Page 74 of Grand Love

Nina walks to the back wall and swipes her access card, unlocking the iPad from its holder. She scans it, her eyes flicking over it furiously.

* * *

Nina

Motherfucker!

I keep scrolling, checking he isn’t listed under just ‘Mason’ but still, I come up with nothing. Why would Gemma let him up here?

My eyes zero in on him as I stand holding the iPad with a white-knuckle force. He is so fucking hot, and it makes me even more angry. His arms strain as he lifts the weights to his chest, his pecs taut and legs bulging.

Why can’t he be a dweeb? This wouldn’t be this difficult if he was scrawny. Maybe with a tiny penis too.

“You can’t be here,” I tell him, as I step up to where he stands on the rubber mats.

“Excuse me,” he groans, his veins protruding—shouldn’t be hot but it is.

Everything is bigger now I’m closer. I shake my head, finding my thoughts. “You aren’t a member; you need to leave!”

“I’ll pay on my way out.” He winks.

Ugh, please. “It doesn’t work like that.” I glare.

“Nina, I want to work out in peace—”

“Then go home! You have a perfectly good gym there.”

“No!” He continues to pump the weight and with each rep, I get a little bit more worked up. “I always work out here.”

“Liar! You do realise I can see that you’ve never been a member.” I hold up the iPad as if it’s the holy grail.

He rolls his eyes and continues lifting.

He came here intentionally on my first day to try and piss me off. The bastard. I step closer and he steps back, catching his foot and stumbling slightly. I quickly grasp the middle of the barbell as he tries to recover his footing. “What are you doing!” he shouts, frowning as I try to take it from his hands. “Shit!”

“Mason!” I panic, taking the barbell fully as he falls to the floor, clutching his thigh. The weight is heavy, too heavy for me and I feel myself wobble. “Oh, no.”

“Shit, shit,” I hear Mason cuss from the floor.

“I can’t hold it,” I squeal. My left arm gives out, and the weight upends itself, smashing to the ground and taking me with it in some kind of gravity sequence.

“Jesus, shit!” Mason snaps from my side, clearly in pain. “The fuck is wrong with you!”

I look around at the few people on the machines nearby, feeling my cheeks flush. A big burly man with a long beard and a belt wrapped around his waist comes towards me. He lifts the weight from me with ease. Then takes a knee beside me. “Are you okay? You caught your chin.”

“I’m fine,” I mutter, waving him off as I stand and brush myself off.

“I think it’s bleeding,” he says.

“What?”

He reaches out and lifts my chin. “You might need stitches there.” He openly cringes.

My eyes drop to the floor where Mason is still sprawled out, holding his thigh. Only now he is deathly quiet and watching the man’s hold on my face with a dangerous look in his eyes.

I pull away. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine.”

“You okay, big man?” he asks Mason.

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