Big Girl Panties (21 page)

By the time he finished stretching, Logan began to feel others inspecting him in much the same way he'd been doing to them. The looks he received, however, were along the lines of open stares of lust from women and competitive sizing up from men who recognized the level of Logan's dedication and training. Wishing he hadn't forgotten his iPod, Logan picked a treadmill at the end of a line alongside a wall on the main gym floor and turned it on in preparation for a run. The music from the stereo system would have to suffice, and Logan found himself beginning to pound his feet to the beat as he went from a fast walk to a full-out jog. The music was once again interrupted by the sound of Holly's voice piping through the speakers.

“Okay. You've been asking. It's horoscope time. Today's astrology is courtesy of the
New York Post
.”

Logan couldn't decide if he was amused or pissed that the music had stopped. He had just begun to find his groove and now he was being forced to listen to her. He made a mental note to talk to her about it later.

“If you're a Virgo, ‘It's time you realize that most things turn out better if you do them yourself. Don't believe everything you hear.' ”

Logan shook his head, thinking he had a long way to go before she got to his sign—Aries—and noticed two men in their early thirties getting onto the two treadmills next to his.

Holly continued. “For Libra, ‘If there's confusion in your romantic life, it's only because you aren't asking the right questions. If you feel there's more to know, you are probably right.' Well, duh.”

Logan caught himself laughing, and with another quick look around saw that other people throughout the gym were chuckling as well, including Michael and Leslie, who was working on a lateral pull-down weight machine about twenty feet away. Several people even took their headphones off to listen. Apparently, Holly's show was nothing new.

Holly pressed on. “Hey, Scorpio! ‘If business isn't booming right now, don't worry. The stars indicate that you are about to receive some news.' Gimme a break.”

The man closest to Logan addressed his friend, louder than he probably would have liked in the effort to be heard over Holly. “Holly has issues.”

Logan rolled his eyes. Jesus, was every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the building on a first-name basis with her?

Holly's voice, now with an edge of annoyance, resonated once more though the building. “Does anyone else find these things ridiculous and not the least bit helpful? They all sound the same. Let me sum it up with: Good luck with making it through the day. Stuff is going to happen to you. Now get out there and do the best you can! Anyone who absolutely needs to hear the horoscope for their own zodiac sign, stop by the front desk for your personal reading.” The music switched back on.

“Thank God,” the man a treadmill away turned to say to his friend. “I thought she was never going to shut up.”

Logan, overhearing again, snickered, thinking he felt pretty much the same way, and picked his pace back up with the music again.

“Oh, I don't know,” the man closest to Logan responded. “I think she's pretty funny. And she's not wearing a ring.”

Logan's ears zeroed in on the conversation and he cast a sideways glance to get a better look at the men.

“Dude, seriously? She's kinda fat, don't you think? She needs to spend a little less time behind that desk and a little more time on this treadmill,” his companion replied with a laugh.

Logan could feel the pulse in his ears pounding in time with his feet on his treadmill, only harder.
Fucking jerk-off,
he thought as his jaw started to clench.
Try saying that to her face; you'd be spitting your teeth out like Chiclets.

The man laughed. “You're crazy. Have you seen the muscle on her? You could bounce a quarter off her butt. Say what you want. Fat or no fat, I would wreck that chick. When I was done tapping that ass, she'd be walking like a cowboy for a week.”

His friend scoffed. “As long as you don't lose your dick in her.”

Logan, summoning every scrap of self-control he possessed, stopped and jumped off the treadmill. Retrieving his towel and his water bottle, he marched back up to the front of the gym to where Holly was standing, this time chatting with two middle-aged women. He pointed his finger directly at her as he stomped out the door.

“You are quitting this job!” he shouted, never breaking stride and vacating the building, leaving Holly and her customers to stare openmouthed after him.

