I don't owe anything or anyone of WWE. I owe Braeden. I used the lyrics of a song: Jimmy Eat World "Bleed American". I haven't asked for permission. rkolove, my beta-reader, made this possible! Thank you!

The TV's were on but I didn't pay them much attention. I never understood why they always had to have TV's in places like this. A news channel showed the headlines of the day, then the weather, over and over again. I was wondering if it was on a loop. I was sure that I had heard the same news days before and the weather hadn't changed either. Nobody would notice if the host went on holiday for a month: they would just air the same show each day. And the chances of the weather changing drastically in a month were pretty slim. Wait a second … wasn't the host wearing the same suit? He was talking but the sound was muted. It made sense! And even if they weren't, I couldn't hear him anyway.

"… salt, sweat, sugar on the asphalt, our hearts littering the topsoil …"

My iPod pushed me to my limit. My sport playlist was on. I was in the gym. I didn't go to the gym on my own very often, because I just couldn't do much there. I really didn't need to work out my arms when walking around on crutches the whole day and my knee didn't let me do much else. I did some floor exercises to help my injured leg and my back. Usually I preferred the pool, but today I just wanted to sweat. I was sitting on a bike and working it fast. The seat was adjusted in a way that I could neither bend nor extend my injured knee too much. It didn't ache, so I kept on going.

I had pulled my hair to a topknot and wore tight-fitting clothes: a grey sport bra, one of my beloved turquoise tank tops and black shorts, as normal. I didn't like fluttery clothes when I was working out. When you start to sweat, they stick to your body like a wet strand of hair. That's just annoying. And I could feel that sweat running down the back of my neck, between the shoulder-blades.

I looked on the display of the bike's monitoring system. I was wearing a pulse monitor and my pulse was still good but the watch told me that it was time to cool down. So I stretched myself, leant back and slow down the pace. After a few more minutes of relaxed pedalling, I finally stopped and dried my left leg with a towel. I put my splint back on. I never wore it during my exercises and luckily it wasn't necessary. I did wear it in the beginning but the sweat started to itch under it. And I couldn't scratch. True torture.

I cleaned and disinfected the bike before I glanced around the gym. I liked to work out on my own and not get distracted by others, so I always tried to find a little alcove for me and didn't pay a lot of attention to what was around me. But now I wanted to know. A few people were working out. A little distance away from the others, like I used to be, I saw Randy running fast on a treadmill. His back was turned towards me. I hadn't seen him when I arrived at the gym. Had he seen me?

I decided to say 'hi', so grabbed my stuff and walked over to him. As I got closer to him I saw that he had earphones in too. I wanted to walk around the treadmill, so he would see me. Before I could, he reached for his towel but it fell on the floor. He didn't care. He kept on running and instead, he lifted his shirt up to wipe the sweat off. I stood in front of him as he exposed his stomach. I thought that he would be well built because it was obvious but I had never expected that! Fortunately for me, there wasn't only sweat on his face; little sweat-drops were running down from his chest. I watched a drop that was running slowly over the grooves of his stomach muscles, down to his belly button. When it reached his belly button it hung glittering in it for a moment before it fell. I watched another one make its way over his gorgeous muscles, again down to his belly button. But this one went around his belly button and kept running down until it disappeared into the material of his pants.

I was fascinated and couldn't force myself to look away. To my disappointment, his shirt slid back down and I looked away quickly. Did he notice that I was ogling? He smiled and pulled out his ear phones. His music was so loud that I could hear James Hetfield scream out 'St. Anger'.

"Hi!" he gasped for breath, as he continued running. "Didn't see you in here."

"I just did a few rounds on the bike. There's not much I can do here. That's why I'm not here very often. I prefer the pool."

"The pool. Sounds good."

I felt that I was still sweating. Sweat was running down my neck, along the collarbone to where the breastbone begins. I felt how the sweat gathered in the little hollow of the throat.

And Randy saw it, because he was looking. My tank top didn't expose too much skin. You couldn't see my breasts at all, but I wasn't sure if I wanted him to look. I wasn't sure if he was looking. I had just worked out in a public gym. Everybody here could look. I hadn't cared before. But somehow that was different. I mean, I had looked at him before and seen much more than he could see, even he was in a very good position to see more than others because of his height as well as the added height of the treadmill. I didn't know why I was thinking about that or even how thoughts like that were coming into my mind.

I felt my nape aching a little. So I closed my eyes, leant my head back and moved it a little from side to side, trying to release the tension. When I stretched my neck the sweat in the hollow of the throat started to run slowly down my breastbone. After a few seconds I felt it between my breasts. I heard Randy gasp again but it sounded somehow different. I opened my eyes. I caught him staring at my breasts before his eyes quickly moved somewhere else. Just like I had done, moments before.

"Gotta go," I said. "I just wanted to say 'hi.'"


