Page 8 of Necessary Roughness

He wasn’t that old, either. He thumped his chest with one hand. “I’m Tanner,” he insisted.

She nodded frantically. “Yes. Tanner. Jordan is ready for you if you’ll follow me.”

“Sorry,” he blurted out. “I didn’t mean to be an ass.”

She came around the desk and patted him on the back as she indicated that he should follow her.

He rounded the corner of the lobby to see Jordan. She flashed another angelic smile in his direction. Maybe she needed some medication or something. It wasn’t normal to be that happy. He was fairly happy before his knee exploded, but he wasn’t the kind who would smile for the hell of it, all the time. What was it with her? Something about her made his eyeballs itch with annoyance, and he was pretty sure she returned the favor.

“Shall we get started?” she said.

“I still want to work with Marco.” He really didn’t, but he got perverse enjoyment out of being a bit annoying.

“My grandma used to say ‘If wishes were horses, we’d all ride.’ ”

He bit back a comment about her grandmother that was truly objectionable and parked his walker in a corner. “Do your worst,” he said.

“We’ll take it easy today. You’re still sore from yesterday, aren’t you?” She gave him an innocent smile. “It might be a good idea to get a massage in the next day or so. Be sure to drink a lot of water to release the lactic-acid buildup.”

If he kept biting his tongue, it was going to bleed. “Thanks for the advice,” he said.

“You’re welcome.” She gave him another perky smile. He almost laughed out loud when he saw the corner of her mouth twitch in the effort to keep back what he was sure was an equally sarcastic response. Maybe he should find out if the kitten had claws.

She put him through multiple exercises focusing on strengthening his surgically repaired knee, which all hurt like a mofo. The patient, sweet facial expressions he’d seen when she interacted with anyone else were gone. He wondered if she was part drill sergeant.

“Are you always like this, or just with me?” he grunted out after a set of particularly grueling reps.

“You won’t get better if I’m not tough on you,” she chirped. She gave him another innocent smile and a head tilt, which made him want to kill something. “You’re not giving up, are you?”

“The hell?” he said.

“More reps, please. Less talking and more doing,” she said. All she needed was a riding crop to slap against her other palm while she watched him. Maybe she moonlighted as a dominatrix. “Also, you need to do a better job with your form.”

“Form, my ass,” he said through gritted teeth.

“Do it right, or you’ll be doing twice as many,” she said as she checked her watch.

By the time she was done, he felt like he’d been in a bar fight. He knew from experience he was going to feel worse in a few hours. She’d worked him over but good. He was going to have to come up with another objection to her besides the fact she bugged him for some weird reason. He realized it was probably a mystery (or hilarious) to everyone but him: if he knew what was making him so nuts where she was concerned (besides being annoyingly happy), he’d get over it.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she handed him another towel to mop himself up with. “I know it hurts, but you need to walk every day. You have a walker, so this should be on your to-do list. You want to keep as much mobility as possible.” She nodded at Harrison. “Your roommate might be willing to spot you.”

“We don’t live together.”

“Do you have someone living with you while you’re recovering? A girlfriend or a family member? You may need some assistance—”

“Fuck no,” Tanner said.

He wasn’t an invalid. He could deal with his own life, thank you. He’d hired a housekeeper and a chef instead. Things were fine except when he had to take a shower or something. He’d managed to make things work so far by wrapping his injured leg in a big plastic garbage bag and sealing it up with duct tape.

Her sweet pink mouth pursed a bit. “We can talk about this later,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten.”

He longed to snap out that there would be no discussion of his private life at all, but he managed to stifle it with a reproving look from Harrison. “Of course,” he said. “Thank you.” It popped out before he bit it back.

“Oh, no. Thank you, Tanner.”

She was being a real smart-ass, but when he looked into her eyes, all he saw was gentle amusement. Harrison reached out to give her a side hug.

“Nice to see you, girl. Did he give you trouble?”

“Not at all,” she said. “It’s great to see you too.”

His best friend was going to ask her out any minute now. They’d get married and have angelic-looking children, and she’d be bugging the shit out of him for the rest of his life. He gave the walker a savage shove as he moved away from them.

---