Colliding Love - Tucker Billi...

Our third training session since Logan showed up at my house in the middle of the night is exactly like the two before it—brimming with a sexual awareness that's been unboxed and let out into the world to wreak havoc.

"I'm not sure I'm getting these barbell squats right, doc," he says, giving me a sideways glance as he lifts the weights off the ground and slides them onto the bar.

He's been off his workout game the last couple of sessions, but I've seen him do the squat correctly before. The capability is there, but he has been inconsistent. "What do you need from me?" I ask.

"Can you just," he nods at the bar before lifting it into position, "physically adjust me on the fly?"

I step closer, and immediately his minty scent mixed with his natural tanginess makes me want to suck in a deep breath. He's asked for "hands-on" adjustments in our latest sessions whenever he can't quite nail a skill. Before, I used to just tell him to look in the mirror, and I'd call out adjustments.

And I could still do that.

He squats with the bar on his shoulders, and I place a hand on his lower back, and another against his core. "You're too forward," I say.

With a nod, he sits back more, and when I glance up, he's focused on us in the mirror. Close together. Awareness buzzes between us like a live wire, and I wish I wanted to call an electrician, that I had a desire to put a stop to whatever this is.

"What?" I whisper.

"I just like looking at you," he says. "More specifically, I like looking at you next to me."

"Logan..."

"You said flirting was allowed."

We're close enough that when he comes out of his squat to stand upright, he towers over me. A shiver races down my spine. Our gazes are locked.

"Just flirting," I say, but my voice lacks the conviction I know it needs.

"If you were mine," he says, his voice gruff, "I'd tell you all the time how beautiful you are, how smart you are, how I can't stop thinking about—"

"Your next exercise," I say, stepping back. "Hockey is the focus, right? We don't want anything to interfere with that."

My reminder seems to work, and for the rest of our session, he's exactly like he was before he came to my house. Focused. Determined. Each exercise precise, pushing himself to the max.

We've got ten minutes left when my front doorbell sounds. Bituin, who manages my office, pokes her head in the workout room.

"Matilda is here. She wasn't able to leave Benji in childcare, so she's got him too," Bituin says, her long brown hair sliding off her shoulder to form a curtain.

I bit my lip and glance at the closet where I keep some toys for these situations.

"What's the problem?" Logan asks.

"Childcare can be tricky," I say. "And we were a bit slow to get going today." More accurately, his issues with some of the exercises at the start slowed us down.

"What do you normally do?"

"Clean up all the weights and put the child in here with some toys while I do physio in the room next to this one."

Logan takes in the clock above the door, and a crease appears in his brow. "We're late today. That's my fault. Sorry." He lets out a deep sigh. "I can watch the kid while I finish. Then I'll tidy up the weights and head out. Just leave me a list of the last few things."

"Are you sure?" I ask. "He's three and a bit of a dynamo."

"I can handle one kid." His smile is wry.

I step out into the hallway and have a quick chat with Matilda. After she agrees, I leave Logan with the final workout items, and a three-year-old who has no clue one of the top hockey players in the world is his stand-in babysitter.

Just as I enter the next room with Matilda, Logan's low rumble is audible.

"All right, buddy. You get the toys, and I get the weights."

In the treatment room, I become so absorbed in trying to get Matilda's frozen shoulder going that I don't register the noise from next door until there's a loud shriek.

"I'll check," I say, when Matilda tenses.

I open the treatment door, and Benji's shrieks turn into giggles of delight. I peek around the doorframe, and Logan has tied bands around Benji, and he's using him as a weight, pulling him up into a clean and then flipping him over his head and onto his shoulders for a squat. Each time Logan rotates him to the front or back, Benji squeals and then lets out peals of giggles.

"You two okay in here?" I ask, leaning my shoulder against the doorframe.

"I love it," Benji cries. "Again! Again!"

Logan heaves a sigh and goes into the sequence again.

"If you need to go..." I say, taking in the time. He must have finished the last couple exercises already. Whatever is happening here is on top of what I assigned.

"How long are you going to be?" Logan asks, never losing a beat in the swing, lift, squat sequence.

"Another half an hour," I say. "I know you're busy. Benji can play in here, or he can bring some toys into the physio room."

"But you'd be able to concentrate better, and his mom would probably benefit more, from him being occupied, right?"