It was a hot day. Definitely the hottest since I started rehab. After the rain a few days ago, the heat was coming back again. And hotter than before. It wasn't possible to move, eat, sleep and even breathing was almost too exhausting.

I was wearing shorts, that covered a third of my thighs. But on that hot day, even that felt like too much. My shirt was fluttering. On a hot day like this I liked fluttery shirts because if there was a breeze it could go through your clothes and kiss your skin.

I don't know how but I somehow made it to the bench. I kicked off my shoes and leant back in the corner, between the back of the bench and the armrest. I stretched my legs out on the bench. I closed my eyes, despite the fact I was wearing sunglasses, and enjoyed the sun and the silence.


It was like a shadow had fallen on my face. But I wasn't sure, so I opened my eyes a little. Randy was standing in front of me. I watched him. I didn't know if he could see that I had opened my eyes. He was just standing there, gazing at me, until I took my sunglasses off.

"I thought you were asleep." He explained his hesitation with a smile.

"Oh, I guess I was close." I had no idea how long I had been lying on the bench, or in fact, what time it was at all. I sat up a little more and started to move my legs to make room for him to sit down.

"No," he laid his hand on my legs. "If it's okay for you," he smiled and moved my legs carefully up until they were high enough that he could slide under them onto the bench. He laid my feet on his thigh.

"That okay?"

"No, not yet. Come a bit closer?" I smiled. "My leg starts to ache after a while if it's too straight. It's more comfortable when my knee's bent."

He held my legs and moved closer. As close as he could get. He laid my legs on his thighs but he seemed to be a little indecisive about where to put his hands. He glanced at my knees.

"Do you mind?" he asked, gesturing to my injured knee. I shook my head and he let his pointer finger slip gently over my knee. He moved it to the cut, that hadn't quite finished healing, on the inside of my knee. It's twin was on the outside. He touched them both carefully.

"What do you actually have done?"

"I haven't told you yet?" I replied, surprised. "A cruciate ligament rupture."

"What happened?" he asked, with a hint of compassion in his voice.

I sighed. "Eh … if you have such a friend like I have …"

"Boyfriend?" His hand retracted from my knee in an instant, while his eyes, glowing with guilt, stared at me.

Without thinking, I quickly laid my hand on his, stopping him from moving away.

"No," I said in a hurry. "Just a friend, okay, a male friend, but really, only a friend."

That wasn't the whole truth but the whole truth wasn't important. And it definitely wasn't important to him and right now, it wasn't important to me either. I didn't want it to be important. I didn't want it to ruin this. I didn't want to think about Adam. So I pushed these unimportant thoughts aside.

He smiled, somewhat assured and moved his hand to my knee. Mine was still on his. I looked at his arm and moved my fingers slowly over his tattoos. I let my fingers follow the lines of dark ink on his forearm. I moved on, to his elbow and his well-trained upper arm. I pushed the sleeve of his shirt up a little, before my eyes went to the nape of his neck. I had seen the tattooed lines there before but I never really looked closely.

I gazed at him. Now both of his hands were on my legs. One was carefully caressing my injured knee, the other one concentrated on my shin, calf and ankle. I took a moment to absorb his touch. It made me want to touch him more. I moved my hand to his neck and lay my finger on a thin tattooed line. I followed it to his nape and caressed all the lines that peeked out of his shirt. His distinctive nape muscles felt hard, tense. I let my fingers wander over them, applying a gentle pressure. I knew I could do much better. But I thought this would be a nice start.

He fought with his eyes. His eyelids fluttered open and closed for a few minutes, before shutting completely. His head slumped forwards and sideways. His movements on my legs slowed. He seemed to abandon himself to my touches. A sigh of pleasure escaped from his lips.

I watched him with a satisfied smile. I massaged him but after a while, my arm started to go numb from being up so high. I moved my hand away from his nape. I just wanted to let my fingers run down his muscular upper arm to his forearm again. But I didn't get very far.

"Please keep going," he quietly groaned.

I smiled. He didn't move, anticipating that I would carry on. I was enjoying this moment. I enjoyed watching him. And I enjoyed how he was enjoying this.

"Make me," I whispered.

He slowly opened his eyes and stared at me. It looked like as if he was considering the endless possibilities that I had just presented. When he looked at my legs on his lap he smirked and started to move his hands once more. He continued caressing my lower leg, making his way up to my knee. He turned more towards me, as his hand moved to my thigh. Slowly, carefully, but constant, moving inch by inch. I didn't want to but now it was my eyes that were on the verge of closing – those fingers … On my skin … It felt so damn good.

"Like that?" he whispered.

Something inside me flipped. I didn't answer. I wanted him to carry on. He moved his hand up and down several times. Once when his hand was back down at my knee he moved his thumb to the inside of my thigh and continued his caressing. The rest of his fingers followed his thumb soon and started to move up again, not far, just a few inches, but the feeling was almost too intense to bear.

