Page 41 of The Bright Side of Brooding
Chapter Eighteen
Summer
Nick Masters had to be the most confusing person I’d ever met. I got a letter from him last Saturday essentially sayingLet’s keep things between us about businessand then…what?!He came to check on me when I was unpacking—nice. Then, seeing him at dinner interacting with his team created all kinds of new awareness. He encouraged them, knew them well enough to know what each of them needed. He’d shooed them off to bed and done the cleanup himself. If I’d ever felt a kinship with someone, it was in that moment.
Nick Masters was a helper. Perhaps that should’ve been obvious since he was both a soldier and a coach, but neither of those things explicitly meant a person had that helping gene. But Nick did. He did it in an unassuming, quiet way, but he evidently did it well. And Art, Alicia, and Rob clearly loved him. Everyone else I’d talked to who worked out with him thought the world of him, even if it was paired with a kind of dread-fueled awe, knowing whatever workout he’d foist on them would be brutal. But that was the job of a fitness coach.
I swiped on mascara, then inspected myself. I’d rested well, which surprised me. I’d expected to obsess about his comments the whole night—our entire odd history of interactions, really. But instead, I’d passed out. Today, I looked and felt a little more like the Summer I expected myself to be—eager for the day, ready to help the team, excited to see the competition. I hadn’t actually thought through what the events would be like, but I had a basic understanding, being vaguely familiar with the sport.
And if Nick’s voice saying“You’re perfect”happened to float around my head the rest of the day, I wouldn’t be mad. Because that had been one of the sweetest things anyone had said to me. Not so much because he was saying I was physically perfect—I knew he didn’t mean I wasactuallyperfect. But in the moment, it emerged from him like he couldn’tnotsay it, like it was a biological imperative the words be spoken to me. What he meant was that I’m perfect as I am, that I shouldn’t compare, and while I hadn’t really been doing that, his need to tell me made my heart ache.
I didn’t know what any of that meant, but I felt less wary. Thank goodness, because I’d be standing with him all day, watching him encourage his people. It would’ve been painful if things had continued like they’d started yesterday.
I stepped out my door and heard bustling in the front room. I arrived to see bags piled next to the door and Rob nodding while Art spoke. Alicia swiped at her phone while she sipped something steaming from a mug, and then Nick walked in, plate full of food in hand. Our eyes met, and my stomach flipped. He gave me a small smile, and I returned it with one of my own.
Yes, good that things had relaxed a bit, even if that meant I’d spend the day with heart palpitations every time he so much as glanced in my direction.
* * *
Nick ducked his head and looked Alicia in the eyes. “You come out even—not too strong. Just like we practice. This is yours.”
Alicia nodded, touched her fists to his, then jogged to the starting area. The event, like so many I’d seen today, seemed absolutely grueling in a way that didn’t appeal to me in the least. I liked exercise and I stayed fit, but holy crap. Alicia was about to do a series of pull-ups, then dead lifts with increasing weight, and finally, a twenty-meter handstand walk.Yeah.Handstand walk.
Each event that came clarified for me that Alicia and Art were exceptional. They’d both placed in the top five of each event, and both had won at least once so far too. Rob had done surprisingly well according to Nick, placing in the top ten for most of his.
I couldn’t pretend that I wasn’t fascinated by it all—it was incredible to watch. But my favorite part? Watching Nick. I tried to be inconspicuous, but it was a sight to behold. The full force of his concentration centered on his competitors. So far, the events had been staggered so he hadn’t missed anything, and of course that made my job easier too. Granted, I hadn’t had to do much other than wrap a callous that got ripped open, but still.
The best part of the process came at the end, when whoever competed had completed their work. He didn’t say much during the event itself, but when the end came, he always nodded, made notes in a little book he carried, and then patted his people on the back in approval. My favorite was when they did something amazing, which to me seemed like every time, but so far had been exactly four times—Art and Alicia’s two first-place wins, Rob’s first event completion, and Alicia’s hitting a PR, a personal record. He’d clapped, whistled, and joined the general mayhem that happened at the culmination of events—and he’d smiled. Like, full-out, gorgeous teeth, perfect happiness on that serious face. It. Was. Magical, y’all.
You know that feeling when you bake a cake from scratch and the middle doesn’t sag once it cools? That smile was better than that. I felt like a triumphant cake-baking fool after every event.
I couldn’t explain away the stomach flip, either. I liked him. I did. I certainly didn’t understand him, nor what he wanted from or with me, but my oh my, was he pretty to look at. And spending the day watching him be so darn capable and proficient didn’t hurt. Capability, self-sufficiency, and excellence were a covert turn-on, and Nick Masters had all hissee what I can docards out today.
Alicia moved through the current event like a machine. Art, Rob, and I cheered wildly when she reached the handstand walk. Nick watched with so much concentration, I wondered if he might be casting a spell. When she crossed the line first, we all jumped—even Nick—because this put her in the lead. We jumped around, Art, Rob, and I hugging each other and then Alicia when she made it over. Nick cupped the back of her neck and patted her once, then released her and loosed that smile on us.
My heart fluttered in my chest, the sight too beautiful to ignore. He turned it to me, and I could’ve sworn that smile broadened a bit further. When a man like that smiled like so, it was a sight to behold. It was rare and precious, and it made me feel a little weak.
Breathe. Breathe, you idiot. You can’t lose it right now.
“Time for you to go,” he said, still beaming.
It took a moment to absorb what he said. “What?”
“It’s time for you to go. There’s a cab outside for you.”
He said this like I should understand what he meant.
“There’s still one more event. Why would I—”
“You’re covered.”
Rob piped in. “A friend of mine is covering down for the last one. It’s just me, and I’m unlikely to place in this one. I’m too freaking tall to compete with these shorties on some things, and this is one.”
That, I believed. Lengthen the levers of your body and almost all things became harder—pull ups, most lifting, etc. The only real advantage could be endurance, but even then, you had a larger body with more resistance to drag around. Most of the men were closer to Art’s height at five foot nine or shorter. Rob’s six-two was a downright disadvantage. Good thing he wasn’t trying to make a career of it.
“And where am I going?” I asked, not doing much to mask the upset. Where were they sending me off to?
“Trust me,” Nick said, eyes boring into me.