"Of course, but—"

"And she's your last client of the day?"

I take a beat to consider the implications. "She is."

"You meant what you said the other night? About us hanging out?"

That's a loaded question. The other night, before the sexual tension was ramped up from a six to an eight or ten at any given moment, I didn't see too much harm in spending time with him outside training. Now? There's a red neon sign at the back of my brain screaming "danger", impossible to ignore.

"Yeah," I say, letting out my breath in a whoosh. "We can figure out what you want to do when I'm done."

"All right, buddy," Logan says, lowering Benji to the ground. "Now, you show me how one of your toys works. I showed you that exercise."

"Oh, oh, oh," Benji says, running to the closet where I keep the toys. "Sawee has good toys. I show you."

Logan slides me a look that I think might be resigned amusement, and he follows him to the toys.

"He's not very old, is he?" Matilda asks when I re-enter the treatment room.

"Who?" I ask as I try to remember which stretch we left off on.

"The hockey player."

"Twenty-one."

"Young," she says with a knowing smile. "You two?" She waggles her finger as though Logan is in the room and she's toggling back and forth between us.

"Oh, no. No. I've been working for the Bullets. With physio. Training. That sort of thing. That's why he's here." I position her into the next stretch and count in my head as she holds it.

"And after?" A sneaky grin appears. "A different sort of training after hours, I think."

My cheeks are on fire, and I shake my head. "It's not—"

"Good for you," she says, squeezing my upper arm with her free hand. "Good for you. I never liked Dalton Worthington. He didn't get my vote. Best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."

Is it? I want to ask, but I don't. Of course I've had breakups before, but this one is different. I've been heartbroken or defiant or indifferent, but I've never felt so lost.

"A man who's good with kids, especially adorable shitheads like my little Benji, is a good man. You hear his voice—" she points at the wall that separates the treatment room from the workout space "—not stressed about being left with him at all. Anyone who's good with kids or animals is a winner. My ex? Not good with either. I saw the signs." She grimaces. "I saw them."

"Why do you think," I struggle for the right words as I get her into the second last stretch, "when we see it, we don't believe it?"

"We don't want to believe it. Who wants to think about being in love with someone who doesn't deserve our love? No one. We readjust those rose-colored glasses until we have no choice but to take them off."

I run my hand over the back of my head, at the place where the bump seemed to linger for so long, tender, unseen by anyone else.

"I don't know how you trust your instincts again," I murmur.

"I'd love to tell you, but I can't. Whatever made me pick Benji's father seems to keep leading me to other losers who seem like winners at first. It's fucking ridiculous, is what it is. If you figure it out, let me in on the secret."

"Still single, so..." I give a little shrug.

"No harm in a younger rebound. No strings attached. Get your groove back. I'm all for it. The photos probable don't do him justice."

"Seriously, it's not—"

"I'm not judging." She holds up her one available hand. "If I could land a man twenty years younger than me, I'd go for it too."

"He's only—"

"Mom!" Benji's voice is loud against the door. "Mom? We go home?"

"I tried to keep him away," Logan says, and his tone is mild resignation.

I really, really hope these rooms are more soundproof than I know they are.

"Do you think he heard that?" Matilda asks in a loud whisper.

"Yeah," Logan says from the other side of the door. "He heard it. For the record, she's only ten years older than me."

Matilda looks as red in the face as I feel when I crack open the door.

"Just to be clear, Sawyer's also the only woman I've got penciled into my calendar."

"I'm sure that's not—" I start to say.

"It's absolutely the truth." He leans against the doorframe as Matilda hurries out of the room, ushering Benji with her. "I'm dialed in."

"On training," I stress as Matilda heads toward the front door.

"Sure, on that too," Logan says with a grin.

"I'll lock up," Bituin calls from the front desk. "If you've got plans."

I close my eyes and take a deep, centering breath. Regret over saying yes should be running through me, but I can't seem to call it up. I like being around him, but I can't help remembering the conversation I just had with Matilda where she lamented repeating the same patterns.

What if I'm doing the same thing with Logan? Balanced on the edge of sacrificing myself for his wants and needs?

Sorry my posts have been a bit random the last couple of weeks. This winter where I live has felt like 5 years long this year, and I keep losing track of my days.

As a complete aside, has anyone watched Running Point on Netflix? I really enjoyed it.

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