"That's … not … fair," I stammered.

He stopped but didn't take it away from my thigh.

I only just managed to form words. "It was just your shoulder!"

"Just my shoulder?" he laughed. "I'm not sure if I should be glad that you obviously don't know what you just did … to my shoulder! But maybe you're right," he admitted with a defeated tone. "I guess … " he wrapped his other arm around me, slipped his hand under my shirt, his hand finding my hip "… there's something we could do that's fair for both of us."

I opened my eyes and looked straight into his as he pulled me closer to him. His head slowly moved closer to mine. I looked at his face, his lips. He stopped and looked at me. He eyed my lips like he'd done a few days before. Now I moved closer to him. Our lips were just an inch apart. I could already feel his breath on mine. Our eyes moved fast, looking all over each others face. My eyes eventually fell to his lips once again but before I could close my eyes and make the last inch, his phone rang.

My eyes moved from his lips to his eyes. He looked into mine. We didn't move. I could see a mixture of annoyance and disappointed in his eyes. The moment smashed to pieces in a second. He hung his head and closed his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I have to …"

I innocently shrugged my shoulders. "Your loss," I whispered licking and biting my lower lip.

"THAT'S not fair," he stated concentrating on my lips as his fingers on my thigh pressed into the flesh.

His phone kept on ringing. With an annoyed sigh he let go of my thigh and grabbed his phone. He glanced briefly on the display and finally answered it.

"Man, bad timing, as usual," he groaned. "Worst timing ever!" he looked at me. I chuckled and he smiled.

I didn't want to listen to his call so I just laid back again in the corner of the bench and started to caress his nape again. His arm was still wrapped around me and he caressed my hip. As much as I was distracted it was impossible not to overhear his call.

"… Huh?… No, no… Not really… No… You didn't mention a time… You did?… Eh, no… Here?… In the park… Where?… Eh… Okay, just follow the main route away from the centre for a mile. When you reach the turn that guides you back to the centre, there's a small track on your left. It has a dead end. That's where I am right now… Yup… Okay…" He hung up.

He had a visitor. I felt a little disappointed and let my hand slide from his neck. I moved my legs slowly off his lap and turned around.

"You've got a visitor?" I asked but it was a rhetorical question. He didn't have to answer. We both knew it. I didn't know why but I just let myself sink onto his chest. His arm around my hip was holding me tight. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around him. He placed his head on mine. We sat like this for some minutes.

"I'll go!" I raised my head and let go of him. He was still holding on.

"Don't go," he whispered almost pleading with me. "You don't have to!"

"Nah, I'd like to freshen up and rest a little before the next exercise session."

I turned away from him and took my splint. He slowly let go off my hip and stood up.

"I'll just make sure that my friend didn't miss the place here," he said, just as the sound of crunching gravel reached us.

I looked up. Randy had turned around. A guy came round the shrubs. Randy went to greet him with a hug. It brought a little smirk on my face to see men like them hug each other even if it was in a reserved, manly way. But it was very amicably. Randy's friend was a few inches smaller than him but somehow more sturdy especially around his neck and upper arms.

"Hi John! I was just on my way to see if you got lost somewhere."

"Did you really forget? I was looking for you for about …" he looked at his watch. "Randy you're …" he paused and looked at me "… In the company of a lady?"

I shook my head with a smile and looked down at my leg again. Guys! My splint was in place and I took my crutches. When I heaved up myself an arm wrapped around me again.

"Need some help?" Randy asked with a smile helping me to get up.

"Thanks, I'm okay!"

He didn't hurry to move his arm away. His friend was standing there, watching us.

"Braeden, John. John, Braeden." Randy introduced us simply.

"Hi John," I offered out my hand to shake his. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too, Braeden," he took my hand. "Such a beautiful name for such a beautiful woman."

"John …" Randy groaned obviously irritated.

I felt somewhere in between embarrassed, flattered and amused. I ignored Randy and smiled.

"Thank you," I said gladly. "I haven't been given such a nice compliment for a while."

"No compliments?" John glanced at Randy.

"Well… Unless you count compliments like 'Oh your scars look so great. Who did them? Next surgery I want your doctor!' or 'Pretty crutches! Do they have them in pink? That colour would look much better with your splint.'"

John laughed and I even heard Randy chuckle next to me. I just shrugged my shoulders.

"It was nice to get to know you John, but I'd better go."

"What a pity! It just started to get real nice," he grinned, charm oozing from him.

I heard Randy taking a deep breath but before he could say something I turned towards him. He let his breath out and mouthed 'sorry'. I wanted to smile softly but all I could manage was an amused one.

"See you tomorrow?"

"Definitely! We have to continue our little conversation about fairness," I smiled innocently.