Page 66 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Tuesday almost broke me. He had me model an assisted lat stretch, where I hung on to the rig while he pushed me from behind. His hands pressed below my shoulder blades, sending me up and out, releasing tension across my chest and shoulders while inspiring a whole other kind of pressure below my waistline. When I dropped from the bar, my legs about gave out.
There’s been no touching today, but I’m facing another challenge. He’s programmed deadlifting. A brutish, grunt-heavylift no one, not even Alistair, can perform without some degree of unflattering facial contortions. I’d hoped that Ian would do me the courtesy of providing a hint of grotesque when he lifted during the nine forty-five class, but nope. Just steel-eyed determination as he ground through a set of five at 80 percent of his own max, in lieu of the day’s prescribed PR attempt, punctuated with guttural cries that had my toes curling.
Now, as I watch his deadlift demonstration in my own class, the relatively light weight he’s using means there’s no opportunity for weird faces, and his no-nonsense breakdown of the movement has inflamed my competence hard-on. Then, there’s what the mechanics of the deadlift require of him physically. Tiny shifts, muscles rising and falling with each adjustment to his form. His shirt is so fitted that when he braces, I can see the muscle high on the outside of his ribs ripple like a cluster of pebbles.
He insists—literally—that we observe the engagement of his glutes as he initiates the lift. He stands, bar in hand, and those glutes I’ve been instructed to watch grab at the seam bisecting the seat of his shorts, closing around the line to create a perfect outline of the individual cheeks. My brain volunteers a little Cookie Monsterom-nom-nom!at the sight. Because not only am I a nauseatingly horny wretch, but I have the humor of a six-year-old.
“Any questions?” he asks. Or repeats? Who knows; I’m thinking about someom-nom-nomof my own and how gladly I’d take a bite of that firm tush. Just a playful nibble! Maybe give it a little smack…
“Hayes! You gonna load up that bar?”
“On it!” I call back, coming to and realizing that I am the only attendee not retrieving plates. I scurry off for some fifteens. The warm-up rounds are easy enough, and I do the prescribed largernumber of lifts with lower weights before cutting back on my reps as the load creeps up.
Ian catches me midlift and tells me, “Chin down. Not too much, just enough to have your neck in a neutral spine alignment.”
I make the adjustment and am rewarded with a warm finger at the base of my skull, tracing down my spine to the collar of my tank top.
“That’s what you want,” he continues, like he hasn’t just created a channel of heat that’s set fire to my entire central nervous system. “A long, straight line.”
I nod, a quick jerk of my chin, and rise, my posterior chain grabbing for the back of my own shorts. I reverse the bar path and reset, lifting again, and wondering, without looking or interrupting my set, if Ian is in a spot to appreciate the active engagement ofmybackside.
“Nicely done,” he says, and moves on to Russ in the row ahead of me.
I unclip the collar on each side of the bar, sliding on another five-pound plate to each end. I’m not even doing math anymore. I know I’m close to the record I established when I started, but Grant assured me earlier that with the work I’ve been putting in, I’ll blow past that today.
The next lift is a breeze. I switch out the five-pound plates for tens, and lift on autopilot as my mind continues down a very different track.
What if I’m reading all of this wrong? My stomach flops, and I lower the bar to the floor with a scowl. What if he isn’t interested beyond casual, consensual, workplace flirtation, and I’m thehorned-up weirdo who is imagining Cookie Monsterom-nom-nomson this poor man’s backside?
OH GOD, HE’S BACK!
I’m squatting beside my bar, sliding on another ten pounds, as he pauses to look over the plates I’ve loaded. Instead of tabulating the weight myself, I watch him do the math. His brows rise, and he presses his lower lip out approvingly. “Is this close to your last PR?”
No idea. I’m just doing my best not to let my attention drift to his crotch, which is currently at my eye level. “Yup!”
He smiles. “Still feeling strong?”
“Yup!”
“Great! I’ll let you get back to it.”
I stand and return to the bar. Focus, Ellie. No thoughts of nibbles or crotches or—holy hell, how is my blood still on fire from his finger? That was, like, what? Ten minutes ago? How long have I been lifting?
I grip the bar, ring and pinky fingers firmly on the rough section for grip, and rise.
The right side of my body flashes with heat. My head spins.
No!
The bar falls from my hands, the plates hitting the floor with a thud loud enough to hear over the bass throbbing from the speakers.
I gasp.
My vision has gone spotty, and the ground is uneven, rolling beneath me like a goddamn funhouse. I can’t trust myself to stay standing.
I drop to a crouch and grab my bar for balance. Dr. Hartman’s list of possible symptoms rifles through my mind. My eye, tingling in my limbs… sudden dizziness.
Panic rises in my chest, so fast and sudden, it closes up my throat. This is it. It has to be. This is the second nerve attack.
