Page 43 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
I toss the last orphaned water bottle into the laundry basket, then rise, grimacing at the crackle of my knees. “Her what?”
“Penny!” Grant trots over with a smile. “How you doing, Monster?” He kneels in front of her, one arm curled in a flex, bicep straining against the sleeve of his T-shirt. “You wanna kettlebell?”
In answer, she hands her Goldfish container to her mother, then curls her arms and legs around Grant’s forearm. He pulls her toward his shoulder, like he would a weight, then drives her up and overhead, his arm fully extended.
Penny giggles madly. “Again!”
“We’re not doing this right, hold up,” he says. With the help of his free hand, he pushes up to standing, child still suspended. “There we go! How’s the view?” he asks. He lowers her to shoulder height. “Better here? Or—” He dips his knees, then drives his Penny-weighted arm to full extension. “Up high?”
“Up high!” she calls, smile brilliant.
Helen bumps me with her shoulder. “Herbeloved. Grant’s ruined her on sitters.”
Still dip-driving the preschooler, Grant lifts his chin at me. “Do you have a sec? We want to try something. If it works, maybe we can add it to warm-ups. If you could take a video—please?” he adds. “Ian’s lying low for once, and I don’t want to bug him to come down.”
“Sure,” I say, turning to glance at the box I still need to dump. “Will it be quick?”
“Oh, totally! Yo, Penny, we gotta even out. How many times up was that?” he asks, and offers Penny his unoccupied arm.
She frowns in thought as she switches sides, a little wrinkle appearing between her barely there brows. “Seven reps?”
“Seven it is!” He heads to the floor, walking and launching at the same time, Penny again a ball of giggles, Helen and me trailing behind.
There are still a few minutes before Diego’s class starts, and members mill around, most congratulating Diego on the livestream, but some have broken off to linger close to the middle of the gym, where Alistair stands with his phone. He’s in a circle formed by one of the big bands we use for assisted stretches. A second band has been looped through the first, linking the two to create a figure eight.
Grant steps into the empty band, then squats to let Penny dismount. “Here’s what we’re going for,” he says, and shows me his phone. On the screen, two beefy men have arranged themselves in bands like the guys have laid out. They bring the far sides of their respective bands to about waist level and assume a high, four-legged position, facing opposite one another. An unseen person counts down from three, at which point each man scrambles forward, creating a tug-of-war with the bands. Much grunting ensues.
“They go at it forever,” Grant explains, scrubbing the video forward. The men are sent into overdrive, but even sped up, they don’t make much progress; the bands stretch only so far. The showdown ends when one man loses his footing and slingshotsbackward several feet, his partner staggering forward with the sudden slack.
I grimace.
“It doesn’t always work out that way,” Grant says, and flicks to another video. This time, it’s one man-beast with a much smaller guy. It’s no contest; the beast ends up towing the scrapper out of frame. “That one was probably staged, though.”
“And this would be for warm-ups?” Helen asks, looking over my shoulder.
“If it’s effective. Could be great for hammies ’n’ glutes, but maybe quads, too?”
“We also wanna see who’d win,” Alistair adds. He’s wearing a shirt for once. Kind of. It’s been cut into a crop, his abs still exposed.
“Ah.” I open the camera app on Grant’s phone. Alistair puts his away before both men situate their bands then assume the bear-crawl position from the videos.
“Everybody, circle up,” Diego calls, gesturing the class our way. “We’ll enjoy the show, then start our warm-up!” They form a spread-out oval around the guys, settling in to watch.
I start recording. “We’re rolling. Ready when you are.”
“Cool! Penny?” Grant asks. “Wanna start us? Just do ready, set, go!”
Penny stands straighter at the assignment. “Ready, set… go!”
Grant and Alistair charge in opposite directions, clambering on all fours. The bands go taut in seconds, and the struggle begins. As in the video, there is much grunting, but the guys are well-matched; neither gives the other an inch. From here on out, it’s all endurance.
“Come on, guys, let’s go!” bellows Russ, clapping his hands and eliciting a few more cheers from the crowd. But seconds pass and the guys remain at a stalemate. The time on the video creeps up; a minute in, and nothing has happened—
Then Alistair gains a few inches.
A moment later, he eases forward more. But when I look at Grant, he doesn’t appear to have lost any ground. A flash of color below his shirt catches my eye, the black of a waistband, and bright blue below…
Helen gasps. “Oh, no! Are his—”
