Page 9 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

“A dog? Fuck yes!” Rhys left the stir fry to sizzle as he ran over and bumped knuckles with me. “I told you dogs are better than cats. We can take it for runs on the beach and out to the park?—”

“And what do we do with a dog when we’re all scheduled on at work?” Rhett was a firefighter, so he had a weird schedule, just like I did.

“He can come into the gym with me,” Rhys said.

“You weren’t offering that when I was talking about getting a cat,” I replied.

“What the hell would a cat do at a gym?” Rhys spluttered. I’m fairly sure you could ask the same question of a dog, but I made no comment. “What kind? Do you have a picture of him?”

I pulled out my phone and showed him the photos I’d taken of the dog, but as I did so, a scrap of paper fell on the floor. I went to pick it up, but Rhys was already there.

“And what do we have here…?” He unfolded the paper to see the number. “A phone number, written down on actual paper? Damn, that’s old school. Your nana write her number down? Or one of those old ladies that keeps ‘having a fall’ to get to go to the ED to see you?”

“Better than the dudes that keep ‘falling on cucumbers in the shower.’”

Rhett flexed his fingers to make air quotes.

“It’s neither of those things.” I grabbed the piece of paper from Rhys’ hand and stored it safely in my phone case. “It’s a girl’s number.”

They wanted to give me a hard time, I saw that in an instant, but the usual rambunctious bullshit died a swift death. We didn’t get to joke about girls anymore, not after our last disastrous break up. We thought we were so smart, proposing to get into a poly relationship. Firefighters and health care professionals, they could live a pretty lonely life with the weird shift hours and demanding jobs. I’d never been able to devote enough time to a girl to keep her around, and Rhett was the same. Rhys was married to the job but wanted someone to lavish all that frenetic energy on, and so we’d proposed finding a girl that we all liked who’d be interested in a poly relationship.

Only for it to end so badly the three of us had barely dated since.

“The girl who has been looking after the dog I applied to adopt.” I held up the photos and Rhys’ grin was immediate. “She said she’d be happy to help settle him in.”

“A pittie?” Rhys was like a kid at Christmas, his whole face lighting up. “Shit, the stir fry!” He lunged for the wok, taking it off the heat.

“Are you sure we want a dog like…?” Rhett’s brows drew down. “What happened to him?”

I knew then he was feeling the same thing I was. Dogs were so fucking pure. We’d taken wolves and turned them into perpetual puppies that loved us more than they did their own parents, and some people abused that blind loyalty.

“Bait dog,” I replied, not needing to explain.

He and his team had stumbled onto an illegal dog baiting ring when answering an emergency call and he was shaken for weeks by what he saw.

“He needs a home?” I nodded. “Alright.” He looked around the house as if seeing it for the first time. “So we need to clean up, make the place look respectable for when they do an inspection. The shelter is going to come by and make sure the place is safe for the dog, right?”

“Bronson,” I replied. “His name is Bronson.”

“Bronson.” Rhys nodded as he started to spoon the stir fry onto bowls full of brown rice. “That’s a good strong name. I fucking love pitties. They’re total units of dogs.”

“He’s really soft.” I stared the two of them down. “If you think you’re gonna get some big tough guard dog, think again. We’re going to need to take things slowly with him. He’s gone through a lot of trauma…” My smile was back again as my mind raced ahead. “And I think we’re gonna need to talk to the girl at the shelter for some advice about how to acclimate him.”

“Doggie therapy date, huh?” Rhys said, then pushed a bowl my way. I glanced at the contents, mentally calculating the macros. I wasn’t competing at the moment, but I didn’t like to lose my gym gains in the down season. “Well, seeing as we’re talking about girls, I met someone today.”

“What?”

Rhett and I stared at him.

“This fucking smokeshow barrelled into me and spilled her smoothie all over my chest when I was coming out of the showers. She’s new to the gym and built just the way I like ‘em.”

His fork landed in his bowl with a clatter as he traced the shape of the woman in the air.

But I knew what she would’ve looked like.

Curves for days, soft enough to sink your fingers into, then your cock, once she was gasping after her first, second, third orgasm. Pretty too, with a ready smile and freckles… I shook my head, realising I was transposing Katie into Rhys’ story.

“She nearly tore my towel off trying to clean the mess up and nearly came face to face with not-so-little Rhys,” he continued. “I didn’t give a damn about the smoothie, especially as I was about to make a mess of my own if she kept touching me like that.”

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