“I said I was sorry. Where’s the trash can? I’ll grab some paper towels.” “Don’t try to brush past it,” Cameron snapped. He stepped off the mat, crossing the invisible boundary between his sanctuary and the dirty real world. He stood inches from Seth. The height difference was negligible, but Cameron puffed his chest out, flaring his lats. It was classic mammalian posturing.
Seth felt a dull ache in his jaw. He was clenching his teeth. He forced his mandible to relax. He looked at Cameron’s chest, not his eyes. Eye contact was a challenge. Chest watching allowed him to track shoulder movement. “Look,” Seth said, his tone flat, devoid of the subservience Cameron clearly expected. “The food is here. The mat is dirty. I’ll wipe it up. Then I’m going back out into the rain. We don’t need to do a whole thing here.”
Cameron laughed a short, ugly sound. He glanced back at his training partners. A few of them chuckled along. It was an audience. That was dangerous. Men with an audience had egos to feed. “You don’t get to tell me what we need to do,” Cameron said, turning his attention back to Seth. “You walk in here looking like a vagrant, disrespect my gym, and then catch an attitude.”
Seth felt the damp cold of his socks. He felt the phantom pain in his knee. He felt tired. So deeply, fundamentally tired. He reached into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled napkin from a previous delivery, and knelt down. He scrubbed at the muddy boot print. The mud smeared a little before coming off. “There,” Seth said, standing back up, tossing the soiled napkin into a nearby bin.
“Clean. Take your chicken.” He set the bag on the reception desk. He turned to leave. Cameron grabbed his shoulder. It was a strong grip. Cameron’s fingers dug into the cheap nylon of the windbreaker, anchoring against the muscle underneath. Seth stopped. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t jerk away. He just went entirely, unnervingly still.
The background noise of the gym, the hum of the industrial HVAC, the distant wail of a police siren outside seemed to mute. Seth’s peripheral vision widened. The heart rate monitor in his brain, usually sluggish and worn out, gave a single, solid thump. Threat detected. Assessing parameters. Cameron’s weight was shifted forward ninety percent on his lead leg. His chin was up, exposed. His right hand was on Seth’s shoulder. His left hand dropping slightly toward his waist. He was in range. He was wide open.
But Seth fought the conditioning. He took a slow breath, inhaling the scent of sandalwood and sweat. He forced himself to be the delivery guy. “Let go of the jacket,” Seth said. His voice dropped an octave. It lost the gravelly exhaustion and became terrifyingly smooth. Cameron felt the shift even if he couldn’t intellectually identify it. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of uncertainty crossed the younger man’s face.