Page 47 of The Barn: Frost and Q
He was in the zone. Thank God.
Fourteen
Frost felt like he was about ten thousand feet tall and bulletproof.
Tug caught him on the way down to the gym. “Where you headed?”
“Work out. You?”
“God, yes.” It was easy to tell that was where Tug was heading anyway. The little son of a bitch wasn’t in jeans or boots. That meant keeping that taut tiny body light enough to float above a bull.
Him? He just wanted to be able to outrun a forest fire carrying a bear cub.
“You look happy.”
He couldn’t stop his grin for love or money. “I feel pretty fucking happy.”
“Ah, my gifts worked, I see.”
Frost nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, it was what we needed. The world hasn’t changed, but…”
But it kind of had; it really sort of had changed in a very deep, fundamental way because he had proven to himself that he could take them where they needed to go together and bringthem back. A solid scene, aftercare, and best of all, waking up in the morning to a still snuggly, horny, happy Q.
He knew that the relaxation wouldn’t last. It never did, but that was part of the thing, wasn’t it?
That they had this together.
“And we’re not here to change the world,” Tug grinned at him, the lip with the scar drawing up like Elvis’s. “We are here for sheer entertainment, man. Our entire lives are brain candy. Well, maybe not you. You fight fires and shit. Men like me, us bull riders? Fuck. We’re not here to change the world. We’re here for an eight-second ride and to give somebody something to spend their money on.”
Frost wasn’t sure if that was cynical, bullshit, true, or all three. “There’s worse things, right?”
“Hell yes. We could be fucking politicians.”
Frost wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, no. Come on, cowboy.”
They got downstairs, picking up Carson and Boone on the way.
“Oh, good owners, getting up to work out,” he teased.
It had been decided to be the best time for them to work out, so they just closed the gym at this hour in the morning. They said it was for cleaning. It was really just because they didn’t want to be bothered.
Carson gave him one of his patented shark smiles. “It’s good to be king.”
And they all laughed because everybody to the man knew that all a single guest had to do was ask, and they would happily give up their space at the gym for the day or the week or the whatever.
“I don’t know why I come down here with you three,” Boone grumped. “Y’all have got like zero percent body fat and are stacked to the ceiling, and I’m just a dude.”
“Yes, but you’re a dude with a lot of money, pretty good people skills, and you’re the only one who can talk Quentin down out of the trees so he can make sure that the security system gets to work.”
Boone popped Carson on his arm. “I’m surprised as much money as you spent for your workout shorts, they don’t do the exercises for you.”
“The world needs beefy men. Bulldoggers.” Tug rolled his eyes. “Dudes that can pick other dudes up when they fall down, you know? Big motherfuckers. Solid ones.”
Suddenly it hit him, what Q had said the other day. That he had seen Boone and Tug going after it. Yeah. Yeah, he guessed that was something Q couldn’t unsee, and he was suddenly pretty sure hecould.Even if he didn’t want to.
“Okay, look. I’m going to get on the treadmill. No one is going to argue with me about that. The three of you can do other things, but I’m getting on the treadmill.” Frost learned early on that the guys were machine hogs.
“Fine with me, since it’s arm day,” Carson said.
