Page 11 of Black Roses

My phone vibrates and I smile as I swipe to answer the call. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear your voice,” I say.

“So, how’s day three going?” Charlie asks. “Please tell me you are going to see that gorgeous hunk of a football player today.”

“Shut up.” I roll my eyes at the phone. I never should have mentioned his name to her yesterday. “No, thankfully, I’m not going to see him, but I am going to see his trainer. I’m on my way there right now.”

“Is his trainer gorgeous?” she asks.

“I don’t know,I haven’t metheryet.”

“Ooooooh, maybe you could have a threesome.” She giggles. “I mean, you already know the guy is hot—like super-sports-hero hot. I’ve Googled him and Pipes, I know you don’t date and all; I’m just saying, if you were ever going to—now would be a good time to start.”

I blow out an exasperated breath into the phone. The only reason I don’t hang up on her is that I know she’s kidding. She also knows just how far shecan pushbefore I break.

“Okay, okay,” she says. “Enough talk of the freakishly-hot quarterback. Tell me about all the other shit you’ve done since we talked yesterday.”

I tell her about brunch, leaving out the details of my mom’s appearance. That would make Charlie sad. My mom was like a second mother to her. Hell, she was like anonlymother to her. Her own mother was too wrapped up in a bottle to give a rat’s ass about the comings and goings of her only daughter. She was a washed-up runway model; a has-been. An over-the-hill actress who only got bit parts as someone’s forty-something mother. But still, she had to keep up appearances. She would often be invited to charity functions and red-carpet premiers and because of that, she had to look impeccable.

But her daughter didn’t. Her beautiful daughter that had, in her mother’s words,‘stolen her looks’from the minute she got knocked up with her.

Nobody cared what her daughter looked like. She wasn’t in the spotlight. No one would notice if she had bruises on her face or burns on her arms. Charlie was good at hiding it. So good that my mother, even as close as they had become, was oblivious to it until Charlie told her senior year, weeks before we packed up and left.But by that time, she was eighteen and practically living with us. She begged my mom not to do anything about it.

Maybe that’s why my mom looks so old. She’s been burdened with too many secrets.

We end the call as I walk through the front doors of the massive four-story gym.Wow. This place is like the freaking Waldorf, except people are wearing spandex instead of tailored suits. Theyownthis? Gavin, Griffin and Mason own this place? I look around the expansive space, seeing it almost completely from one end to the other through the glass walls that partition the different sections. I know immediately I will love it here. I see dozens of treadmills I can get lost on.Weight machines that beckon me, challenging me to push myself to the breaking point.Boxing rings that I know will absorb some of my aggression.

I walk up to the front desk and drop my duffle bag. “Um, I’m supposed to meet with a trainer.” I fumble with my phone, pulling up the text Mason sent me. I’m sure he misspelled her name. “Uh . . . Trick?”

“I’m Trick,” a soft yet masculine voice bellows behind me.

I whip around, surprised to see a woman in the place where the voice originated. She holds out her hand. “Mason sent you.Piper, right?I adore him.And your brothers-in-law.Well, I suppose Griffin isn’t exactly that yet, but it won’t be long. Are you excited about the wedding?”

As she rambles on about anything and everything, I take in her appearance. Just as Mason said, she’s got piercings; one through her lip and one in her eyebrow. She has short, purple hair that matches her outfit—a tight-fitting sports bra that flattens her barely-there chest, and three-quarter length spandex leggings that hug her boyish figure. She’s petite but very fit. Defined biceps lead down to the thick veins lining her forearms. I know instantly that I will like her.

“… and so I decided on Trick, you know, because it’s gender-neutral and all.”

I realize in my perusal of her wild-yet-somehow-fabulous persona, I’ve missed most of what she said.“Uh, sorry.”I finally accept her outstretched hand hoping she doesn’t think I’m a rude ditz. “Yes, I’m Piper. Mason said I can work with you while I’m here?”

She laughs, looking me up and down. “You must have really gotten to him.”

“Gotten to him?” I cross my arms in front of my body, slightly uncomfortable at her perusal.

“Yes.” She reaches down to pick up my bag and motions for me to follow her. “He doesn’t share me with just anyone, you know. He must like you.” She turns back and looks at me again, shaking her head as if she’s confused about something.

“Like me? No. I think he’s taking pity on me because I said I could beat him in the Boston Marathon.” I still can’t believe I said it. What was I thinking? He’s a professionally trained athlete and all I do is run, well and box occasionally.

Trick suddenly stops walking, causing me to nearly run into her. “Wait. Hold the fucking phone,” she says, doubling over in laughter. She straightens up and wipes her eyes. “You mean to tell me Mason Lawrence is running in the Boston Marathon?With you?”

I don’t know why she finds this so funny. “Well, notwithme,” I say. “But he’s the one who got me in. He said he’s been training for a while now, as part of his football conditioning.”

A huge smile sweeps across her face. It can’t be comfortable. It looks like her lip ring is pulled so taut it might rip right through her flesh. “Is that so?” She starts walking again, and I follow, watching her shoulders shake up and down as if she’s laughing, but without making a sound this time.

We end up in a locker room where she issues me a lock and I stash my bag for later. “I take it you’ve run before? What are your times?”

She seems mildly impressed when I rattle off my times to her.

“And where else have you trained?” she asks.

“Nowhere else.I just like to run.”

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