Page 25 of Tameron

My phone dinged again, and when I checked the text Dayton had sent, I almost dropped it in the boiling water.

You were right! She has grown.

It wasn’t that message that had me flummoxed. It was the accompanying picture. Dayton had taken it while aiming the camera down at the scale he’d put Knives on in a shoebox, but he’d caught a good portion of himself as well…and he wasn’t wearing a shirt. I had a prime view of his absolutely ripped six-pack and a noticeable bulge in the tight shorts he wore.

Dayum. The man really was built, and not even for “his age.” I let out a deep sigh. Some people really had everything going for them, didn’t they?

I told you so.

Nice shot.

Isn’t she adorable in that shoebox?

Sure, we’d go with adorable. Because the kitten was the reason I’d almost dropped my phone into a pot of boiling pasta.

What the fuck was wrong with me?

CHAPTER EIGHT

DAYTON

“I want you to imagine there’s a string from the ceiling to the base of your spine. It’s traveling from there, all the way up your neck, the back of your head, finally exiting at the tip of your nose. It’s pulling tight, keeping your body in a straight line.”

Most of my students were seated in chairs, but a few were on their feet, using them for assistance. And two people—one of which being Tameron—were beside the chair but using yoga blocks to balance themselves.

It was progress. Or he was just having a good day. He hadn’t said and it wasn’t my place to ask. He’d been taking my class long enough to know that if he wanted me to know something about how he was doing that day, it was his job to tell me.

But he was doing great. Mostly.

I walked behind him and wrapped my arm around his front, sliding my hand from his torso to his stomach. His abs jumped. Hard. “Just a bit deeper,” I said, urging him to turn his body farther into the pose so his spine was straight and his hips were aligned with the hand pointing up at the ceiling.

“Th-thanks,” he stammered.

I snatched my hands back quickly. Yes, I was indulging in being allowed to touch him, but I was doing my best not to makeit dirty. I respected the practice and Tameron as a person. He was straight, so any small indulgences were for me alone, and they’d fade as soon as I met someone else.

The only problem was I’d been wallowing in my one-sided crush and hadn’t been looking. That would change tonight. I’d finally decided it was time to go out for my bi-annualget fucked by a hot stranger in a questionable restroomtradition. It wasn’t the best way to get my rocks off, but it was the quickest. And it tended to take the edge off my loneliness. If only for a little while.

Dax and Dahlia had been up my ass at the last family dinner about meeting someone. Dax had even snuck into my phone and downloaded some dating app for queer people—kind of like Grindr, but it catered to the whole queer population.

And after my argument with him about boundaries—one I knew he planned to fully ignore—I actually let myself do a little perusing. The first few profiles I’d seen were ones I would’ve swiped right on a couple of years back when I’d given online dating a try.

Profiles of men and women looking for a quick, no-strings good time. Which was all fine and dandy, but I was getting a little tired of being alone. I could easily live like this forever. It was a comfortable life. I’d settled into my bachelorhood nicely and was a little less lonely now that I had Knives with me.

Not to mention Dax didn’t seem to be on the prowl after his last relationship ended, so it wasn’t like I was going to lose my roommate—or gain another one—anytime soon.

But there were a few who seemed more my type. People looking to settle down. People tired of trying to navigate the world of relationships without having someone draw them a map.

I’d checked the profile Dax had created for me, and it wasn’t…the worst. He’d leaned a little heavy on the fact thatI was a firefighter—which always fascinated people until they found out that being a first responder wasn’t the glamorous job they showed on TV.

Once upon a time, my job had been a lot more rushing into burning buildings, lifting heavy objects, and administering life-saving emergency care until the ambulance showed up. But now, it was paperwork, schedules, and administration. It was mitigating arguments between my team when they got into petty fights about who took whose leftovers from the fridge and who stole the good pillows from the supply closet like they were a bunch of kindergarteners. It was organizing charity events and dealing with neighborhood complaints about how loud the trucks were.

And yeah, there was still the opportunity to save kittens and do shirtless car washes and calendars once or twice a year when the need called for it.

But it was hard to deal with the disappointment on people’s faces, which is why I always waited to say what I did. And it was why I knew someone would accuse me of catfishing when I turned up as the opposite of what they expected.

So I’d said screw it and let the app sit on my phone without sending or responding to any of the messages. Instead, I’d gotten out the iron Dahlia had given Dax and me for a housewarming gift and pressed my sexiest button-up for the club, then left it on the bed so I go to the gym before heading out to get my dick wet.

Or something close to that.

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