Rough and Ready (More Than A Cowboy #2) - Vanessa Vale Page 0,6
each step.
“No, I mean she runs.”
I turned to look at him. “What the fuck does that mean?”
He rolled his eyes. “It means she came in yesterday before the BJJ class. We talked about stupid shit for a few minutes before she went to the treadmills. Asked me about the classes I was taking. Did you know she's a professor at the university? Teaches some obscure art topic.” He thought for a second. “I don't remember which.” He leaned in. “I have to admit, she's really pretty, and I wasn't listening all that closely.”
I grinned when I saw a flush climb up his cheeks. Yeah, she was pretty. And then some. What guy could process words when a girl like her offered a soft smile? I'd gotten horror, and I was still intrigued.
“So, running?” I asked, getting him back on track. I didn't think it was a safe topic for him to talk about how hot one of the gym's members was, especially since he was on the clock. It was fine for me to think it, but I wasn't going to tell him that.
“She was running like she is now when Paul took over the desk, so I could go into class.”
That meant fast. She wasn't jogging, not like Jimmy, one of the gym regulars, two treadmills over. He kept turning his head to watch her, even pushed some buttons on his machine to pick up his pace, clearly not interested in being outdone.
I knew he did three miles as part of his workout routine, and she made him look like he was hobbling along with a walker. With the faster speed, he was failing quickly, and I had to shake my head.
“She was still running at the same pace when I came out.”
Whoa. I gave him a look, knowing Jack liked to stretch the truth. “Class was an hour.”
Jack grabbed a membership card from a guy who came in, scanned it. Tossed him a towel.
“Longer,” he continued, “because I rolled with Tom for about ten minutes after.”
BJJ was all about defending yourself and submitting your opponent on the mats. It wasn't karate. There were no kicks, only standing up long enough to take someone to the ground. So when two people practiced their ground fighting, they called it rolling.
I glanced back at Harper, impressed. Intrigued. Something.
Since she didn't seem to be afraid of Jack and was completely ignoring Jimmy, I had to wonder why she was so scared of me.
I was a punk, that was why. I also had a dark past. She should be scared of me. We might live in the same building, but we came from different sides of the tracks. Hell, completely different worlds. If she was a professor, that meant she was smart as shit. I barely got my GED, and that had been in juvie. Yeah, different worlds.
Then there was Larry. Larry the Loser who sauntered over to stand beside her treadmill. He was a lawyer and thought he was tough shit. Too bad for him he wasn’t and was trying to bag Harper. We couldn’t hear what they said, but I had to hope her reply to his blatant proposition was “back off, asshole.” Why he thought the middle of her run was when to ask her out only proved he was a total douche bag.
“If Larry fucks with her, I want to know about it,” I told Jack, my tone serious.
He nodded. “Yeah, no problem.”
Gray came out of his office to stand beside us, arms crossed over his chest. The doc’s kid stormed past and out the door.
“If you're good here for a minute,” Jack said. “I'll go get the towels out of the dryer.”
Gray offered him a nod, and Jack went into the back.
“Are you okay?” he asked, eyeing me. His dark eyes were shrewd. He wore fighter shorts and a gym t-shirt, flip flops. Since no shoes were allowed on the mats or in the ring, he only wore sneakers for working out. But no one would take him for anything less than a total badass. Yeah, he had tattoos. Yeah, he had the close-cropped hair, the broken nose, the mangled fighter hands. Yet he was known for being a cowboy. Dressing like one with snap shirts and a fucking Stetson. He’d grown up on a ranch in Wyoming. The place was his hell on Earth, and as far as I knew, he’d never gone back after he left for the army. He had his own spread now, closer.