My Remedy (Open Door Love Story Book 3) (6 page)

I shrug like, whatever. “He’s someone that goes to the gym I was checking out. We went to the bakery together and then ... he was a dog handler in the military. I mentioned that you had a job opening.”

“All right. I feel like you’re not telling me something.” Uncle Stan runs the hand not holding Peanut’s leash over his face and sighs. “You met a guy at a gym and then ate honey buns with him and I should hire him to work for me? Fill in the blanks.”

Loki stops to spastically smell a dandelion. “I was interested in seeing what CrossFit is all about. I went in and talked to him and he mentioned he was going to go to the bakery, so I went with him. No big deal. While we were there, he told me about himself and I learned that he used to be a dog handler in the Army. Nothing fishy. Andthenwewenttoameetingtogether.” I threw that last bit in on the quick, but at least I am being truthful.

“You two have a few things in common then?” Uncle Stan asks.

“Yes.”

He appears to be considering something. “This Duncan seems to be a trustworthy person to you?”

“Yes.” Loki darts after another dandelion.

Uncle Stan nods. “Tell him he can come by next Saturday, first of the month, and we’ll talk.”

If I wasn’t being dragged by a surly Shih Tzu around a dirt track I would rush my uncle and give him a big hug.

~

I
’m up early to do my chores so I can spy on Duncan’s interview. I’ve been thinking about him more than I want to admit. Several times I’ve thought about going to a meeting and accidentally running into him or just stopping by the gym with a box of pastries ... I didn’t, though. Because? I like him and I liked him quickly. I don’t trust myself with things I want, especially men, and especially if I want them for longer than a moment.

It’s been over a week since I called the gym and left my uncle’s phone number and a message with Hector about the interview, and the want is getting worse. But I’m supposed to be using this time to get myself back on track, not eating honey buns with cute guys.

Uncle Stan and I walk the dogs without a lot of chit chat. He seems nervous to be doing the interview. I think he and Aunt Nina are afraid of getting burned again. They put a lot of time and effort into Ginger’s education and then she bailed on them.

Duncan shows up fifteen minutes early, which is great, but leaves my aunt flustered. She comes running from the office, waving her hands over her head and mouthing “he’s early” to my uncle. We put the little dogs in their pens and head to the office. I’m to introduce everyone and then back off. They don’t want me influencing or distracting them. Which I get. I’m still gonna spy.

Duncan stands in the office in front of the desk, looking relaxed. He’s got his hands folded behind his back and his preppy boy tucked-in-shirt thing going on. He looks respectable as hell. His eyes light up when he sees me and a flutter goes through my chest. I have a hard time looking him in the eye, so I giggle like a dingbat and then look away.

My aunt clears her throat.

“Duncan Fieri, this is my uncle Stan Sundall and my aunt Nina Sundall.” They all shake hands and do the pleased to meet you rigmarole.

It occurs to me, fairly fiercely, that I want them to like him. Because I do. So much. I’m just going to let myself have this, inside my head.

“Duncan, why don’t you tell us about your experience firsthand? I always like to hear the story straight from the person instead of reading a list of qualities in an e-mail,” my aunt starts as they walk out the door toward the training area. I hang behind, eavesdropping, acting like I’m going back to the kennel.

“After basic, I sought out a specialty that might have an easy transition to the civilian world. My older brother was military police, and had encouraged me to follow in his footsteps, but I felt I also needed a way to distinguish myself – so I added on the dog handling specialty. It’s since become its own unit within the military police, which I think is fantastic.”

I can hear the smile in Duncan’s voice.

“I’ve been instructed in and implemented obedience and controllability work, agility and confidence courses, article search and recovery, box search and suspect search in a building, tracking and scouting, bite work in prey and defense, criminal apprehension and protection and control, and tactical deployment.”

Aunt Nina chuckles. “So, everything then?”

Duncan nods. They enter the training yard and I head into the kennel. I walk down to the far end, crack the window that faces the training yard a few inches, and set about quietly pretending I’m doing chores.

“...in Afghanistan. We were on our way to search a village when my unit was hit.”

“Oh, my,” Aunt Nina says, her voice low. “That must have been devastating.”

