Johnson

Five

The presence of Summer's idiot boyfriend wasn't going to be thing that ruined his gym session.

Of all the possible places for the dweeb, as Jack had taken to calling him, to choose for a workout, he had to pick the same gym as Jack. 

It wasn't as if Jack had enough things to worry about, such crushing his skull with every rep the trainer made him do, pushing him on with shouts of, "you can do it. Just one more." 

Now, he had found himself in an unintentional competition with the dweeb, both of them watching each other through the mirrors with narrowed eyes, upping the amounts of kilos they were lifting and pretending that their arms weren't screaming in protest.

Jack knew that his trainer had noticed the tension between the two, yet instead of trying to temper the rising altercation, she looked like she was enjoying it. The woman wasn't even hiding the smiles or the giggles that slipped out when she looked between the two.

In a way, Jack was glad for it- her lack of interference, that was.

He wasn't letting the stupid alpha get one up on him.

"What's your problem?" Jack found himself standing in front of the boy, glaring at him with as much disdain as he could muster.

The dweeb had watched him approach with a sneer and folded his arms over his chest, "you're my problem, bro."

Jack gave him a once over. Sure, the boy was bigger than he was, muscle wise, but he was sure he could take him in a fight. He rolled his shoulders with the anticipation of it, catching the dweeb doing the same thing.

"How about you stop with the posturing and keep your eyes to yourself?"

Those words set the dweeb off and he swung out his fist, catching the side of Jack's eye.

He found himself stumbling back, partly in shock, before his vision was sharpening and he lunged at the boy. He got in a few good punches, wheezing as he quickly found himself out of breath, and then the dweeb used both his fists to pummel him to the ground.

"How about you stay away from Summer?"

Jack stopped trying to push the boy away and froze on the floor, "what?"

Now that he wasn't reciprocating in the fight, the boy's shoulders sagged and he rolled off. 

"You heard me." He huffed, face switching between the smug expression of someone who had won a fight, and the frown of a boy who was terribly insecure about something. "Stay away from Summer."

There was a strange feeling in Jack's chest.

He resisted the urge to clutch at his heart, "I don't make an effort to be around her." He said, shaking his head from side to side.

He didn't know how to let the boy know that that was exactly what he was trying to do. 

He'd been trying to stay away from Summer since he'd met her.

The boy scrunched his eyebrows together and stared at him silently for a few moments.

The other gym-goers finally realised that the fight was over, moving back to their respective exercises and letting the two men talk out their problems in peace.

Jack spoke again. "Seriously, man. I only see her when she turns up at work or at work functions."

"You don't-" he swallowed, "-see her outside of work? Like, you don't have her number or anything?"

"No, of course not. She's my bosses daughter. Plus, I'm like double her age."

"Damn, she just talks about you so much that..."He gave a loud sigh of relief and then laughed. "Woah! Sorry, bro. You had me worried for a second."