Page 13 of The Weight Of It All
When we’d reached the corner, Reed stopped and turned to face me. “So, where does it hurt the most?”
“Everywhere.”
“Legs? Arms? Chest?”
“Yes.”
Reed smiled. “Okay then, sit down for me.”
“Sitting down is fine. It’s the getting up that bites.”
Reed planted himself easily, gracefully, despite his size, on the ground. “Legs spread comfortably.”
I lowered myself to the floor, trying to keep the grimace and yelp to a minimum. “Jesus. And this is normal?”
Reed nodded. “Take a deep breath, keep your chest up straight.”
I did that and didn’t die, so I relaxed a little.
“Now stretch forward and grab your ankles.” He folded himself in half and held his feet with no trouble. I could barely reach past my knees. “Knees are fine.”
“Ow.”
He nodded encouragingly. “Hold it for twenty seconds.”
Ugh. “I’m so unfit.”
“But you’re here.”
I nodded and breathed through the stretch and burn in my hamstrings, but by the end of the twenty seconds, I was grabbing my calf muscles. At this point, I’d take any advance I could get. Then he had me stretch arms and shoulders, then my lower back. It probably took fifteen minutes, and I felt like I’d already done a workout session.
He leapt to his feet with the agility of a cat, then extended his hand to me. His hand was warm and calloused, which I had to admit, felt nice. I wasn’t used to rough hands. Graham’s hands were soft, like mine…
“So, we’ll start on the treadmill to get the blood pumping.” He obviously read the trepidation on my face. “Just slow, nothing strenuous.”
I took a deep breath and stepped onto the machine. Once I started walking, Reed seemed to sigh in relief. “Perfect,” he said.
He left me to it for a few minutes, and truthfully, it wasn’t that hard. It was just hard on already-sore muscles. When that was done, I did equal time on the elliptical StairMaster, cardio-killing machine. It wasn’t overly strenuous, but I could feel every muscle burn. After quite possibly the longest five minutes of my life, I stepped back off the machine, wiped my face down with my towel, and took a sip of water, trying not to die.
“How you feeling?” Reed asked.
“Like I’ve been set on fire, thanks for asking.”
He just grinned and clapped his hands together enthusiastically. “Time for strength and core conditioning.”
“I’m sorry, was that full strength coffee and air conditioning?”
He laughed, and his eyes shone bright blue. “Oh, you crack me up.” Then he led me over to the weights. “The weight and pulley machine is good, but it might not always be available,” he said. “Some days you might need to use free weights.” He handed me two five kilo dumbbells, he picked up some for himself, and together we did a range of exercises like tricep extensions, lateral raises, and hammer curls. He called it body strength exercises. I called it brutality.
He put his weights down. “Okay, now get down on the floor for me.”
I collapsed in a panting, sweating, aching heap. “Thank God.”
Then he made me do cruel, cruel things like leg lifts, leg holds, bridges, and planking. And to finish, we did torso twists and sit ups. I mean I only did about thirty seconds of each, but good fucking Lord! And I signed up for this shit?
After he’d made sure I’d stretched properly and that I could still breathe and wasn’t going to drop dead, he held his hand out to me where I was now lying flat on my back for a high-five. It was an effort to even lift my hand up to reach his, but I did it.
“Would you mind terribly if I just died here for a little while?”