“It was awful,” Duncan agrees. “I did not handle it as well as I should have and I will admit I have some apprehension about getting back into dog handling, but I do miss it and I was good at it.”

There’s that ego. Which in this situation will do him some good.

Uncle Stan brings out our newest boarder, Gunda. He’s been working with her for the past two days.

“Hello, there,” Duncan says.

I peek through the window to watch him interact with the German shepherd. Duncan slips something from his pocket into his hand and motions for her to sit. When she does, her tail going crazy, Duncan opens the palm of his hand and quickly gives her the treat.

“You use positive reinforcement, I see,” Uncle Stan says.

“I do. I also employ compulsion and inducement. I think a good handler uses all the tools in his arsenal until he learns what each individual animal responds to.”

Uncle Stan nods. “Good. Good. My philosophy exactly.”

~

A
fter they’re finished, they all shake hands again. I think Duncan is heading back to the office, but he comes over to the kennel instead.

“You ready to hit the gym?” he says, leaning against the wall, looking cocky and confident, with a smirk playing on his lips.

“No deal,” I say, searching my immediate area for an excuse. An elderly black lab, Gator, hasn’t been fed yet. I pick up his bowl. “I still have a lot of chores to do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, I have to fill up this empty bowl with food.” I choose the correct size food scoop for Gator from the shelf behind me.

Duncan takes the scoop from my hand, walks over to the bin of food, fills the scoop and brings it back to me. “What else?”

I put the food into the bowl. “That’s it.” I sigh. “I don’t have proper attire for CrossFit.” I drop the food off at Gator’s pen.

“Do you own a t-shirt?” Duncan asks, following right behind me. “You can borrow a pair of my shorts.”

I look him up and down. We’re about the same height, but he has to outweigh me by at least forty pounds, thirty-eight of which are pure muscle. “And have them fall off while I’m running? There aren’t enough honey buns in the world to make your clothes fit me.”

He glares at me with mock disappointment. “You’re not getting out of this. You promised.”

I glare right back. “Did I? I seem to remember the deal was I go to a meeting with you, not I go to the gym.”

He steps close to me and puts his hands on my shoulders, giving me puppy dog eyes, which in a kennel aren’t hard to come by, but his are still working on me. “Please come to the gym with me. I’ve been thinking about it since the last time I saw you.”

I shrug his hands off my shoulders. “And in this fantasy of yours I’m wearing your shorts?”

His cocky smirk makes another appearance. “No, I’m wearing yours, but let’s just keep that between us.”

“You don’t even know how little the idea of that shocks me,” I say matter-of-factly.

“Ooh. Good story or bad?”

“Neither. It just is.”

He winks at me. “I’ll go wait out front to make sure you’re actually going to go.”

“For the record,” I say after him, “if anything horrible happens to me, it’s on you.”

Duncan gives me a thumbs up.

Well, I guess that settles it.

I go inside and grab a t-shirt with an embarrassing amount of glitter on the front (But I likes it!) and a pair of shorts that came in a pajamas set from my dresser. If I’m going to be humiliated, might as well give myself a head start.

––––––––

T
he parking lot is packed when we get there and I can’t tell if it’s because there’s some sort of game on at Ringo’s or if it’s for the free W.O.D. We walk into the gym and there are at least thirty people milling about, all in different styles of workout clothes. There are women in very short, tight shorts, their legs muscles bulging out the bottoms, who are either wearing a fitted racerback tank on top or a loose shirt with an open neck and a tank top underneath. The older women are wearing yoga pants and fitted t-shirts. They have strong arms and legs too, but you can definitely tell who’s had kids and who hasn’t. It’s a strange combination, all of these muscled appendages with a soft center.

A few of the men are wearing meggings in crazy patterns and I get the feeling they all dare each other to wear them. The rest are dressed how Duncan usually dresses, in shorts and a t-shirt. There are an abundance of knee socks, some rainbow striped, some in that bright Volt color, some with sayings on them – a few people are wearing black ones with white lettering that says Yay Burpees.

I’m pretty sure I don’t even want to know what a burpee is.

No one is dressed like me, which isn’t surprising. My next paycheck I’m going to have to hit up Target and at least get some plain t-shirts and some leggings. Probably some slightly better shoes than the tennis shoes I wear to walk the dogs.

