4. Alan

Chapter four

Alan

Holy fucking shit. I was so sure I was busted when he knocked over that mop. I didn’t know what to do, so stupid me fucking stood there just looking at him like a goofy idiot. No wonder he turned away. He probably didn’t want me to see him laughing his fucking ass off. But once my pulse stopped thrumming in my ears and I could breathe normally again, I couldn’t help but start humming the song again. It’s fucking catchy, okay. It’s one of those songs that as soon as you hear it, it’s in your head for hours. But then he started singing, too, and it was sort of normal, like how it is when all the guys are in there, except it wasn’t all the guys. It was just me and Ryan Tanner, and my dick was not behaving normally. I was so glad when he left because with the erection I had, there was no getting past him without him seeing it and that would have made things even more awkward. “Oh hey, sorry, Ryan, I was thinking of you while showering and now I have a huge stiffy. No big deal, right?” Nope, I was not having that conversation.

***

I get to the field about five most mornings, but today I’m running a little late. I blame Ryan and the filthy dreams he inspired. Most of the guys hate how early they get us here on training days, but for me, I want to be here first. It’s nice hitting the gym and getting in a quick steam before the rest of them start arriving. But today, instead of opening the doors to a nice quiet corridor, I’m immediately met with what sounds like someone having sex in one of the rooms.

Moaning echoes down the vacant space in a steady rhythm.

I should leave. But I don’t. Instead, I continue down the hall and then slow when I near the physio rooms. The lights are only on in Kyle’s room and the door is wide open.

I could just walk past like I heard nothing and peek in on my way past, but that’s stupid because they’re not exactly being quiet.

“Almost there,” Kyle’s voice carries through the open doorway.

“Ohhhh fuuuuuuuck,” the other guy cries out, and I stop stalling and walk past as normally as I can, peeking out the corner of my eye as I pass, but when I see it’s Ryan on the bed, face down, and Kyle’s fingers are digging into his shoulder, I freeze.

“Holy fuck, you suck!” Ryan screams, and Kyle laughs and then spots me.

“Oh hey, Alan. Are you all good?” Kyle asks, and Ryan shifts on the bed but can’t get up with Kyle pressing into the soft tissue of his back.

“Yeah, headed in for a workout, then a steam. I thought someone was…” You can’t tell him the truth. You can’t say you thought they were fucking, because then he’ll wonder why you walked past. And while Kyle is a good-looking guy, I don’t want him thinking I was trying to watch him screwing around in here. “I mean, if I’m totally honest, it sounded like someone was being murdered. Are you okay there, Ryan?” I ask.

“Fuck no. But I will be once Kyle stops torturing me.”

“I’m not torturing you,” Kyle replies, shaking his head.

My gaze moves over his muscles, like shiny mountains I wish I could explore with my own hands, my mouth, my tongue. Kyle adjusts his position to stand by Ryan’s head and starts working his shoulder muscles down towards his lower back. He leans really far forward, and his face gets so close to Ryan’s ass. A freaking perfectly round ass that’s hugged by short gym shorts right now. Fuck, PTs really do have all the fun, though I’d prefer to be making Ryan moan for a whole lot of other reasons. No. I can’t go there. Half because he’s a Funky Monkey, the enemy. Well, one of them. Now we’ve joined the OG teams on their tour, there are three sides we want to thrash each week. And half because there is no way he’d even want me to. He’s into big buff guys like Harrison, and while my arms are guns when it comes to throwing power, my legs aren’t very big and no amount of working them out seems to be making a difference. I got all the jokes through school, well before I ever started playing baseball. I was the chicken-legged choir boy who got beat up a lot. Not as much as I could have, though. My brothers saw to that. They have all the buff body genes in the family, solid all over those two. With me, it’s like they were pouring the mold upside down and ran out about halfway through.

Gramps was the one who signed me up for Little League and drove me to every practice and game growing up. Baseball has always been our family’s favorite sport. Gramps took me to my first MLB game, and I would love for him to come to see me now I’ve finally made it big. But he doesn’t see this as making it to the big time, he won’t even talk to me about Banana Ball, because to him, this isn’t a sport, it’s the pre-show clown that messes around before the real bull riders come out. MLB are the bull riders. I’m the clown.

