tarotgal

Part 2

“Green, Lucas.” The man at the registration desk was taking Such. A. Long. Time. The man scrolled through the list of registered attendees on this tablet so slowly, Lucas felt like just grabbing a spare badge, scrawling his name on it, and running past him into the exhibit hall. But he tried to channel just a little bit of David’s patience. If he made the conference organizers angry and they threw him out on day one, that would be the end of his world.

“Ah, here you are. Lucas Green. Full conference registration with added exercise club access.” The man hit a couple buttons and a registration printed out of the machine beside him. “Scan the QR code here at the door to access the club. Grab a lanyard here and a tote with event program on your way into the hall. Seminars on the big stage start on the half hour every hour from—”

“I memorized the schedule from the app three days ago,” Lucas said, clipping his badge to a lanyard, marveling at his name in big, block letters and the name of his gym beneath it for just a moment. He’d made it. This was actually happening. “Thanks,” he said quickly before walking directly toward the doors to the exhibit hall, flanked on either side and also above with banners reading: Fitness & Fun! It was the theme of this year’s annual international conference. It wasn’t exactly a clever or creative theme, but Lucas was so damn ready for a giant helping of both fitness and fun.

The moment he walked inside the hall, he lost his breath. Yeah, he had his inhaler in his gym bag just in case, but this wasn’t that kind of breathless. Stretched out in front of him as far as he could see was the trade show of his dreams. Booth after booth filled up a gigantic room in a grid pattern, and every booth contained something Lucas desperately wanted to try. Some booths had videos playing of the latest hot classes. Some had revolutionary new gym equipment. Some had clothing with the latest fabrics to deal with perspiration. Some even had recommended training workout sets you could buy so you never had to spend your time developing your own regimens for your clients. Lucas floated indiscriminately from booth to booth, picking up free brochures, sweatbands, protein bars, earbuds, water bottles, workout DVDs, and stuffing all the goodies into his new tote. By the time he got halfway through the room, the bag was bursting, but it was all right. He’d been given two small duffle bags at different booths and promptly started filling those as well.

As he went along, he made notes in the conference app to remind himself of what booths he wanted to hit again tomorrow to find out more. When he stopped to get a free smoothie sample, he chatted with a few of the women in line with him who also happened to be trainers. They recommended he stop by the Reebok booth because the company was raffling off a new pair of sneakers every day. One of them had attended this conference last year and advised him to skip the entertainment; it was a waste of time, but to attend as many classes as he could. “Every class I go to, I see moves I’ve never seen before, never even thought to do. My clients loved that I had new things to show them right away and it didn’t me cost anything extra, didn’t require any new equipment.”

Hearing that made him excited to do more than just walk around. He wanted to get moving. Weighted down by bags of free goodies, Lucas headed to a giant bank of lockers outside a room with a glowing neon sign reading: Club Fun. He stowed his things, scanned his badge in the reader, and headed inside. He only made it a step or two inside before he froze in shock. The place was packed with equipment he’d only seen in online promos, only heard spoken about as rumors by the other trainers at his gym. Lucas was a kid in a fancy candy store realizing that every single sweet he could see was free to be sampled.

Lucas went straight for the first machine he saw, not wanting to waste a second of time. The treadmill’s curved form allowed for just the right amount of resistance without the impact on his knees he’d been expecting. Man, he wanted one of these at his gym. And running there at a decent pace allowed him the ability to sit back and survey the room to compile a mental list of everything he wanted to try out.

And that’s when he saw it: a machine he’d never even heard of before. It was a weightlifting bench, but with features built right into. There were rep counters, an audio jack port and interface, and what looked like a half dozen safety redundancies. Immediately, Lucas knew he wanted to try that next. So he slowed his pace on the treadmill machine and kept his gaze trained on it. There was a man on there now, trying it out, though he looked like he might be close to finishing up.

As soon as the man did his last rep, sat up, and wiped his face and hands on his towel, Lucas slowed and stopped the treadmill. He made a bee line for the fancy new weight bench and got there before a handful of other people who had also been eyeing it hopefully. But he hadn’t been fast enough to beat one person. A man hung his towel on the little hook at the end of the bench and sat down just as Lucas got there. The other people turned away, disappointed that this was not their chance, and Lucas nearly did the same.

Something stopped him. Maybe it was the way the man caught his gaze. Maybe it was his determination to work out on this equipment. Or maybe it was how totally and completely ripped this shirtless man was. Now, it was not to be said that Lucas wasn’t fit. David often remarked that he loved the curves of his muscles as he held the man in a tight hug. And at least once a week David enjoyed ejaculating on Lucas’ abs almost certainly for the visual alone and for being able to take his time wiping them clean afterward. But this man before him was a perfect specimen. He didn’t seem to have a bit of fat on him. And, at the same time, he wasn’t built like a bodybuilder with so many bulging muscles with veins popping. This man was just incredibly hot.