Duncan leads me over to the group of older women. I think it’s weird he doesn’t introduce me to the people closer to our age, but I see why in a minute.

“I’m going to go change,” he says and points to the single bathroom over by the counter. “Izzy, this is Lorilee and Janna and Gaby.” The ladies all look at me, first with pity I think, due to my outfit, and then secondly with excitement.

“Have you CrossFitted before?” asks one woman – I think she’s Lorilee. She and Gaby both have blond ponytails. Janna’s ponytail is brown and she’s a good eight inches taller than the other two.

“Yeah, I only really heard about it like a week ago,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest.

Lorilee nods knowingly. “Well, it’s going to be really hard and you’re going to hate it and probably feel like you’re going to die, but then you won’t be able to stop showing up.”

“It’s kind of like a cult,” Janna interjects.

“You know,” Gaby says, with a bit of an amused smile in her eyes, “I think I have a spare pair of cropped leggings in my bag if you want to borrow them. Those shorts won’t stay up for very long. We’ve got a ton of burpees in the W.O.D. today.”

I turn around and glance at the board. Again, it looks like a foreign language. I see burpees, I see running, and I see something called mountain climbers. Also, apparently this is a partner W.O.D. “I’m in for it, huh?”

The women laugh. “You’ll be okay,” Lorilee says. “You’re young. Just keep telling yourself you’re not really dying.”

“Stop scaring her!” Gaby says and hooks her arm through mine, leading me over to some cubbies by the door. “So, you’re here with Duncan. That’s nice. He’s a sweetheart.”

I can sense she wants me to dish, but I’m not sure what there is to dish about, so I just say, “He is. He’s great.”

She lets go of my arm and opens up a duffel and starts pulling all sorts of clothes out. She drops a black stretchy v-neck in my hands and a pair of black cropped pants. Gaby looks me up and down and then takes out a black sports bra and adds that to my pile. “The clothes are probably a little too big and the bra a little too small, but at least you won’t be mooning the entire class.”

“Thank you! This is really nice of you.”

She waves the comment away. “Honey, my first class I showed up wearing running shorts from the ’90s that did nothing but work their way up between my thighs with every move I made. I spent the whole time on crotch watch.”

Duncan exits the bathroom but stays in the doorway, motioning for me to hurry over.

I jog over to him, (who AM I?) and he steps out of the way.

“With only one bathroom,” he explains, “you have to fight to get in here. Especially right before the W.O.D. when everyone spontaneously decides they have to pee.”

I hurry into the bathroom – it’s standard issue, and come to think of it looks a whole lot like the one in Ringo’s – and shuck off my stupid clothes and put on Gaby’s. The sports bra fits great, actually, and the clothes are just a little too big. I feel one hundred percent more CrossFitty. Well, ninety-five. I still have on my crappy shoes.

I open the door to a line of about six people all doing the pee pee dance. “Next!” I say and skirt by them. I throw my clothes in a cubby and then go over and stand next to Duncan.

“Much better! I knew one of those ladies would hook you up.” He grins. “I couldn’t let your crimes against fashion continue much longer.”

I roll my eyes. “Easy for you to say. You can wear basketball shorts and a t-shirt.”

“Uh, so can you.” He nods behind me.

I look over my shoulder. A pretty woman with a long, sandy blond ponytail whistles for everyone to pay attention. She’s got on basketball shorts, bright blue knee braces, red tennis shoes and a t-shirt that says That’s Not Sweat, It’s Just My Body Crying. Her smile says she’s kind, but her eyes say she’s about to make us work our asses off and she’s gonna enjoy the hell out of it.

“Okay, folks, my name is Ashley. I’m your coach this lovely morning,” she says, swinging her arms at her side. “Let’s get warmed up and then we’re going to go over the W.O.D.” She gestures to the doors that lead to the parking lot. “Everyone outside for a four hundred meter jog.”

“C’mon,” Duncan says and he takes off.

I go after him, getting caught up in the crowd as everyone tries to get through the doors at once, eager to get the class started. These people are cray.

We run out through the parking lot and past Ringo’s, but instead of stopping at the sidewalk like they did last time, they keep on going down the street toward Buffalo Wild Wings.