Page 20 of Ominous: Part 1
“You don’t need a gym membership.” Surely, he has one in his house? It seems like a rich kid requirement, at least based on the clientelehere.
Eli rakes his fingers through his damp hair, tousling it forward so the dark strands hang in his eyes, but I can still see them very clearly when he straightens, tapping his fingers against the counter. “I don’t need a lot of things, Eden.”
Something that could be butterflies erupt in my stomach, and I’m not sure why. It wasn’t as if those words were a compliment.
“But there are quite a few things Iwant.”
The butterflies swirl around, a tornado of mixed emotions in my gut. My throat feels dry, and I think of the water bottle, half empty, on the counter behind me, but I don’t reach for it. “You want to be a member ofthisgym?” I hitch a thumb over my shoulder and Eli follows the movement with his eyes. Another clang, the speeding up of a treadmill as someone starts to jog.
This place isn’t half-bad, and it’s affordable. But I’ve seen F. M. Fink’s Hall at Trafalgar. Eli probably has access to the gym there anytime he wants it, being a wrestler.
His biceps flex as he keeps drumming his fingers on the counter, looking back at me. “Sure. Can I get a discount? Since I know you?”
“You don’t know me.”But I want you to.The thought is unavoidable.
In his eyes, I swear I see the same thing reflected, just more aggressive.But I will.
“What about since I helped you ace the quiz Tuesday morning?”
I don’t even blink. It’s true, he did, but…I don’t trust you.
He concedes when I don’t respond, shrugging. “Sign me up.” He pulls his wallet from the pocket of his sweats without looking away from me, thumbing free a black card and pushing it forward on the lip of the counter, so it’s half-hanging over the edge, ready to drop beside the keyboard of the company computer.
I reach for it instinctively, my customer service training kicking in. The card is heavier than a normal credit card, and I almost say something about it, but instead I just glance at his name etched in raised silver.
Eli Adonis Addison.
My heart thumps faster.
Adonis.
A mortal, lover of Aphrodite.
In the sliding drawer beneath the counter, I fumble for the paperwork he has to complete—name, age, sign a waiver, a contract for the money to be taken from his bank account every month—keeping the card clenched tight in my other hand and pushing Greek mythology from my mind.
I slide the paperwork his way, pluck up a pen without a cap from the wire cupholder beside the computer and give it to him, then open up the software I have to use to manually put in his card info.
“There’s a one-time, fifty-dollar application fee, but you won’t be charged the first thirty dollars until the end of the month—”
“The first thirty?” He says nothing about the application fee. If he had, just one thing, I could have waived it. He might be the first person Ihaven’twaived it for in the month I’ve been working here. Scott will be happy.
I glance at Eli’s grip on the pen, which always looks strange to me.
He’s left-handed.
Imagining holding a pen that way, I could never replicate the small, tidy loop of his handwriting.
“Yes. It’s thirty dollars a month, you can cancel with a two-month notice—”
“I want to pay ahead.”
I’m typing in the numbers of his credit card, laid against the cash register below the computer stand. I finish the numbers, then look up at him. “What?”
“I want to pay ahead.” He repeats the words slower, causing me to blush harder, the heat uncomfortable in my cheeks, like a sunburn.
“Okay.” It’s not unheard of, but I think I’ve done it twice, both for people who lived near this gym and were unlikely to move anytime soon. I guess Elicouldlive in this tiny pocket of Raleigh’s outskirts,but it’s not close to Trafalgar. Twenty-minute drive, maybe eighteen if he’s behind the wheel. “For how long?”
He goes back to filling out the form. “Are you staying here until graduation?”
