Meg Maguire - Making Him Sweat & Taking Him Down - Making Him Sweat / Taking Him Down

That stung. Jenna switched topics. “And you want to go to school to be a nutritionist?” She pictured his can-laden shelf, thinking he could use a few pointers.

“I don’t really know…just batting ideas around. But I’m thirty-four, which is ancient in this business. If I was good enough to be a serious pro, I’d have been told so fifteen years ago.”

She frowned sympathetically.

He swallowed a bite of banana. “Nah, don’t feel bad. Fighting was never about that for me. As long as I’m fit enough to keep sparring with the younger guys, and to throw my hat in for the odd amateur tournament, I’m happy.”

Certainly fit enough , some troublemaking bit of Jenna’s brain interjected.

“Tough life, being a professional. I may not be the smartest guy you ever met, but I’d like to preserve the few marbles I’ve got left.” He tapped his temple. “Maybe figure out how to preserve my boys’ marbles, too. That’s where that stuff from the sports medicine program comes in.”

“Your boys? Sorry, do you have kids?”

“No, no, the guys I train.”

“Oh, right. What did my father have you doing, before he passed away? What’s your job title?”

He laughed. “You make it sound like I’ve got business cards. But I was mainly a trainer, and your old man’s unofficial assistant. I helped him with the accounts and organized events, handled some of the outside managers and promoters. All-purpose flunky. This place is my life, as pathetic as that might sound to you.”

“It doesn’t sound pathetic.” Without thinking, Jenna took a seat on the end of his bed, then immediately regretted it. Was the move too familiar, or too much of a liberty, on top of nosing through his file? Or just too much contact with Mercer’s bed? It was too much of something. And her discomfort got worse when he wandered over and sat beside her. The square of comforter separating their thighs made a woefully flimsy buffer.

“I, um, I’ve got folders just like that one, for the franchise I’m opening,” she managed to say. “It’s not pathetic at all.” And maybe we’re not so different, deep down .

“Working with the young guys is great, but I’d love to learn more about the science behind it all, too. Maybe get certified to rehab injured fighters. Branch out, make the place more than a gym.”

“Sounds ambitious,” Jenna offered, sad to know this man’s hopes were dying, just as her own were blooming. The energy between them shifted, that lustful sensation deepening to something more tender. More vulnerable. She shivered.

“That was always a pipe dream, though. Especially since I’m stuck as the GM, now—not much time left over for implementing any of my grand plans, even if we did have the money.” Mercer stood. “Sorry to startle you. I just needed to grab a bite before the noon session starts. I guess I’ll see you around later, roomie.”

“Yeah. Sorry again. For snooping.”

“If it ain’t hidden, it ain’t secret, boss-lady. But thanks just the same for the apology.”

“Sure.”

Seconds later she heard the front door click and she released a giant, guilty breath.

“Smooth, Jenna. Very smooth.”

WHILE SHE WAS out scrounging lunch the next day, a call on Jenna’s cell confirmed her mattress and box spring would arrive in the afternoon. She moved sheets and covers to the top of her shopping list, checked her mapping app and memorized the short route to Macy’s.

She felt back in her element as she stepped inside the store, with its perfume smells, its colors, its familiarity and civility. And bedclothes! She hadn’t shopped for sheets since she’d been getting ready to move away to college. She ran her hands over the samples—smooth cotton, flannel, clingy jersey, sateen and its ritzier, pricier cousin, silk. She wondered what sort of man she might meet here in her new city, someone worthy of inviting to enjoy her new sheets. A silk man, surely. Or satin. What sort of sheets did Mercer favor, she wondered—

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, batting the dangerous query aside. She checked the screen, greeted by another heartening taste of the familiar.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hey, Jen! What are you up to? Is this a good time?”

“Yes, fine. I’m sheet-shopping.”

They chatted about Jenna’s initial impressions of the building and the gym, and her mother sighed noisily, a sound she reserved exclusively for whenever the topic of her ex-husband came up. “Just don’t let this Mercer person bully you into compromising too much. Those types can be very pushy.”

“He’s remarkably civil, considering what a threat I must seem like to him.”

Another sigh. Jenna could supply the unspoken words for herself— he sounds much more reasonable than your father ever would have been . But since his passing, her mom had finally found it in herself to censor her opinions on the matter.

“Well, that’s a relief. And a surprise.”

“Yes, a very nice surprise.” And a very nice- looking surprise, Jenna added to herself. Oops . “He was actually living with Monty, up until he died.” It always felt funny, calling him that. But he wasn’t her dad. Her stepfather was Dad. She considered mentioning she was letting Mercer stay for the time being, but that wouldn’t earn her any maternal endorsements.

By three-thirty she was back at the apartment with her acquisitions. The place was empty again, and dark, the sun behind the tall buildings now. She headed for a lamp and turned the switch, but nothing happened. She tried another with the same luck.

“Huh.” She’d have to hope Mercer was working. Before she left the apartment, she tossed her new bedclothes in the washer and checked her face by the last of the day’s light. She ran a brush through her hair, rolling her eyes at herself. Silly impulse. The fact that she wasn’t bleeding from an open wound ought to impress the barbarian horde.

Downstairs in the humid gym, she found Mercer in trainer-mode once again, though luckily with a shirt on. Far less distracting that way. He was observing some of the younger guys working out on the bags, and shouting the odd pointer. He spotted her as she approached, speaking loudly over the hip-hop music playing from unseen speakers.

“Heya, boss. How you doing?”

She had to admit, he was awfully nice. Awfully polite and accommodating, considering her intentions for his beloved gym. Though he did have every reason to butter her up. She’d be naive to go misdiagnosing his kindness as anything too personal.

“I’m fine, Mercer. How are you?”

“I’d be better if this kid would quit dragging his feet.” He nodded in the direction of the young man he’d been working with the previous afternoon. “I didn’t introduce you guys yesterday. How rude of me.”

Mercer shouted and swept an arm to beckon the man over. He put on a fight announcer’s voice. “A-a-a-nd from Boston, Massachusetts, nineteen years old, two hundred fifteen pounds, De-e-e-lante Waters! Jenna, this is Delante—Mattapan’s answer to a young Holyfield. Delante, this is Jenna, Monty’s daughter.”

She was struck again by the young man’s size—broad and meaty, way heavier than Mercer, though three or four inches shorter. Jenna shook his hand, feeling hesitance in the gesture, a shyness in his averted gaze not evident in any other aspect of the kid. “Hey,” he mumbled. His hair was braided into a labyrinth of cornrows, ending into two puffy tufts at the nape of his neck.

“What’s feeling lazy, pigtails?” Mercer asked him.

A shrug. “Footwork?”

“Couldn’t agree more. Go to it. I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”