Making Him Sweat & Taking Him Down

Praying he couldn’t see how his nearness had flushed her cheeks, she stepped back and pretended to inspect the shower. “It’ll save me a chunk of change on a hotel. Just don’t be insulted if I run a background check on you.”

“Don’t be disappointed when you discover I’m not a felon. Let me know if you need help moving anything. I’ll mobilize the troops.” He nodded to the floor to mean the men laboring two stories below.

“I’ll get moved in this week, I imagine.”

“You’re the boss.”

The boss. An intriguing notion. Boss to a small, inherited army of brutes for now. To a well-groomed team of assistants in a couple months’ time, all things going as planned.

They wandered back to the living room and Jenna stared down at the busy street from the front windows. There was an Asian grocery store and produce stand across the way, flanked by a dry cleaners and nail salon. Not the most elegant neighbors on that side of the block. But she’d wow her clients with a stylish foyer refurb, maybe find some cool framed prints of Chinatown and play up the neighborhood’s colorful history.

She turned to find Mercer’s attention not on the view, but her face. In the sunlight his hazel eyes were the warm, brownish green of a ripe pear. His gaze was direct and unflickering, intense as a floodlight. It seemed as though he were reading her thoughts. For a long moment, they just stared at one another. Too long a moment.

She swallowed, gaze flitting from his bare arm to the shape of his chest, the stubble peppering his jaw, the curve of his lower lip. He mirrored the scrutiny, and in place of the casual calm he’d shown before, there was something else. Something…mischievous.

“I’ve got an extra set of keys down in the office, if you want them today.” His voice sounded so close, and so cool and assured when that stare was anything but.

She nodded, banishing the hyperawareness fogging her head. “That’d be good.”

“You okay staying in your dad’s old room?”

“Yeah. I’ll bring my suitcases over in the morning. If I can arrange to have a mattress delivered by tomorrow night, that is.”

“Works for me. Any furniture you need help with?”

She shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ll buy most of the stuff new.”

“Gotcha.”

She sighed, feeling too many things. Overwhelmed, elated, terrified. Attracted, most unnerving of all. “Thank you,” she said again. “I know it’s probably not easy being this courteous to me, considering my bias.”

“What choice have I got?”

“Because I’m your boss?”

“Nah. Because I loved your dad. And he loved you. So I have to at least pretend to respect your wishes, as much as they suck.”

She laughed. “Well, I guess that’ll have to do.”

* * *

JENNA CAME BACK late the next morning, unlocking the door to her new apartment with the keys Mercer had given her.

“Hello?” She waited for a reply, but none came. Good. That gave her plenty of time to wander around in peace, before the awkward dance of cohabitating with the enemy began.

Okay, fine. Enemy was too dramatic a word. Mercer was nice enough, and he was too young to have been complicit in the gym’s infamous criminal activities. It weighed on her, holding his fate in her hands. The uncertainty of the unmade decision loomed like a dark cloud. A big, dark, muscular, Mercer Rowley-shaped cloud.

She dragged her suitcases through the door, struck once again by the size of the living room. Big enough to add a wet bar or breakfast nook, a cozy little home office…. Too much to wrap her head around this soon, and besides, the franchise had to take precedence. All in good time. All in small, manageable steps.

Step one, she unpacked a bag of her favorite coffee and figured out how to work the machine on the counter. While it brewed, she wandered from room to room, making a list of stuff she’d need to buy. Big list. Moderate budget.

She’d lived on the cruise ship for ten months a year for the past six years, her room and board included. During the downtime between seasons she’d stayed rent-free with her mom and stepdad, so she’d gotten used to being greeted by a robust number whenever she checked her bank balance. Goodbye to all that. Still, this was what she’d been saving for all that time, even if she hadn’t known it. A worthy investment—her new business, her first adult home. Something bigger than herself, a grand, exciting, romantic adventure. A calling. She could just sense it.

She covered the living room and dining area, thoroughly ogled her new pantry. Mercer had a single shelf stocked, mostly canned soups and vegetables, boxes of rice pilaf and similar bachelorish fare. Just add meat.

