“From the looks of things, they were here recently.”
“Yeah, I contacted them and they came day before yesterday to freshen everything up for us. I have them coming back Friday.”
“Works for me.” She looked around. “We need to go to the market, yes?”
“Yeah. We ate out all last week and that’s not great for me. It’s summer, but I try not to fall off the wagon that hard.”
“Yeah, I feel like I’ve gained twenty kilos after all we ate last week.”
“You want to go to the gym with me tomorrow?”
She nodded. “Absolutely. Do they have a track where I can run?”
“Yup.”
“Excellent.”
I leaned over to kiss her.
“Let’s make a grocery list and see if we can switch off cooking. I mostly grill, so it’ll be nice if you can cook something that doesn’t require grilling.”
“Absolutely.” She smiled up at me and reached for the pen on the counter. “Get some paper and we’ll get this party started.”
Within a couple of days, we were a well-oiled machine, trading off cooking, cleaning up, and laundry duty, though we pretty much did everything together. Part of me wondered if every relationship was this easy because I couldn’t find fault with her. She was smart, beautiful, easygoing and loved sex as much as I did. We ate the same types of food, laughed at the same jokes, and had a lot in common despite our disparate lifestyles.
“You want to go out tonight?” I asked her on the way to the gym. “We could see a movie. There are a few out that I’ve wanted to see.”
“A film sounds great,” she said, nodding. “I haven’t been to one in ages.”
We walked into the gym and I waved to a couple of the Sidewinders who were working out. This was a private gym, with a small but somewhat elite clientele. The Sidewinders worked out here, as well as Lennox and the bodyguards from the security company she worked for. A handful of local celebrities were members as well, but it was rarely busy unless the whole team was here, and it was nice not to have to worry about fans interrupting our workouts.
“Dax!” Lennox came around the corner and grinned at me.
“Hey!” I lifted my hand to high-five her. “I want you to meet someone. Isla, this is Lennox Briggs. Lennox, this is Ian’s twin sister.”
Lennox’s eyes rounded. “Oh, cool. I didn’t realize he had a twin. Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“I’m gonna do weights,” I told Isla. “Are you going to run?”
She nodded. “I’ll see you in a bit.” She took off and I stared after her for a minute, smiling to myself.
“You look like a man in love,” Lennox said, setting the leg machine in front of us to one hundred eighty pounds.
“I’d have to agree,” I said, leaning against it and watching her get started. “So, are you between gigs?”
“Actually, I just started a new one,” she said. “I’m working for Casey Hart.”
“The rock star from Pretty Harts?” My eyebrows rose. “That’s cool as shit. Is she nice?”
“She’s great. She’s nine-months pregnant, about to pop any day now, but really chill and easygoing. I’m digging this gig a lot.”
“Isn’t she married to some European king now?”
“Yeah. I don’t know if this is going to turn into something permanent, but her husband is still over in Europe and he couldn’t spare his security team, so a couple of us got called in to protect her and her kids until further notice. It’s busy, but I like it.”
I paused. “Do you like being a bodyguard, Lennox? I mean, do you actually enjoy it, or is it just a job and a way to earn money?”
She cocked her head and let her legs drop from where she’d been doing lifts. “I like it a lot. It’s way more lucrative than the military, with a lot less rules, but the trade-off is giving up some of the pride in your work. I mean, my last assignment was babysitting a spoiled pop singer who literally drank until she puked every night. So my job was to make sure no one hurt her and she didn’t hurt herself, which included holding her hair when she puked and staying outside the door when she had sex. It was pretty mindless work. What I’m doing now is better, but I think I’ll like it even more if I get asked to stay on permanently.”
“Would you move to wherever they’re from?”
“It’s a little eastern European country called Limaj, and yeah. I mean, why not? I have nothing keeping me here.” She looked up at me. “Why do you ask?”
“Just a bit of restlessness lately. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.”
“You’d consider leaving hockey?” She looked shocked. “Especially now that you’ve met someone special?”
“She lives in Scotland, so I’m not sure where it’s going, but yeah, for the right fit, I’d leave hockey.”
“What does she do in Scotland?”
“She’s a college professor and scientist.”
Lennox whistled softly. “You better hope she loves you a lot. I can’t imagine leaving a job like that.” She got up and took a pull from her water bottle. “You want to work in with me?”
“Sure.” I sank down on the machine, upped the weight to two hundred, and started my set.
I didn’t want to think about whether or not Isla would leave Scotland for me. Not yet. Not until I’d had time to convince her what we had was good.
We met with the admissions counselor a few days later and there was good news. They would allow me to audit a class this fall, even if I wasn’t officially accepted at the beginning of the semester. If everything went through, I’d get credit for it, but if not, I could still take a class and figure out if this was for me. And whether or not the FBI was truly nothing but a pipe dream. Time was running out,
