Page 6 of D.I.E.T. (Did I Eat That?)

“Now, I don’t believe that. Why’d you decide to join bootcamp?”

“A wedding,” I answered, watching his face fall. I bit my bottom lip.

“Yours?” he asked.

Shaking my head, I leaned my chin on my fist. “My best friend asked me to be in her wedding.”

“You want to tone up for one of those hideous bridesmaid dresses?”

“Not even remotely. I need to tone up because it’s a destination wedding.”

“Really?” he asked. “Where to? Hawaii, Dominican Republic?”

“Antarctica,” I answered, immediately watching his eyebrows shoot up before he settled into an incredulous ‘gimme a break’ face. “What? Kami and her fiancé, Len, are adventure guides. They pretty much work exclusively for a tech giant. The guy’s worth more than several small countries combined.”

Sinjin whistled slowly. “But Antarctica? Why would you need bootcamp for that?”

“You got me,” I admitted. He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest like he’d caught me in some sort of lie. “It’s not Antarctica proper. They’re getting married on an island off of Chile. About fifty miles away from Antarctica. And I need the bootcamp to scale the massive number of steps required to get me to the wedding spot.”

“When is it?” he asked.

“Six weeks. They’re getting married on Valentine’s Day. It’s summer down there, but it won’t be warm. What about you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, it seemed like the thing to do. We should get you back to camp. How’re you feeling?”

“Better.” I sucked down the last remnants of my future-baby-daddy-smoothie, making that sucking sound from my straw.

“You’re going to collapse the sides,” he joked, snatching the cup from my hands to toss it, and I snarled at him. But his point received, I stood, shoved in my chair, and with Sinjin at my back, left the smoothie bar to head back to the devil. On our way through the main room, with heavy steps I sang, “Dead man walking…”

“You’re an idiot,” he said under his breath.

“I know,” I replied. “But I’m a charming idiot.”

He held the door to the smaller room open for me. We smelled the sweat and misery. I found a spot in the back and not surprisingly Sinjin joined me.

“Feeling better?” Trevor called out to me while helping one of the other bootcampers with her form.

“Sure,” I replied.

“Great. I need one hundred burpees before you move on to the lunges.” I couldn’t believe it. Trevor absolutely floored me. I had to finish the burpeesbeforeI moved on to the next exercise.Excuse me?

I geared up for our trainer’s tongue lashing when Sinjin, the jerk, whispered in my ear. “Come on, Geet. Remember the stairs.”

Grr…

Just because he was right didn’t mean he needed to be so… so…annoyingabout it. I dropped down into a squat, pushed my legs out behind me, came back into my squat, and then stood straight and called out, “One, Drill Sergeant.”

By the end of class, sweat covered my body, my bones vanished replaced by jelly, and thus my legs buckled. I crawled on my hands and knees toward the door, panting heavily. Hating Trevor, hating Sinjin, hating Kami and Len. Hating the world. Incidentally, the burpees got me. A hundred? The man took drugs—no other explanation. How on Earth did anybody get through a hundred of those things? I got to seventy-five by the end of class and was in imminent need of a lung transplant, not to mention cursing the day I was born.

Two strong hands hefted me up and despite my current hatred for the man, Sinjin let me lean on him as he walked me to the women’s locker room. “Can you make it in there without me?” he asked. “If not, I’ll get kicked out of the gym, but I’m willing to take one for the team here.”

“I can make it.”

“Good.” He tweaked my nose like I was a little girl and pushed me forward.

Each step felt like someone attached a lead weight to my shoe. The shower I forced myself to take felt incredible, not to mention helped me to smell better. Then I dressed in my work clothes and collected my workout bag and purse. Bundled up for the trek to my car, I walked—upright, I might add—out of the locker room right into Sinjin.

Yes. Sinjin.

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