After nosing around the bathroom and her bedroom, Jenna came to the guest room. The door was closed and she knocked, just to be safe. No reply, she pushed it open, panning her gaze around her temporary roommate’s tidy territory. A nice double bed frame. She wondered if that was hers to keep when he moved out. She liked his view more than the one from her father’s window, and thought maybe she’d take this room when Mercer left.

As she went to inspect the open closet, she spotted something on the computer desk—a yellow folder with Business Notes scribbled on its tab. Frowning, she lifted the cover, promising herself she’d only peek at the top page.

Ten minutes later, she’d read half the contents.

It turned out Jenna wasn’t the only one who’d made plans. The folder held a stack of glossy brochures from elite training facilities, with various offerings circled and starred, plus page after typed page of Mercer’s ideas for improving the gym, even quotes from contractors. Most intriguing of all were two prospectuses from local colleges—one for a nutrition science associate program, another for sports medicine, along with their blank applications.

“Hey.”

Jenna gasped and spun around, finding Mercer leaning in the threshold, peeling a banana. She closed the folder and set it back in its place. “I’m sorry. I was snooping.”

He shrugged. “Technically, it’s your room.”

“Maybe, but that wasn’t appropriate. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I forgive you.” He said it in a lofty, joking tone of supreme and holy magnanimity, giving Jenna permission to relax.

She glanced back at the folder. “Looks like you have some big plans.”

“That I do. No clue where the funding might come from, but eventually I intend to haul this place out of the gutter and into the twenty-first century. Or I had. I guess that’s all in your hands, now.”

That stung. Jenna switched topics. “And you want to go to school to be a nutritionist?” She pictured his can-laden shelf, thinking he could use a few pointers.

“I don’t really know…just batting ideas around. But I’m thirty-four, which is ancient in this business. If I was good enough to be a serious pro, I’d have been told so fifteen years ago.”

She frowned sympathetically.

He swallowed a bite of banana. “Nah, don’t feel bad. Fighting was never about that for me. As long as I’m fit enough to keep sparring with the younger guys, and to throw my hat in for the odd amateur tournament, I’m happy.”

Certainly fit enough, some troublemaking bit of Jenna’s brain interjected.

“Tough life, being a professional. I may not be the smartest guy you ever met, but I’d like to preserve the few marbles I’ve got left.” He tapped his temple. “Maybe figure out how to preserve my boys’ marbles, too. That’s where that stuff from the sports medicine program comes in.”

“Your boys? Sorry, do you have kids?”

“No, no, the guys I train.”

“Oh, right. What did my father have you doing, before he passed away? What’s your job title?”

He laughed. “You make it sound like I’ve got business cards. But I was mainly a trainer, and your old man’s unofficial assistant. I helped him with the accounts and organized events, handled some of the outside managers and promoters. All-purpose flunky. This place is my life, as pathetic as that might sound to you.”

“It doesn’t sound pathetic.” Without thinking, Jenna took a seat on the end of his bed, then immediately regretted it. Was the move too familiar, or too much of a liberty, on top of nosing through his file? Or just too much contact with Mercer’s bed? It was too much of something. And her discomfort got worse when he wandered over and sat beside her. The square of comforter separating their thighs made a woefully flimsy buffer.

“I, um, I’ve got folders just like that one, for the franchise I’m opening,” she managed to say. “It’s not pathetic at all.” And maybe we’re not so different, deep down.

“Working with the young guys is great, but I’d love to learn more about the science behind it all, too. Maybe get certified to rehab injured fighters. Branch out, make the place more than a gym.”

“Sounds ambitious,” Jenna offered, sad to know this man’s hopes were dying, just as her own were blooming. The energy between them shifted, that lustful sensation deepening to something more tender. More vulnerable. She shivered.

“That was always a pipe dream, though. Especially since I’m stuck as the GM, now—not much time left over for implementing any of my grand plans, even if we did have the money.” Mercer stood. “Sorry to startle you. I just needed to grab a bite before the noon session starts. I guess I’ll see you around later, roomie.”

“Yeah. Sorry again. For snooping.”

“If it ain’t hidden, it ain’t secret, boss-lady. But thanks just the same for the apology.”

“Sure.”

Seconds later she heard the front door click and she released a giant, guilty breath.

“Smooth, Jenna. Very smooth.”

