My Kind of Town
>> Honolulu Iron Works Warming up
The hotel concierge was right. The Honolulu Iron Works was as good as any gym Lt. Col. Chuck Ryan had ever seen. He was just finishing a good session with a last set of bench presses when the most stunning woman he'd ever seen walked through the door, all in blue. Dark blue workout shorts and a two-blue striped sports bra kind of thing on top, whatever you called it.
But it wasn't her beauty or her curves or her coffee-with-cream skin that caught Ryan's attention. It was her anger. Ryan had just stood up from the bench and was toweling his face when she stalked straight to the bench press machine, adjusted the weights and slammed off 12 quick ones.
"Uh, I'm no personal trainer, but don't you warm up first?"
She just stared bullets. The last thing she needed at this moment was another man old enough to be her father telling her what to do. Or more to the point, telling her what she could not do!
"Hey, it's none of my business." he said, shrugged and started to back away before she totally nuked. "Sorry."
She took a deep breath, and not from the exercise. "You're right. I know better. I was thinking about ... things."
A guy? Business? He didn't ask. "It showed. Did you know there was steam coming out of your ears there for a while?"
She had to laugh, not so much at what this older guy had said, but the way he said it. Like he'd seen what he'd seen and understood. "Was I that obvious?"
"Afraid so," he said, offering his right hand. "Hi, Chuck Ryan."
"Lily Ah Sun," she replied and offered her hand as well. "Thanks for the reminder."
"I just hate to see people get hurt."
An officer, Lily thought, and a gentleman. Lean, fit, confident. The way he carried himself, his erect posture, that had to be military. Lily wasn't into older guys, but if she was, this Chuck Ryan would be worth a spin. If only he knew how much she was hurting inside.
Ryan's workout was done, but there was something about this Lily Ah Sun. And so he would do another short rotation just to be in the same room with her.
And then it got better. While Lily was stretching and warming up, a tall Asian woman, beautiful, built and dressed in black and purple workout tights, bounded into the room. "Hey, Lil!"
"Hey, Shauny!"
Total tigress, Ryan thought, feeling her energy from across the room.
He'd have to tip the concierge a little extra.
Don Chapman is editor of MidWeek.
His serialized novel runs daily in the Star-Bulletin.
He can be emailed at dchapman@midweek.com