Page 70 of Advanced Chemistry

“I’m spotting you. You’re about to lift forty-five pounds over yourself. Get in the zone. Boom-boom can come later.”

And it would. Chase and Sebastian were sweaty and grunting. It was a hell of an aphrodisiac. I had to make sure my own barbell didn’t thwack Chase in the face.

“Let’s go. You got this. Let’s aim for five clean ones,” I said. This was the first time he was benching with the barbell, after I assured him I wouldn’t let it slip and choke his airways.

I helped him lift the bar. Chase exhaled a huge breath as he pushed it high, then lowered it to his chest.

“Elbows in.” I repositioned his stance for maximum chest tearage.

Chase launched the barbell up, then down, in smooth, controlled movements. He could probably handle more, but he wanted to take things slow lest he pull a muscle. It was only in the bedroom where he liked taking on more than he could handle.

“Good. Nice, Chase. Are you feeling it?”

“Yes,” he grunted out.

“Those look really clean, man,” Sebastian said after finishing his set.

I tapped Chase’s pecs. “You feeling it there? Each time.”

“Yes.”

I pressed down to feel them flex. No, this wasn’t a sly move to touch Chase; that was just a bonus. I wanted to make sure he wasn’t using his shoulder and potentially causing damage.

“If you keep touching me there, I’m going to get ticklish.”

I grabbed the bar and racked it. “The fact that you can talk in complete sentences tells me you aren’t benching enough. I’m adding ten to each side.”

His eyes jutted open. “While I love and admire your bodies, I don’t have a compelling need to be quote-unquote jacked.”

“We’re not going for jacked. Let’s aim for toned and see where we fall.” I touched Chase’s pec. For my own selfish curiosity. Chase flexed his chest for me, daring me not to get hard.

Sebastian cleared his throat between us. “This is a family gym.”

“Right, right.” I clapped my hands and added ten pounds of weight to each side of the bar. “Let’s do squats while your chest cools off,” I told Chase.

Chase already had a rocking ass. Squats would only help.

Sebastian joined us, and the three of us did squats in a line. We probably looked like totally ridiculous gym bros, but who cared what other people thought?

Before he returned to his last set of incline presses, I gave Sebastian the look that he was familiar with by this point. It asked himAre you okay? Is this cool?

I never wanted him or Chase to feel like third wheels. I never wanted Sebastian to feel like I didn’t take his feelings one hundred percent seriously. Yeah, we were having fun, but I wasn’t going to lose this relationship.

He nodded back at me. We were good.

After a little more bench pressing and a little dash of arm curls, we wrapped up our workouts with a quick treadmill run. Chase didn’t try keeping up with Sebastian and my crazy speed competition. He enjoyed a leisurely cool down walk.

“How are you feeling about the big meeting?” Chase asked.

In a truce, Sebastian and I lowered the speeds on our treadmill so we could answer him without huffing and puffing.

“I feel great,” I said. “There’s no way Hollis will say no.”

Sebastian and I crushed the initial presentation to Jim Hollis and his VPs and were selected to the final round. We were smooth, personable, and persuasive. I didn’t let the fact that I was in a conference room surrounded by MBAs and Ivy League graduates intimidate me. They might know more than me about EBITDA and country clubs, but I knew vending machines.

“There are plenty of potential reasons why he could say no.” The endorphins of our workout hadn’t made their way to Sebastian’s head yet.

“We’re a no-brainer. We have the best product, great reviews, competitive pricing, and charm out our b-holes.” I increased the speed a tad, just to show him.

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