“Who the heck was that?” one of the women asked as Holly, completely perplexed, looked from Logan's retreating form into the gym and back again, trying to figure out what had occurred to warrant such an outburst. She turned her attention back to the ladies in front of the counter.

“Ummm,” Holly replied, feeling no joy at the fact that she was saying the words for the first time aloud. “I think that was my boyfriend.”

“You
think
?” The other woman laughed. “Honey, if I had someone who looked like
that
ordering me around, I'd have the decency to be sure. Bravo, darling, bravo!”

Logan got into his car and took a deep breath, staggered by his own reaction, which was nothing short of rage. It was so sudden and all-encompassing. He had trouble deciding who had incensed him more—the jackass who'd cruelly made fun of Holly, or the jerk who wanted to leave her bowlegged. He pounded his steering wheel. Reacting at that level to either scenario didn't make any sense. It had always been a given in his mind that men fantasized about his other girlfriends. For Christ's sake, he'd dated several
Playboy
models. Men masturbated to their pictures with his blessing.

It was then that Logan realized why he was so furious. The woman Logan couldn't stop thinking about was fat. Maybe not to the well-experienced eye, but to society as a whole. Logan didn't jump off his treadmill to kick the shit out of that guy to defend both Holly's honor and his own. And he didn't laugh it off or ignore it as the immature malice of a nameless miserable jack-off. Instead, he stormed out of the gym in self-righteous anger, demanding that she go back to hiding within her house so he could satisfy his lust unfettered and undisturbed.

Logan laid his head on the steering wheel and released a broken sigh. He had been trying to convince himself that hiding Holly had been for her benefit. The reality was he wasn't yet willing to subject either of them to the possible judgment that would accompany the news of his making a commitment to her and settling down, especially when it was discovered she was one of his clients. This one woman had him forsaking all his prior reliable standards and ideals. All the positive thinking in the world wasn't going to change that. This was the same woman who had been perfectly fine to have tagging along with him everywhere before they were dating. Now she was supposed to be kept hidden in order for him to enjoy her company. He wanted to shake loose from his brain the idea that she was beneath him. Those two men had spoken so freely; it had never even dawned on them that the man next to them would even know her, much less be sleeping with her. This wasn't about Holly, and it wasn't about society—it was about Logan. That he was still leery of stepping away from his preconceived notions of who he should and shouldn't be seen with and attached to. He had let himself be guided by what he thought would look best on his arm to promote what he did for a living. He swallowed the sickening feeling that he had just spent the majority of his life as one big marketing ploy, one that worked.

He leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes. He didn't even recognize himself anymore. He used to be balanced and detached, relaxed and easygoing. Now it seemed he was regularly clawing his way out of a constant landslide of emotion, one he was intent on hiding from Holly. If he kept it up, he would end up not only losing Holly, but losing himself as well. Sitting back up, he reached into his glove compartment and pulled out his phone.

Quickly, Logan sent out a text:

YOU AWAKE?

After a minute, he got a text in return:

I AM NOW.

Logan wrote back:

YOU IN THE MOOD FOR A WORKOUT? I COULD USE A SPOTTER.

Logan started his car and sped out of the parking lot after receiving:

COME TO THE HOUSE.

The cleaning lady opened the front door, instantly recognizing him.

“Good morning, Mr. Logan.”

Logan stepped into the mansion, made a quick left turn at the living room, and hurriedly walked through the house to the back. Chase was seated at the kitchen table, fully dressed with coffee in hand, casually perusing the morning paper. He glanced up as soon as he heard Logan come into the room.

“Morning,” Chase said. “Wanna hear your horoscope?”

Logan felt the pulse beat at his temple and his left eye twitch. “No thanks. I want to lift heavy stuff. Where's Amanda?”

Chase raised an eyebrow. “Sleeping. When you gave us the morning off, she felt like she'd just been paroled from prison. You okay?”

Logan tried not to express his overwhelming relief at the news that he would have his friend's undivided attention. He let out a rush of air. “I'm fine. I just need to pump some iron.”