CHAPTER THREE

WHILE SHE WAS out scrounging lunch the next day, a call on Jenna’s cell confirmed her mattress and box spring would arrive in the afternoon. She moved sheets and covers to the top of her shopping list, checked her mapping app and memorized the short route to Macy’s.

She felt back in her element as she stepped inside the store, with its perfume smells, its colors, its familiarity and civility. And bedclothes! She hadn’t shopped for sheets since she’d been getting ready to move away to college. She ran her hands over the samples—smooth cotton, flannel, clingy jersey, sateen and its ritzier, pricier cousin, silk. She wondered what sort of man she might meet here in her new city, someone worthy of inviting to enjoy her new sheets. A silk man, surely. Or satin. What sort of sheets did Mercer favor, she wondered—

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, batting the dangerous query aside. She checked the screen, greeted by another heartening taste of the familiar.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hey, Jen! What are you up to? Is this a good time?”

“Yes, fine. I’m sheet-shopping.”

They chatted about Jenna’s initial impressions of the building and the gym, and her mother sighed noisily, a sound she reserved exclusively for whenever the topic of her ex-husband came up. “Just don’t let this Mercer person bully you into compromising too much. Those types can be very pushy.”

“He’s remarkably civil, considering what a threat I must seem like to him.”

Another sigh. Jenna could supply the unspoken words for herself—he sounds much more reasonable than your father ever would have been. But since his passing, her mom had finally found it in herself to censor her opinions on the matter.

“Well, that’s a relief. And a surprise.”

“Yes, a very nice surprise.” And a very nice-looking surprise, Jenna added to herself. Oops. “He was actually living with Monty, up until he died.” It always felt funny, calling him that. But he wasn’t her dad. Her stepfather was Dad. She considered mentioning she was letting Mercer stay for the time being, but that wouldn’t earn her any maternal endorsements.

By three-thirty she was back at the apartment with her acquisitions. The place was empty again, and dark, the sun behind the tall buildings now. She headed for a lamp and turned the switch, but nothing happened. She tried another with the same luck.

“Huh.” She’d have to hope Mercer was working. Before she left the apartment, she tossed her new bedclothes in the washer and checked her face by the last of the day’s light. She ran a brush through her hair, rolling her eyes at herself. Silly impulse. The fact that she wasn’t bleeding from an open wound ought to impress the barbarian horde.

Downstairs in the humid gym, she found Mercer in trainer-mode once again, though luckily with a shirt on. Far less distracting that way. He was observing some of the younger guys working out on the bags, and shouting the odd pointer. He spotted her as she approached, speaking loudly over the hip-hop music playing from unseen speakers.

“Heya, boss. How you doing?”

She had to admit, he was awfully nice. Awfully polite and accommodating, considering her intentions for his beloved gym. Though he did have every reason to butter her up. She’d be naive to go misdiagnosing his kindness as anything too personal.

“I’m fine, Mercer. How are you?”

“I’d be better if this kid would quit dragging his feet.” He nodded in the direction of the young man he’d been working with the previous afternoon. “I didn’t introduce you guys yesterday. How rude of me.”

Mercer shouted and swept an arm to beckon the man over. He put on a fight announcer’s voice. “A-a-a-nd from Boston, Massachusetts, nineteen years old, two hundred fifteen pounds, De-e-e-lante Waters! Jenna, this is Delante—Mattapan’s answer to a young Holyfield. Delante, this is Jenna, Monty’s daughter.”

She was struck again by the young man’s size—broad and meaty, way heavier than Mercer, though three or four inches shorter. Jenna shook his hand, feeling hesitance in the gesture, a shyness in his averted gaze not evident in any other aspect of the kid. “Hey,” he mumbled. His hair was braided into a labyrinth of cornrows, ending into two puffy tufts at the nape of his neck.

“What’s feeling lazy, pigtails?” Mercer asked him.

A shrug. “Footwork?”

“Couldn’t agree more. Go to it. I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”

Delante left them to head for another part of the gym and Mercer turned to Jenna. “I didn’t ask you the other day, but what do you think? Is this place what you imagined?”

She made a grudging face. “It’s different than I expected. Less awful than my mom and the old news stories had me assuming.”

“Be still my heart.” Mercer smirked, and it made Jenna’s middle squirm pleasantly.

Wait. Were they flirting?

“What were you expecting?” he asked. “A meth lab?”

