Page 1 of Heat Transfer
Chapter one
Cormac
There were two things I loved most on this earth: sweaty guys and swords. And on Thursday evenings after work, I got to enjoy both.
The late afternoon sun bore down on my shoulders, and my shirt was already sticking to my chest. Summers in Philly got disgusting, what with the heat and humidity that liked to masquerade as air soup. And as a big guy, I always ran furnace-hot, even in the winter. Not that the temperatures bothered me much either way. With my work in the family contractor company, I was used to getting exposed to the elements.
Once a month, we met up for sword fighting class, which had become my favorite outlet for any pent-up aggression but also for seeing hot guys in action.
Definitely more than I was getting.
“Cor, are you going to hit me or just keep swinging your sword around?” Felix’s voice drew my attention.
Right, the drill.
Felix Ruiz stood a few yards away from me, his wooden sword in hand. I’d been practicing charges while he practiced feints, and then we swapped. He was the person I always paired up with, even though every session turned into a long, slow torture.
Slender and shorter than me, Felix was my type to a T. His bronze skin glowed in the sun, and his tousled black curls tended to drift over his forehead. Combined with his warm eyes, charming, smooth voice, and intense stare, he was a looker. And I was a goner.
I’d met him four months ago when I’d started these classes and had been smitten from the get-go.
Unfortunately, Felix had a girlfriend.
Even more unfortunately, he was straight.
“Ready?” I gripped the base tight and lowered into the stance to charge.
“For hours now,” he said, a mischievous glint in his eyes.
I rushed forward, muscle memory snapping into place as the wind whistled through my hair.
My focus switched to Felix, and I swung down.
The clack of the wooden swords echoed, each smack reverberating up my arms, and I pivoted away. The sun beamed overhead, and the clatter of everyone doing their drills filled the air. We launched into an easy rhythm. I steadied my stance and darted toward Felix again and again and again. The scent of wood, of sweat, of the decaying leaves from the fall filtered through my senses. I whirled through the motions, and pure endorphins rushed through me.
“All right, wrap it up,” Ezra, our instructor, called.
I slammed down with one more strike that Felix easily defended.
“Not too shabby.” Felix gave my shoulder a slight push. “Maybe next time you’ll get past my defenses.”
“Shove it, Ruiz.” I shoulder-checked him in the side, craving the contact more than anything. After a workout like this, my adrenaline pumped hot, and the need to fuck it out burned strong. If I were more of a hookup guy, I’d hop on Grindr, but I’d been struggling with that lately. The more I lost myself in nameless guys, the more invisible I felt, and I’d had middle-kid syndrome my whole life.
Except my last attempt at a relationship still followed me. Literally.
I pushed away thoughts of Luke and the mess of our breakup.
We all brought our practice swords to the collection box with the wipes, lemon-scented cleaner filling the air as everyone took care of sanitizing their gear.
“Good job today, guys,” Ezra said. He was an older silver fox on the slender side, lanky, and just as much of a geek as the rest of us. A few years back, I’d tumbled down a rabbit hole with medieval weaponry, devouring books on the subject, going to find what I could at the art museums, and when this HEMA sword fighting class popped up in the city, I’d jumped on the opportunity.
My shirt was glued to my chest, sodden with sweat, and I would need to wring it out before driving home. Otherwise, I was in for a long, uncomfortable trip to the burbs.
“Felix put you through the paces today, didn’t he?” Regina gave me a slow up and down. Girl was flirty as fuck, even though we both played for the opposite teams.
“You know I like to run this big guy hard.” Felix patted me on the back.
Ngh.