Desire Me If You Can [Novel] - Chapter 22

The colleagues were quite taken aback seeing Ezra, who was usually calm and showed little emotional change, return with a flushed face. What was wrong with him? “What’s up, did something happen? What’s wrong?”
“Why did it take so long? Something happened with that bastard, right?”
“What did that bastard do to you? Tell us, we’ll all get revenge for you!”
Though the team members immediately surrounded Ezra and asked, he just ground his teeth and glared at Greyson without easily speaking up.
“That bastard made a fool of me, that’s all.”
So what exactly does that mean…
Though the team members were dying of curiosity, Ezra showed no sign of saying more. Unable to help it, another guy offered his own speculation.
“He probably refused to come, right? So it took long trying to force him…”
“That’s right.”
Ezra reluctantly opened his mouth. To the team members curious about how he had persuaded him, Ezra told them honestly.
“He wouldn’t budge while flirting with Beth, so I delivered what the team leader said. That if he didn’t come, he’d be excluded from emergency calls. Then he thought for a moment before following.”
“Really? That worked?”
The team members looked at each other, seemingly surprised by that instead.
“What’s this? I thought he’d prefer staying in the office.”
“Yeah, didn’t he come just to goof off?”
“Going on calls looks cool though. The team leader must have figured Miller out properly.”
“I didn’t expect him to care about that kind of thing, it’s surprising.”
“Of course he needs to look cool when he’s playing around with women every other day.”
“Hmm.”
As they were exchanging various comments, Wilkins cleared his throat to get their attention. When the gathered men closed their mouths and looked at him, he finally spoke while looking up at Greyson.
“We called you because there’s something you need to do, Miller.”
Instead of answering, Greyson looked down at him. Since he seemed to be listening at least, Wilkins cleared his throat again before continuing.
“You may not know this, but we all became firefighters after passing appropriate tests. Because tremendous physical strength and skill are needed at the scene. Your body passes just by looking at the outside. But there’s an enormous difference between muscles built for actual activity and muscles just made for show.”
And he meaningfully looked Greyson’s body up and down once before fixing his gaze back on his face. With furrowed brows, as if saying his body was just for decoration.
“Running into a fire scene means risking your life. We’re responsible for each other’s lives. If you can’t properly do your part, other colleagues’ lives are endangered too. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
One would have to be a complete idiot not to understand the point of this long explanation.
“So.”
Greyson said while running his fingers through his hair with a short sigh.
“You’re saying you want to test my physical fitness, right?”
“Well, yes, that’s right.”
If Greyson refused here saying ‘there was no prior mention of this,’ they would have no choice. After all, even the chief didn’t know about this.
Instead, in that case, they were planning to call him names like ‘coward,’ ‘chicken,’ ‘soft muscles.’ Of course, Greyson Miller might not care about such words at all, but just the fact that he refused the physical fitness test would be enough to deal him a blow.
There wasn’t a single lie in Wilkins’s words. They entrusted their lives to each other, and because of that, firefighters who couldn’t pull their weight naturally got weeded out from the group. Being a woman was no exception. They too became firefighters after receiving the same training and passing the same tests as the men. They were all proud firefighters in their own right, so running away without passing such procedures would clearly be quite a big minus.
This will deal a tremendous blow to Greyson Miller.
Everyone had the same thought. If by any chance Greyson Miller accepted this proposal…
“Alright.”
Greyson simply agreed.
“I just need to pass the physical fitness test, right? I’ll do it.”
Wilkins smiled slightly. Of course, they had a backup plan for this situation too.
“You just need to pass the track we’ve prepared. However.”
He deliberately paused and looked back.
“Since speed is important too, one of our team members will run with you. Dane!”
When he crooked his finger, the red-blonde man standing far away let out a deep sigh. It was an openly annoyed response. But as if he had no choice, he shrugged and walked forward slowly.
Greyson’s eyebrow twitched briefly when he saw his face. The man’s red hair glinted slightly in the sunlight above his solid shoulders and balanced physique. Dane stopped walking while clearly showing his annoyed expression.
With the two tall men standing in the middle, everyone’s attention automatically turned to them. An unspoken current flowed between the two.
Behind Dane, Wilkins declared proudly with his chest out.
“If you can beat Dane, we’ll acknowledge you as a team member.”
“Aah…”
Greyson’s long eyes narrowed. He slowly stroked his chin while keeping his gaze fixed on Dane’s face.
“This should be interesting.”
A golden light flickered briefly in his deep purple eyes before disappearing. Though he seemed to have quickly suppressed his anger toward Dane, he couldn’t hide his intensified pheromone scent.
A heavy fragrance that gently permeated the air. The thick and intense pheromones of an extreme Alpha. The moment that scent spread, Dane’s expression changed subtly. But he just wrinkled his nose once, shrugged lightly, and turned to look at Wilkins.
After that, everyone including Wilkins headed to the physical fitness test location they had prepared.
“Haa…”
Walking slowly at the very back, Dane thought with a deep sigh… What a pain.
For a moment he felt a strong temptation to bail out even now, saying his yogurt from yesterday had gone bad and given him an upset stomach, but as if seeing right through this, Wilkins turned back to look. He pointed to his own eyes with his index and middle fingers then directed them at Dane twice before turning back around, and finally Dane had no choice but to trudge along.
A few hours earlier.
The heavy sound of metal clanking echoed regularly from one corner of the fitness training room.
Dane was lying on the bench, slowly lifting dumbbells. Veins stood out on his long forearms, and the muscles in his shoulders and back contracted tightly. Though sweat ran down his forehead, he continued the repetitive movements silently with an expressionless face.
When Dane, who had been concentrating like this, heard their preposterous scheme, he frowned in every possible way. Ha, letting out a sigh, he rubbed the back of his head roughly before protesting as if dumbfounded.
“Fine, it’s all fine, but why do I have to do it?”
Dane twitched his eyebrows irritably with his arms crossed. His voice clearly showed how extremely annoyed he was. But as soon as that question ended, Ezra immediately picked up as if he had been waiting.
“Because you’re the best.”
Then another guy quickly cut in.
“Since we’ve made this plan, we can’t let it end pathetically. So you have to do it.”
“Just having that bastard roll on the ground isn’t satisfying enough.”
“Right, we need to make him look disgraceful. That’s the only way to take that arrogant bastard down a notch.”
“It has to be you, Dane.”
“Right, among us you have the best skills and your physique can match up to that guy.”
They instantly drove the atmosphere in the direction they wanted.
How was he supposed to accept such a ridiculous situation?
As opinions came out in unison as if everything had already been decided, Dane looked at Wilkins in disbelief. To him spreading his arms with palms up as if asking what this was all about, Wilkins opened his mouth with quite a solemn face.
“I agree, Dane. Since it’s come to this, I’d like you to save our face.”
And he casually added, “Actually, this was my idea.” Dane immediately made a disgusted expression and backed away. As if he didn’t even want to touch it.