“It’s nice, I guess. I don’t have anything to compare it to.”

Mercer’s gaze dropped. “Mind taking your shoes off?”

“Oh, sorry.” Just as she stepped out of her flats, she caught sight of a young trainee running a mop over the mats beneath a row of punching bags, sopping up sweat. Note to self—wash feet.

Another man approached, dressed to fight in shorts, barefoot, with fingerless gloves on his hands. He had longish hair and dark, aristocratic features, a Spanish prince with an aquiline nose and a raging black eye. He and Mercer clasped hands and gave one another matching shoulder slaps before they looked to Jenna.

“Jenna, this is Rich Estrada. Rich, this is Jenna Wilinski.”

Rich smiled—an easy, deadly, sigh-inducing smile, and took her hand in his gloved one. His smooth foreign airs evaporated the second he opened his mouth. His accent was pure Boston sandpaper, even heavier than Mercer’s. “Good to meet ya. You must take after your mom, huh? Your dad was a fugly son of a bitch, God rest his soul.”

“Thanks?” Jenna said through a laugh, and released his hand.

“Whatcha think of your sweaty-ass legacy?” Rich asked, crossing his scary arms over his chest.

She glanced at Mercer, unsure if he’d shared her so-called evil plans with his colleagues and made her a basement full of enemies. Hopefully not.

“She’s acclimating,” Mercer offered, then spoke to Jenna. “Rich is fighting in that MMA tournament in October, and he’s our resident Muay Thai trainer.”

“Moy what now?”

“Your dad sent him to study kickboxing in Thailand for a year, when this place was transitioning from pure boxing to mixed disciplines. Our loss when he hits it big and leaves us for some juicy pro contract.”

Rich shrugged, dismissing his credentials.

“Now he’s the gym’s great white hope for a bit of positive press.”

“Great Colombian hope,” Rich corrected.

Jenna smiled politely, fighting a twinge of angst to know her dad had paid for this man to travel and get a once-in-a-lifetime education—no matter how brutal—when she hadn’t received so much as a graduation card from him. Still, no use letting the hurt take deeper root. She’d wasted enough time on that. Heck, maybe he’d simply wanted sons.

She gave Rich’s body a brief assessment, hoping maybe he’d stir that heat in her the way Mercer did and prove it was just an indiscriminate, misguided lust, a chemical misfire brought on by their ridiculous physiques. Nothing. But a second’s glance at Mercer’s mere forearm? Zing. Damn it.

“I won’t keep you,” she said to Mercer. “But I can’t for the life of me figure out why the lights won’t come on in the apartment.”

“Oh, sorry. I should have told you. There’s a master switch right as you enter, bit higher than you’d expect. Stupid design. Throwback to when the place was slated to be offices.”

“I better go. The mattress people should be here soon.”

“Cool. I’ll be up around seven or so.”

Jenna bade the men a good afternoon and headed for the steps. She wondered what they would say about her once she was out of earshot. If they knew about her plans for the matchmaking franchise, they probably thought she was some silly fish out of water, a frivolous romantic.

No more silly or frivolous than teaching men to beat the crap out of each other, she decided. Both valid passions. Then she made the mistake of picturing Mercer engaged in his passion, stripped to the waist in a ring, gleaming with sweat, his face set with concentration.

Oh, bad. Very bad.

The delivery truck was pulling up as she reached the foyer, and before Jenna knew it, her bed was in place and made up with her new sheets and covers. The next step would be to find a supermarket, then get better acquainted with the kitchen.

An hour later she was unpacking her groceries, fantasizing about how she’d refinish the counters, what color to paint the walls, when the snap of the dead bolt pulled her out of her home-improvement fantasies. Mercer entered and waved from across the living room.

She mustered a smile to cover up the nerves he triggered. “Hey, roommate.”

“Hey, landlady. Did your mattress guys show up?”

“Yup. You done working for the day?”

“I am.” He pushed off his shoes by the door and crossed to stand on the other side of the counter, eyeing her new purchases—coffee grinder, salad spinner, her first ever brand-new set of knives. “Very fancy,” he said, examining her gleaming French press. “Must get that from your mom. Your dad ate the same dinner every night, for as long as I knew him.”

“Really? What?”

