Page 16 of Not That Ridiculous

Jasper snorted. “Hah. No, you’ll come here to do it. No one ever uses the weights they have at home. So. Yes, another ten?”

“Yep.”

Jasper rocked back on his heels and hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve got to run to the office and sort out a scheduling issue. Kev? You want to take him through it?”

“No problem. I can do that.”

“Wait,” I said. “You’re my personal trainer. Don’t palm me off onto Kevin. That’s not his job. What am I paying you for?”

“You’re not paying me at all,” Jasper said. “Back in a mo.” He strode off.

I watched him go with a bubble of panic, and then I realised that Kevin was still standing behind me, holding me with his hands curled around my hipbones and his long fingers stretching over my abs. I stared at our reflection in the mirror.

He was three or four inches taller than me, his shoulders were wider, and he was significantly bulkier. Held in front of him like that, I looked positively slender.

The thought caused something to turn over low in my belly.

He had a faint line between his brows. His lids were lowered and his short lashes fanned out on his cheeks. His mouth, which was usually in a wide, sunny smile, was closed and pressed into a stern line, which…?

Kevin?

Stern?

Kevin, who said things likehee hee,and was so laidback that he made Jasper look about as uptight as Ray?

His gaze flicked up.

I…

His eyes were dark and focused and pinned mine for a long, shivery moment as his fingers tightened on my hips.

I twisted out of his grip and lunged away.

I spun around to face him, my heart pounding. Before I could say anything—what?What was I going to say?—he grabbed some dumbbells and thrust them at me.

“Deadlifts,” he announced cheerfully. “Right, what you’re doing here, is…”

Rattled by the crackling tension that was there and gone as if I’d imagined it, I let Kevin boss me through the basics of deadlifts and one-armed rows. He had me touch his triceps this time when he did it, and maybe there really was something about weightlifting for mental clarity after all. By the time Jasper deigned to return and Kevin and I were parked on the floor working our way through a set of Russian twists, I was feeling pretty mellow.

Or bored to tears. It was hard to tell. I was never mellow and I always had so much to do, I was never bored.

Both mental states were a mystery.

“How’s it going, boys?” Jasper said, standing over us.

“Great,” Kevin panted. “This is fun. Everyone I’ve ever met already knows how to use a gym. I never got to take anyone’s gym virginity before. I feel special. How about you, Charlie?”

All the mellow feelings evaporated at the mental image of Kevin taking my virginity.

Iknewhe was joking about what he’d overheard in the changing room earlier, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. My cheeks scorched with heat. I made a big show of concentrating on my final twists—god, this was the worst exercise known to man, second only to forearm side-planks—and grunted out, “Six…seven…eight!”

“Your virginity, Charlie,” Kevin said, good and loud. “Did I take it nicely?”

Okay. I’d miscalculated. I’d assumed he’d let the joke go when I’d pretended not to hear it. I was wrong.

He stared at me with a guileless expression on his face, then leaned over and nudged me. “Did I, Charlie?”

A lot of the time, Kevin was in his own little world. It was one of the things I loved about him. You took one look at him and could tell that he was clearly off thinking his thoughts, letting life and all its worries just wash over him.

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