Twisty little universe.

Yes, my parents were definitely not going to find out about Rhys. I didn’t want to get their hopes up. Mostly I just didn’t want to lie to them. Not that it wasn’t slightly tempting, considering my younger sister had just gotten engaged. My family wasn’t putting any pressure on me, but I felt it anyway.

Ugh, societal pressures were the emotional equivalent of a black hole. No matter a person’s obstinate refusal to bend to them, every single one of us got sucked in somehow. Boo to black holes!

Speaking of… I slowed to a stop outside the gym on Fourth. It was a red-brick, seventies-style building, three-stories with tinted brown glass windows and a flat roof. Well-maintained greenery, grass and hedges, grew along the edges. But there was something drab about the building; the signage above the door was peeling.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered to myself as I got off the bike and padlocked it to the railings by the entrance.

For the past few nights I’d spent my free time writing up a contract for Rhys to sign. Every time I thought I’d finished it, I’d think of something new. Hopefully, he’d sign the thing with no arguments.

That wasn’t entirely honest of me. The butterflies in my belly demonstrated there was a part of me that didn’t want Rhys to sign the contract at all. Part of me wanted him to tell me he’d changed his mind.

There was no reception area, so I strolled across the glass-fronted atrium and through double doors that led into the ground-floor space. This was the gym. Considering it was a Saturday afternoon, it wasn’t as busy as it should have been. Sure, there were people there, working out, but every machine in the room should have been in use and wasn’t. As I took in the peeling paint on the walls, some aging workout equipment, worn workout mats, and a sad little water cooler on either side of the room in lieu of a fancy drink dispenser, I could see for myself why Rhys needed the money. There were no TVs for people to watch during their workouts. They were stuck with the music pumping out of the PA system unless they brought their own headphones to drown it out.

The gym was run-down. It needed sprucing up to be brought into the twenty-first century. Curiosity still lingered over where his earnings from boxing had disappeared to, but it was none of my business. All that mattered was that Fairchild liked Rhys and Rhys would keep me on the boss’s radar long enough for me to get a permanent position.

The contract in my hand trembled a little as I tried to contain my nerves.

“Can I help you?”