Page 1 of Nate

Prologue

“So what’s going onwith you, Nate?”

Nate leaned back in his patio chair. He and his two friends, Max and Gage, were sitting by the side of his free-form pool. “I’m bored.”

“Bored with what?” Max asked

Nate took a drink of his beer. “I don’t know. With everything.”

Gage snorted in disbelief. “You can’t be bored at work, you’re running three fucking gyms.”

“Yeah, but it’s a routine now. There’s no challenge. I’m planning to expand to other cities, so that might help. But I still just feel, I don’t know... bored. I feel like I’ve got all this aggression and nowhere for it to go anymore.”

Max’s low voice rumbled out. “You’re not thinking you want to start fighting again are you?”

“Nah. I made it as far as I did without any serious injuries. Not gonna risk going back into underground fighting at this point.”

“Yeah, and you don’t want to risk messing up the pretty face that brings you all that attention.”

Nate laughed along with his friends. But once it died down he came clean. “Actually, I haven’t been getting that much attention lately. Or I guess I should say, I haven’t been paying attention to the attention. Haven’t had a date or been laid in about three months.”

Gage choked on his beer at that statement. Nate rolled his eyes while Max pounded their friend on the back.

Once Gage got his breath back he asked, “What? Three months! Fucking why?”

“Because I’m sick of screwing the same type of guy. Perfect hair, perfect muscles, perfect clothes. And everything smooth and waxed. Waxed legs, eyebrows, even their fucking balls are smooth. It’s like fucking a mannequin.”

Gage was again choking on his beer and this time even Max was laughing.

“I happen to like my silky smooth pretty boy.” Gage frowned, picking at the label on his beer bottle. “Even if he isn’t exactly mine right now.”

Gage was dating a guy named Joseph. Or at least he had been. Joseph had walked out on him when he’d caught Gage kissing a girl at Nate’s Fourth of July party a couple of weeks ago. “Joseph isn’t the type of guy I’m talking about. He’s not pretentious and overly done. But lately every guy I meet is like that. And somehow the night always ends with a coy request for a free membership at one of my gyms.”

“Stop picking up men at the club, dumb ass.”

Nate narrowed his eyes at his friend. “We can’t all have hot, single guys ride into our shop on the back of a motorcycle.” He saluted Max with his beer. “Or have hot, single girls walk in to get a tattoo.”

Max returned the salute but didn’t say anything. That was normal. Of the three of them, Max was the quietest.

Gage acknowledge Nate with a nod. “True. But seriously. Stay out of the clubs if you want to meet somebody different.”

“He’s right,” Max said. “They say insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Trust me, that shit is true.”

Nate stared out across his pool, watching as the colored underwater lights slowly changed from blue to purple to red. His friends were right. If he wanted a change, he was going to have to try something new.

---