“It’s good you’re here actually,” Kyle says, and I quickly look at him, hoping he didn’t just bust me checking out Ryan’s ass. “Ryan, Alan is always in the gym early every day. You can join him after our sessions and run through the new program I sent you. You have to strengthen those supporting structures to help avoid a real injury.”

“Sure, okaaaaaaaaa owe, fuck, you motherfucker.”

Kyle shakes his head. “He’s being over dramatic. I swear, it’s not actually hurting him that bad.”

“Fuck you, yes it is,” Ryan replies.

“Um, I guess I’ll see you in there,” I say, and I leave them to it. Ryan cries out a few more times, but once the gym door is closed, I can no longer hear him, and that’s a good thing because even knowing those sounds were made because of pain and not pleasure, my mind still went to all the ways I want to make him groan like that, and working out is hard enough without a boner to contend with, too.

I start on the treadmill to warm up and then hit the stairs machine to really get those muscles working. If I am being totally honest, I really come to the gym this early to run through my leg program alone. We all have gym time in our daily training sessions, but I focus on strengthening my upper thoracic and arms then. It’s probably why the team always makes jokes about how I’ll soon be so top-heavy that I’ll fall over if I keep skipping leg day.

I don’t skip it. Every day is leg day for me. I’ve made some improvements in the size of my thighs, and I’m the strongest I’ve ever been, but I don’t see a real change when I look in the mirror. I still look like those weird dinosaur Goombar things from the old Mario Brothers movie. Okay, maybe not that bad. But my head isn’t exactly big, and with my broad shoulders and almost no hips, it isn’t far off.

I move on to the leg extension machine and flick the weights to the next level up from yesterday. It burns, but I go slow, pushing through each rep until I finish three full sets. I’m just getting into position on the back squat machine when Ryan walks in.

“You survived,” I say, flicking the weight level up.

“Barely. That guy’s a masochist,” he says, rolling his shoulder back a few times.

“Umm, you know that means you think he gets sexual gratification from his own pain, right?”

“Shit, no. What’s the word for someone who loves inflicting pain on people?”

“Sadist.”

“Right. That. Kyle is a fucking sadist.”

Kyle walks in laughing. “Calm down, it was the first session. It’ll get easier. And just so you know. I’m neither a sadist nor a masochist.”

“That is exactly what a sadist or masochist would say,” Ryan teases.

With one brow raised and the cheeky smirk he’s wearing, I’m reminded just how much he looks like a young Tom Hardy. Dark brown, lush hair, perfect soft skin, plump pink lips, bright blue eyes that sometimes look green depending on the light, and that British accent. Fuck, I could listen to it all day.

“Well, I also don’t date players, so I guess you’ll never really know for sure.”

Ryan’s cheeks blush. Does he have a thing for Kyle?

“Do you have the plan?” Kyle asks, and Ryan nods, pulling out his phone and swiping the screen.

“Yep, there are only seven things on here, though.”

“And you’ll need to stop any one of them if you feel pain.”

I suddenly realize I’m just sitting there watching them go through his exercises, so I push up, take the weight onto my shoulders, and slide the release across so that the weights will lower down with me each rep.

My thighs are instantly on fire as I move into the first squat, and I glance across to see I’ve flicked the weight three blocks higher than my last session. Fuck. My legs shake as I push up, my fingers white-knuckling the handles until I’m past the starting point and can slide the lock over again.

“You good?” Ryan calls, and I smile and wave his way.

“Fine, just warming up,” I lie and adjust the weight back down to where it should be before I go again.

That could have been bad. Really bad. There is a reason the team trainers are always telling us to never work out alone. If I hadn’t been able to push that up, it would have been pretty painful getting out from under it. But I guess I won’t have to worry about being alone at the gym for a little while because now I have a gym buddy. This will be good. It will be fine. I can remain professional and work out with the guy, no problem. I work out with guys all the time. But it’s Ryan Tanner. The same Ryan Tanner I’ve not been able to take my eyes off for the past few months. The Ryan Tanner who totally had to have heard me singing his fucking name yesterday in the shower. The same Ryan Tanner, who right now is crouched on all fours, perfect round ass pointed right in my direction. Yeah. I’m totally fucked.