Page 32 of The Fake
She smirks. “Superstitious much?”
“Just not willing to risk it. We’ve got one in the locker room, too. You step on him and it’s seven seasons of shit.”
The way we’re looking in practice right now, I’m not convinced someone hasn’t been stomping on him every chance they get.
“So, now what?”
She turns to face me, hands on hips. “It’s leg day.”
I quirk a brow, but she’s all business as she steps onto the treadmill and presses go. She takes the speed to a light jog. I watch as she warms up. She invited me along so I’m guessing she isn’t opposed to that. And damn, it’d be hard to look away.
She looks over her shoulder. “You gonna work out with me or just stare at my ass the whole time?”
I take the treadmill beside her. “Both. I’m good at multi-tasking.”
After five minutes of jogging, she takes off doing walking lunges across the room. I step in behind her, keeping my promise and working out while I continue to check her out.
She seems to have a whole routine because she goes right into each one with barely a second to let me catch my breath: bear crawl, side shuffle, high skips, wall sits.
I’m in good shape. When I can’t sleep, I exercise to pass the hours, so my endurance is awesome, but Chloe is making me sweat to keep up with her.
Thirty minutes have passed before she finally looks to me, face red with exertion and eyes ablaze with excitement, and says, “Ready to work out?”
Dafuq we been doing?That’s what I think, but instead, I just wave my hand in front of me for her to lead the way.
Chloe heads to the squat rack. She places the barbell on her upper back and steps back and does a quick warm up set. When she racks it, I snap out of it and move to help her add weight. “Don’t you guys do this as a team?”
She nods as she follows the weight with a clip to hold it in place and then moves right back under the bar to go again. I stand behind her as a spot, just in case, as she busts out a set of ten.
“Bonus workouts, I dig it.” She’s in the zone, and my words take a minute to register.
“I need to be stronger and quicker on my feet. I’m not as tall as some of my competition so I need to make up for it any way I can. No weaknesses I can control.”
“Alright.” Her words poke at some insecurity inside me. I had to bust my ass to get where I am so I understand the basic logic behind her desire to outwork the competition. “Let’s put some real weight on there then.”
Her green eyes flash with competition.
I add what I think is a challenging but doable weight to both sides.
“I’ve never squatted that much before.”
“No weaknesses you can control.” I throw her words back at her, which does the trick. She lets out a breath and gets in position. Determination radiates off her, but I stay close to grab the bar if she needs to bail.
She doesn’t need me, though.
“Atta girl.” I help re-rack the bar after her third rep, and she turns and throws her arms around me.
“I did it!”
Sweat mixed with ocean and sunshine fills my nostrils, and I contemplate kissing her for all of two seconds before she seems to read my thoughts and steps back.
“What’s next?”
For the next forty minutes, we workout side by side. We take turns picking the exercises. I push her to add more weight, and she pushes me to move quicker between sets. Her competitive spirit and my desire to flat out not be shown up by a girl makes me work harder. She has this effect on me, I’m finding—she makes me want to be better at a lot of things.
It’s nearly nine o’clock when we sit on the floor catching our breaths and giving our shaky legs a break.
“Payne.” Coach’s deep voice catches me by surprise, and my head snaps up to find him standing just inside the weight room. He’s dressed in workout clothes with his headphones in hand. Note to self, Coach comes to work out late on the weekends. “What are you doing here?”