“Fair enough,” Chase said mildly, putting down his coffee cup and rising from the table. “Let's get to it.”

Chase led the way with Logan following closely behind through the remainder of the house to the Walkers' extensive gym room. Logan immediately set about the business of choosing the heaviest barbells and pounded out set after set of chest presses, the surest sign of pent-up aggression. He went from chest presses to the leg-press machine to dead lifts, followed by curl after curl, then crunch after crunch. Chase said nothing, even after it became apparent that he was going to be doing more spotting than lifting of his own. After twenty minutes, when Logan was fully lathered and fatigue had set in, he spoke.

“What would you do if Amanda gained a lot of weight?” Logan asked, wiping the sweat off his face with the front of his shirt.

Chase held back his smile, walked over to a nearby closet, and pulled out a towel, tossing it in Logan's direction. He appeared to give the question serious thought. “How much weight are we talking about here?”

Logan caught the towel and wiped his face again before coming up with a figure. “Let's say, fifty pounds.”

Chase scoffed. “Shit. I plan to start packing that much on her the minute she tells me she's having my baby.”

Logan was momentarily stunned. “Come on. I'm being serious here.”

“So am I,” Chase said seriously.

In exasperation, Logan tried a different tactic. “Okay, what if she wasn't getting ready to birth your fully grown linebacker and gained that much?”

“Just woke up one morning fifty pounds heavier?” Chase asked.

“Yes.”

“Like she went to bed and her thyroid exploded and she gained it all overnight?”

“Yes. I mean no!” Logan tried to backtrack, realizing how ridiculous the whole matter was sounding. “Her thyroid exploding would kill her.”

Chase pressed on. “I'm just trying to get some parameters here. So she's basically healthy? Like she gained it all gradually?”

“Yeah,” Logan finally said, feeling his friend's overly indulgent stare bearing down on him.

Chase took a minute, his lips tightly drawn together, and considered the question before responding. “As long as she was truly healthy and it wasn't the result of a real illness or something traumatic that sent her spiraling, and she could still do all the things we enjoy doing together, I don't think I would care.”

“You really mean that, don't you?” Logan asked his friend, even though he already knew the answer was genuine.

Chase smiled. “My wife is not a small girl. Chances are it could actually happen,” he said honestly and without apprehension.

“And it really wouldn't bother you?”

“When I fell in love with her, I fell in love with all of her. I've yet to meet her equal as far as beauty goes.”

“You're a high-profile guy with a pretty big image to protect,” Logan stated bluntly. “What about what other people might think?”

“Since when did I ever give a fuck about what other people think?” Chase laughed. “I'm rich.”

“What if what they said really hurt her feelings though?” Logan asked, still probing.

Chase instantly sobered and crossed his arms over his chest. “That's an entirely different ball of wax. I would be devastated. It was the only thing about that whole video mess that I didn't think I could handle. Are you going to tell me any time soon what this is really about? You're starting to depress me.”

“Holly.”

Chase dropped his arms and asked, “What about her?”

“I don't know,” Logan said hesitantly.

Chase smiled again. “Well, I don't know how much help I can be if you don't even know what's wrong.”

“I know,” Logan replied. He ran his hand through his hair and exhaled in frustration.

“Would this by any chance have anything to do with your ‘morning appointment' that had you shifting all your clients around?”

Logan confirmed it miserably. “Yes.”

“You went to that gym to spy on her? All covert-like?”

This time Logan could only nod before leaning his face into his hand and shaking his head.

“You still don't want people to know you're together, do you?”

“No,” Logan mumbled into his own chest, still holding his head, suddenly remembering that Holly didn't make one person in Bodyssey privy to the fact that they were seeing each other. Had she done it to protect him or herself?

“You do realize this has nothing to do with Holly or her weight, don't you?”

“Yes!” Logan snapped, straightening back up. “Go ahead. Tell me it has everything to do with me being an asshole.”