...By ten o’clock, Vic hadn’t shown up at the gym, and Matt resisted the urge to call home. If his lover had gone back to sleep, perhaps he needed the rest. Matt would call in an hour, make sure Vic was up for work, but if he didn’t make it to the gym, no big deal. It wasn’t like Matt needed a morning fuck…

But it’d be nice.

Pushing that thought aside, he stacked together the small pile of bills for which he’d written checks and headed for the gym’s reception area. At the front desk, Roxie sat in front of her computer—typing something personal, Matt guessed, from the way she hit the ALT and TAB keys to change to a new window quickly. “There you are,” she said, turning her chair around to face him.

He flashed her a grin that felt forced. “Hey yourself. Any calls for me?”

With fingers tipped in black nail polish, Roxie twirled a blond strand that had somehow escaped the ponytail she wore…and the fire-engine red that dyed the rest of her hair. Behind her cat’s eye glasses, she gave him a baleful look. “What, you think I wouldn’t pass them back?”

Which meant Vic hadn’t called. Matt reached past her to deposit the bills he held in the mail’s outgoing box on the top shelf of her desk and tried not to let himself feel too disappointed. Vic wasn’t exactly Einstein in the morning. Chances were he’d forgotten all about Matt’s request to join him at the pool, despite the fact that it had been his own idea in the first place.

Before he could step away, Roxie nudged him in the ribs with one bony elbow. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Matt replied. At the way she squinted at him, he asked, “What? I said nothing.”

“You look like your best friend just died.” Cracking her gum, Roxie fixed him with a steady gaze and asked bluntly, “Are things okay with you and Vic?”

Matt laughed. “Yeah. They’re fine, Roxie. We’re great. Vic is…”

He trailed off as he felt his lover’s presence yawn into his mind. ::Bet you thought I wasn’t coming.::

His lover’s thoughts lifted his mood and Matt laughed—Vic had just pulled up into the gym’s parking lot. When he realized Roxie was frowning at him as if he’d gone mad, Matt gave her a genuine grin this time, one that threatened to split his face in two. “He’s awesome,” he said simply. “Jesus, Roxie, you just don’t know. He’s fucking amazing.”

“Maybe he’s amazing fucking,” she suggested, raising one eyebrow in a coy gesture.

Matt laughed again. “Oh yeah. That, too.”

“Okay,” Roxie said, in a no-nonsense tone of voice, “what the hell’s going on? You’re like Mr. Bipolar all of a sudden.” At Matt’s confused look, she added, “A second ago you were moping all over the place and now you have this look in your eye that says, I’m gonna get laid. Which is it?”