AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Drake sighed and looked at Liam. “You know I have to do this, right?”
Liam looked resigned to his fate, and slowly got to his feet, wincing as he did. “Yeah. Make it quick.”
Without hesitation, Drake swung a fist at the other man’s face. I gasped in surprise. His hand connected with Liam’s jaw. He spun, hitting the ground; blood oozed out from between his lips as he writhed again, pressing a hand to his face. “Shit.” He groaned.
“All done,” Drake said, and put a hand out to help Liam to his feet.
My body was still so devastated from the workout, the mere idea of food made me want to gag, but I knew I needed the fuel. Plus, I didn’t want to disobey.
Elise and Liam walked toward a door on the opposite side of the gym. Liam limped heavily as he went.
Drake helped me up and walked with me toward the same door. “It’s a bathroom with showers and a changing room.”
“Okay,” I said, starting to feel somewhat better. The blood was no longer pounding in my head, and puking wasn’t an imminent threat.
By the time we’d reached the locker room, Liam was already almost undressed. He wrapped a towel around his hips and tugged his sweatpants down under the towel, wincing as he pulled them past his bandaged wound.
His attempt at modesty was one-upped by Elise. She yanked her thin sports bra off, her breasts tumbling out and jiggling a bit as she tugged her panties down. Welp. Okay, then. I didn’t think I could be so casually naked in front of two men, but she grabbed a towel and slung it over her shoulder.
She looked at Liam struggling to get his sweatpants off of his feet while keeping his towel on. “Fucking pussy,” she said before she rounded the corner to the women’s showers.
Drake shook his head and grabbed his own towel as Liam finally got his pants off and left for the shower.
I’d barely managed to get my sneakers untied when Drake pulled his shirt off. My gaze flew to bright purple bruises all up and down his side.
“Jesus, what happened to you?” I whispered without thinking.
Drake froze and looked at my surprised face before glancing down then shrugging. “One of the guys beat me pretty good. A thick rubber pipe. Not enough to break ribs, but enough to do this. It was the other day. The morning you first got here.”
The sight of his arm sent a pang of worry through me. “And that burn?” I nodded toward his injury.
He looked more embarrassed than he had when talking about his ribs. “It was a punishment.”
“For what?”
“Not important,” he murmured then walked to the showers.
After undressing but quickly wrapping the towel around my naked body, I joined Elise in the shower—in the stall farthest from her. Thankfully, she had no desire to talk. I rinsed the sweat off my body and washed out my hair. This was my first chance to think, and my mind returned to the fact Drake had chosen to help me even though it got him punished.
Nobody had ever done something like that for me before. It warmed me in ways that power didn’t.
Elise’s water shut off, so I hurried to finish. I didn’t want to be in here too long. Who knew when Elise would decide to say something that I didn’t want to hear? Of all my housemates, I liked her the least. The brutal way she’d introduced me to this place had soured me on her from the start.
She took away my worries by leaving without a word. She didn’t even dry off, just wrapped the towel around her neck and strutted back to the changing room, hips swaying. After she was gone, I rolled my eyes and turned my water off, dried my body, then went ahead and dressed in the shower using clean clothes I’d found in the lockers. I wasn’t an exhibitionist like Elise. Another reason she was irritating was she reminded me of Claudia back at the diner. I could totally picture Elise being a stripper and giving some trashy dude a hand job for an extra few bucks.
By the time I got back to the changing room, only Drake remained. He was tying his sneakers as I came in.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Sort of. I still feel like I almost died out there.”
He grinned. “You did fine.”
“I suppose. Is it always like that?”
“What, the workout? Not always. Some are simple weight lifting sessions, but it’s never easy. I can say that for sure. If it makes you feel any better, this was one of the worst. You made it through this, so you’ll make it through any of them.”
I did feel a little better knowing that. “Thanks. I appreciate it. Maybe I won’t be so scared next time.”