“Roast beef sub from this dingy Polish hole-in-the-wall. Even made me sneak them into the hospital for him, once or twice. Probably kept that place in business, single-handed.”

Jenna turned her attention back to her groceries, peeling stickers from her produce, avoiding Mercer’s eyes.

“Sorry. Is it uncomfortable, me talking about him?” Leave it to a boxer to read all her little cues. Probably an ace at poker, too.

“That’s too strong a word,” she said with a shrug. “Just weird.”

“What’s your mom like?”

“What did my dad tell you she was like?” Jenna countered.

“He never said much, really. Which just meant he wasn’t crazy about her, but was too nice to say so. Talked way more about you.”

“Yeah. I’m sure he had plenty to say, considering he hadn’t seen me since I was four and we moved away. Since we talked maybe twice on the phone, the whole rest of my childhood.” Awkward calls, both on her birthday if she remembered correctly. False and overly cheerful, like chatting with a mall Santa.

“Well, he was really proud of you, anyhow.”

Jenna sighed quietly, deciding now was the perfect time to open the wine she’d bought. She held it up to show Mercer. “Would you like a glass?”

He shook his head. “I don’t drink much when I’m training.”

“Not good for keeping in peak condition?”

Mercer reached over the counter to pull out a drawer and hand her a corkscrew, giving Jenna quite a nice view of his flexing arm.

“I actually meant I don’t drink when I’m training other guys, getting one of the kids in shape for a match. I try to set a good example.”

She filled a tumbler, mentally adding stemware to her growing shopping list. A definite must, should she find the time to finagle a date of her own, off the clock. She shot Mercer a smirk. “And you think teaching your trainees how to beat people senseless is a good example?”

He returned her smile, the gesture making him truly, properly handsome for a moment. She caught herself fixating on the contours of his chest and shoulders beneath his T-shirt, those deadly—literally deadly—arms braced on the counter.

“It’s strange to look at you,” Jenna said, corking the bottle, “knowing my dad had a part in raising you.”

“Do you have a stepfather?”

“Yeah. My mom remarried when I was ten. That’s probably a big part of why I never got in touch with my father. My stepdad’s a great guy. I mean, he’s my dad.”

He’d changed their lives, nearly overnight. Her mom had been a wreck up until then, depressed and desperate and always struggling with multiple jobs, overwhelmed by the stress of being a single mother. Then her stepdad had shown up, and everything transformed. Her mother had blossomed with a good man’s affection and support, and for the first time in her life, Jenna had understood how essential it was to feel secure. Like you weren’t alone. And it went far beyond some old damsel-in-distress refrain—her stepdad had transformed, too. He’d told them so a thousand times. He’d offered them stability—financially and in so many other ways, but he’d benefited just as much. You’re the family I didn’t even know I deserved, he’d said one Thanksgiving. It was as if all their jagged edges had fit together like joints, the whole so much stronger than its pieces.

From then on, Jenna had gone forth in awe of the Healing Power of True Love—cue harp music—as only an adolescent girl could. As it turned out, she was great at spotting matches. Three sets of friends she’d gotten together in college were now married or engaged, another two pairs happily living together. More than once she’d been approached by people she’d introduced as strangers the year before on the cruise ship, back for another trip and wanting to tell her they were still together. It hadn’t occurred to her it might just be her ideal career, not until she’d chanced upon an article about Spark, and read that the business was looking to expand to new markets. And like a sign from above, she’d inherited this place, not even six months later.

She sipped her wine. “I always thought it would be an insult to my stepdad if I went looking for my biological father, having only been told what a jerk he was.”

Mercer winced.

“He was really good to you, huh?” Jenna asked.

“He was. Hard as hell, but that’s what I needed. That’s what a lot of kids need. Somebody who’ll hold them to a higher standard, come down on them when they screw up. Forgive them when they try to do right.”

She nodded thoughtfully and the conversation lagged. Mercer disappeared downstairs, returning with a laptop and a pad and pen, and setting up at the dining room table.

Jenna took another sip of her wine and deemed it worthy of her first evening in her new home. The faded paint and the jumble of her dead father’s furniture—to say nothing of the stray boxer in the spare room—would need to go, but she wasn’t in too much of a hurry. Like the wine, Mercer’s presence put her mind at ease. Though his body, it seemed, was doomed to put hers on high alert.