This man was also staring right at him. “Sorry, mate. I’ve been hoping to use this for almost an hour now. No hard feelings?” He smiled a smile to die for.

Lucas shook his head automatically. As if this guy couldn’t get any sexier, the man also had a thick British accent and dimples in not just one but both cheeks. Breathless for the third time in as many hours, Lucas nearly went for his inhaler. But he managed to wet his tongue against his lips and shake his head. “No, it’s… it’s fine. Enjoy.” He turned, starting to drift away, when the man called him back.

“Hey! Do you want to spot me?”

Lucas turned back around. The machine was so high tech, that wouldn’t be necessary, and they both knew it.

“That way you’ll be right here when I finish and get your chance to try it next, yeah?”

Lucas nodded. “Yeah, all right. That works.” He smiled back. “Thanks.”

The man rotated on the bench and lay down on his back. He punched a low number into the bar beside him then reached up to the barbell with a perfect grip.

“Only six?” Lucas asked, taking up a position at the head of the bench for show more than anything else, his hands out and ready.

“I’m a little tired today. Jetlag, I think. Don’t want to push myself too hard. But I couldn’t resist trying this out.” With care and control, he lifted the barbell off its cradle and lowered it to his upper chest. Then, arms straining, muscles working hard, he drove it up. And the look of elation on his face when he did so almost made Lucas giddy to see. “I’m Troy, by the way.”

“Troy,” Lucas repeated. It suited the man. “I’m Lucas.”

They didn’t talk any more as Lucas concentrated on his reps, lowering and pressing upward, maintaining control the entire time. Lucas had a feeling he could easily have done four times that many and still keep perfect form. But he also admired the fact that the man knew his limits today. That was always something Lucas struggled with, especially when it came to awesome new toys like this machine.

Because of the technology—especially a set of cradles that tracked hand movements and went up and down to provide a built-in way to catch the barbell if it slipped or was dropped—Lucas didn’t really need to spot him. And, instead, he found himself staring at the man’s body, trying not to drool too obviously. He was half turned on and half envious. But he also had time to note the logo on the bottom of the man’s gym shorts.

When Troy was done, he sat up, coughed, and lunged for his towel to dab at his face.

“Go Figure?” Lucas read, pointing to the man’s shorts. The letter O in the name had a little arrow attached to it; the symbol for a male. “That’s clever. Is that where you work?”

Troy nodded. “Best gay gym in all of Britain, we like to say.”

Lucas couldn’t help looking surprised.

Troy noticed his expression, because he stiffened. His casual but fatigued tone suddenly had a hard edge to it. “You got a problem with gay people?”

Lucas knew what Troy was expecting. Despite recent movements and progress made, there still wasn’t widespread acceptance. There were still bigots out there who were never going to be comfortable sharing a locker room with guys who happened to be gay. But Lucas wasn’t one of those people. “I hope not, or it’ll be a pretty big shock to my husband when I get back to our hotel room.”

Troy blinked, his turn to look a little surprised. “Husband?”

“Legal as of last year.”

Troy bit his bottom lip and, Lucas tried not to notice. “Can’t say I’m not a little disappointed to hear that. But congrats. No ring?”

Lucas wiggled the fingers of his left hand. “I don’t wear my ring when I’m working out. It gets a little loose when I sweat. I don’t want to lose it or catch it on some equipment and damage it. Are you married?”

Troy shook his head. “Not even close. I’ve got a… a…” He got a faraway look in his eyes Lucas thought he recognized. But then Troy folded his arm over his face and pitched forward. “HkkkkEHShoooo!”

“Bless you.” Living with David, that immediate response was instinctual now.

Troy nodded his appreciation and sniffed, rubbing his nose against his forearm.

“You feeling okay, man?”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Well, no. Jetlag, you know? Just got off the plane a few hours ago. My system’s a bit out of order.”

“Hydrate,” Lucas recommended, thinking of how dry the air in the airplane had been and how it wasn’t really all that much better here in the hotel. And then he thought of David back up in the hotel room, resting in bed now but ready to take care of him the second he got back and needed a massage or shower buddy after this intense workout. Hot as Troy was—and he most definitely was hot—at the end of the day, Lucas couldn’t imagine not coming home to his David. “Oh, did you see? There’s a booth on the show floor that’s got full cups of juice samples. An extra shot of Vitamin C never hurts.”

“Where was that?”

Best Lucas could remember, it was somewhere in the 400s, past the booth selling yoga mats with white noise machines built in but before you got to the booth with reflective tape for nighttime runners.

Troy thanked him. “I’m sure I’ll run into you again, but if I don’t, have a great conference.”

“Yeah,” Lucas nodded as he lay down on the bench and got ready to play with this new toy and work his body hard. “You too.”