew, feeling eyes on him, looked up, and Brad didn’t look away quite fast enough. Drew smiled at him and went back to work.

Brad was rescued from embarrassment by the arrival of dinner. “I’ll get it!” he said when the doorbell rang.

Before
Drew could stop him, Brad bounced out of his chair and made it to the door before Drew or Emily had saved their work, let alone gotten money out.

Brad set the takeout containers on the table. “Stay seated, you guys. Just tell me where the plates and flatware are.”

“You mean besides the kitchen?” Emily said.

“Ha ha,” Brad said. “Drew?”

Drew stood up anyway. “I’ll show you. I need to get drinks, anyway.”

Drew led the way into the cozy kitchen. “Plates are there above the sink and to the right,” Drew said, pointing, “flatware in the drawer next to the dishwasher.”

Drew reached up to get glasses from the cupboard next to the plates. Brad brushed by him as he reached for the dishes, their bodies almost touching. “Thanks,” Brad breathed, almost in his ear.

Drew pulled two bottles of mineral water from the fridge. The kitchen wasn’t that small. He wondered if something was up with Brad. It sure seemed like it, the way he’d caught Brad looking several times. It felt like Brad was trying to send him a message, but he couldn’t figure out what. Since Brad was straight—his sexuality wasn’t even on the agenda—Drew couldn’t imagine what it might be.