Page 21 of Your Two Lips
“Hey, Rex, lie down.” Rex loped off to the side and settled on the cool grass, keeping his eyes on us.
“This place is beautiful, Finn. Is this all your family’s farm?” I gestured around me.
“Until that line of brush on the other side of the processing warehouse. Past that way, the land is owned by Luis Gonzalez, the master grower here. We lease some of his land and the fields across the road too.”
“He must love his commute … walking through a field of flowers to work.”
“Mine’s not bad either.” A sexy curve pulled at the edge of his deep red lips, and my pulse jumped. “Is your bike still loaded?” He gestured toward the driveway.
I gave myself a mental shake. “Yeah, I wasn’t sure if we were taking off from here or driving to another spot.”
“We’ll leave from here. It stays flat, and there won’t be much traffic today. Wind training strengthens legs.”
“Sounds good. It took me a couple of days to recover from Saturday.”
We headed over to grab my bike. “Do you run a repair shop?” I asked.
“Nah, just tinkering. My mind works better when my hands are moving.”
“It looks like you’d do well with a business.”
“Well, that’s a little tricky. I’m a fourth-generation farmer. There are expectations. Right now, I’m focused on living up to those.”
My stomach dropped. Why was I always attracted to the guy who was fourth-generation something? Mental note: Find an appropriate way to ask a hot stranger if he’s an orphan.
“My dad’s vision of this place is specific.” He looked out to the fields. “My vision is a little different. I need to keep convincing Dad I can do it.” With his muscular body and soulful eyes, I imagined this man could do anything he wanted.
I released the bungee cord holding my bike on the rack and grabbed my gear from the backseat. “I think better when my hands are busy too.”
Finn reached out to hold my helmet and gloves while I slipped on my Camelback full of water. “Is that why you do massage, using your hands?”
“A bit. Massage is part of a holistic approach to healing. I like that. After I finished my certification, I worked at a hospital doing medical massage.”
“How’s that different from the spa?”
“Medical massage is more about injury recovery. I was part of a care team, and I loved working with patients, reminding them they were doing this to get better and back to their lives. It can be intense, so I tried to get my patients to talk about anything that made them happy, hobbies, grandchildren, old romances. I tried to get them to laugh if possible.”
“Why did you stop?”
I froze. With the ease of talking to Finn, I didn’t think about follow-up questions. I never talked about the depression that led to me leaving my job.
“Um …,” I feigned nonchalance. “I wanted to explore something different. I may go back to it someday.”
He was quiet as he nodded, his expression soft. I liked that he was big and solid, as well as calm and attentive. Warmth spread through me, and I suddenly had an urge to touch him, to have a physical connection, feel his skin. To have him wrap his muscled arms around me and hold me safe. They would make the world, with all its pain and loss, fall away for a while.
Finn gathered his gear and pulled his bike down from a hook where it hung with other bikes along a beam near the back wall.
“I’m looking forward to the race,” I said.
“It should be fun.”
“I’m the new one. So let me have it. What should I be working on besides strength?”
“We’ll figure things out as we go. We should both be comfortable pointing out areas for improvement. It’ll make us a better team.”
“I doubt I can give you much advice on how to improve, Finn.”
“You never know.” He hopped on his bike and clipped the strap on his helmet. “How are you at taking advice?” His voice was deep and seductive, and I imagined taking a different kind of advice from him.
