In the last installment of Muscle Memory…
I pull into the lot and count exactly one car.
His.
The gym is practically silent—just the dull hum of overhead lights and the soft creak of the door closing behind me. No front desk noise. No clanging metal. Just open air and possibility.
He’s at the free weights already, stretching out his arms like he’s been here a while. A flash of skin where his shirt rides up, a glimpse of that tattoo on his ribcage I haven’t let myself ask about yet.
“Hey,” I say, setting my bottle down.
He grins like we’ve been doing this for years. “Ready to suffer?”
“Born ready.”
It’s a lie. But the words come easier now. Maybe because I’m not entirely sure what I’m suffering from anymore.
Danny lays out the plan. Back and biceps. Supersets. Minimal rest. His kind of workout—which, let’s be honest, still might kill me.
But halfway through, I’m not dead.
I’m keeping up.
The sweat is real. My arms are trembling. But I’m pushing plates I wouldn’t have touched a week ago. And every time he corrects my form or gives a nod of approval, something inside me catches. Not pride. Not exactly. Something deeper.
We’re loading weights onto the bar for preacher curls when he rolls his neck and winces.
“You good?” I ask.
“Yeah.” He presses two fingers into the base of his neck. “Just tight. Been like this all day. I think I slept weird.”
He tries to stretch it out. Arm over his head. Shoulder roll. No luck.
“Want me to try?” I hear myself say.
He looks over, surprised. “You know how?”
“Not really,” I admit. “But I’ve been paying attention. Might help.”
He shrugs and sits on the edge of the bench, back to me. “Be my guest.”
I step behind him, palms a little clammy. Not from nerves—I tell myself—just from the workout.
But as soon as I press my thumbs into his traps, I know this is a mistake.
He’s warm. Damp with sweat. Solid as hell. The kind of solid you don’t see under a hoodie or gym shirt. The kind that feels earned.
I work slow circles into his neck and shoulders. He exhales, low and grateful.
“You’ve got good pressure,” he says.
I try not to react.
Try not to notice how thick his neck is, how it leads down into those delts, those lats—how close I am to all of it.
His shirt is loose but thin. My hands move lower, testing muscle I don’t even have names for. I don’t know when the massage stopped being just his neck, but he hasn’t said a word to stop me. His breathing’s even. His body’s loose.
I could stop.
I should stop.
Instead, I step around to the front of the bench.
He watches me—curious, relaxed, no trace of judgment.
I gesture. “Lean back.”
He does. No hesitation. Fully reclined on the bench now, shirt riding up an inch above his waistband. Abs barely visible, but present. That shadow of a happy trail pulling attention like a current.
I kneel beside him and start on his forearms. His biceps. I can’t believe how heavy his arms are in my hands. Like they’re built to hurt someone and hold them all at once.
He closes his eyes.
And I keep going.
Down to his wrists, then slowly back up, tracing the lines I’ve seen move under barbells and dumbbells. The veins. The dips and rises.
This isn’t a massage anymore.
This is study. This is inventory. This is a slow-motion confession I don’t have the guts to say out loud.
I slide my hands back to his shoulders, then down again, across his chest now—slower, flatter.
He exhales again. Not a moan. Not quite. But it’s close enough to leave me shaken.
His skin is so warm under my palms. Damp. Salted. Familiar in a way that shouldn’t be.
He cracks one eye open. “Damn. You sure you’re not in the wrong major?”
I laugh, shaky. “Finance is safe. Muscles make people confusing.”
He grins. “You saying I confuse you?”
My throat tightens. I try to keep it light. “Nah. Just… people like you.”
He lets that sit. Doesn’t press. Doesn’t pry. Just closes his eyes again, like he trusts me not to do anything stupid.
But what if I want to do something stupid?
What if I already have?
I run my thumbs gently down the center of his chest. He tenses just slightly—not resistance, just awareness. He’s not asleep. He’s letting me.
And that’s somehow worse.
Because if he’s letting me… does that mean he knows?
Does that mean he wants me to?
I stop. Palms flat against his ribs. Trying to remember how to breathe.
He opens both eyes now. Looks at me. Not confused. Not surprised. Just still.
We stay like that.
Ten seconds. Maybe twenty.
Then he swings his legs off the bench, stands, stretches with a grunt.
“Well,” he says, casually, “that was probably better than what I’d get at the student health center.”
I laugh, too fast, too nervous. “Glad I could help.”
He grabs his towel, wipes his face, neck, arms. “Sauna?”
I nod.
Because I can’t say no.
Because my hands still feel like they’re touching him.
And my body doesn’t know where to put that.
I followed Danny through the hallway just past the locker room, the rubber soles of his slides making soft slap sounds against the tiled floor. His gym bag bounced against his shoulder, towel slung across his neck, still damp from wiping sweat that didn’t want to stay gone. He was sore—in that good, can’t-feel-your-quads kind of way—but his body was humming from the workout. Or maybe from something else.
Danny stopped in front of the sauna door and pressed a hand against it. Testing the heat, I thought. Or maybe just stalling.
Danny pushed the door open, and a soft wave of warmth curled out and kissed my skin—gentler than I expected. The smell hit first. Cedarwood and something almost sterile, like varnish or glue. Inside, the light was dim, just one overhead bulb casting a low golden hue that softened the air.
I stepped in behind him—and stopped.
Half the room was roped off with caution tape, one of those plastic yellow barriers stretched from bench to bench like some miniature crime scene. A stack of replacement wood planks sat in the far corner, next to a toolbox and a neatly folded drop cloth. One of the top corner lights flickered like it had seen better days and didn’t want to be here either.
“Guess they weren’t kidding about the renovations,” I say, voice already lowering out of instinct, the way everyone did in saunas—like heat demanded reverence.
Danny turns and offer a half-smile. “Still works. Just means we’ll have to share the good bench.”
I look at say “good bench.” Only about three feet of usable space remained—maybe four, if they didn’t mind getting friendly. No backrest. No buffer.
He raises an eyebrow. “Cozy.”
Danny chuckled and stepped forward, tossing his towel across the bench like he was claiming a seat at a middle school lunch table. “Hey, you can stand if you want. I won’t judge.”
I snorted. “You absolutely would.”
“I absolutely would,” Danny agreed, settling onto the bench with the casual ease of someone who’d done this a hundred times.
I hesitate—not because of the heat, or the proximity, or the mildly alarming fact that this entire room felt like a cross between a spa and a construction zone. No. It was the sitting next to Danny part that gave me pause.
This damn shoulder-to-shoulder thing.
Still, he moved forward and sat anyway. The wood beneath him was warm but not scalding. Smooth. Clean enough. He kept his towel in place around his waist, leaning back just enough to relax without slouching. His leg brushed Danny’s for a second—bare skin to bare skin—and he felt it like a spark. No, not even that. It was quieter. Deeper. A reminder.
Danny didn’t move.
The room settled into quiet. The heater in the corner clicked softly. The caution tape swayed once, catching the draft from the vent before going still again. I shift slightly and glance at Danny out of the corner of my eye. The man looked straight ahead, elbows resting on his knees, towel slung low on his hips, steam already starting to bead along the ridge of his collarbone.
It was fine. Totally fine.
Just a little heat. Just a little space.
I could do this.
The silence in the sauna was thick. Not uncomfortable, exactly. But charged—like something unspoken was shifting beneath the surface.
Danny adjusted slightly on the bench, reaching for the edge of his towel.