Page 133 of Lily In The Valley
“You know I had to catch up with my big dawg.” He stared at me through the phone, biting his lip, mischief lingering in his eyes. “You not comfortable, are you?”
“Almost, why?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Get up and go change. Put on something you can move in.”
“What?” I groaned, scrunching up my face. “Uh-huh. My shoes are already off. I’m ready to call it a night.”
“Nah, you gotta let out some of that tension.”
“I don’t want to.” I pouted, folding my arms.
“Kelly.”
Him saying my name wasn’t a warning. It was a gentle hand at the small of my back, guiding me. How could I refuse? I rolled my eyes so hard I could have seen my amygdala, but a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth anyway.
“What are we about to do?” I asked, pulling myself off the couch and making my way to my bedroom. I paused in front of my dresser, a thought coming to my head. “Are you here?” I smiled brightly, the ache in my chest loosening a notch.
“No.” He laughed. I heard the jingle of his keys and a quick beep of a horn. “I’m still in Houston. About to walk into my gym.”
“The gym? Khalil, seriously, what are we about to do?”
“Workout date.” He smiled. The bright, white lights of the gym made it glow. He nodded to someone in the distance as he walked deeper into the gym.
“Workout,” I shrieked. “Oh, nuh-huh.”
“Yeah,” he said, like it was obvious. “You about to work out that little funky ass attitude.”
“I do not have a funky ass attitude,” I said under my breath, pulling out a sports bra, biker shorts, and one of Khalil’s hoodies he’d left here.
“Come on. You can’t be upset if you too tired from doing burpees.”
“I am not doing burpees.”
“Fine. No burpees,” he said, charming me into his crazy idea for a date. “For me. Please?”
The plea did something to my spine. I set my phone down and changed fast. When I stepped into the camera, he barked obnoxious and entitled.
“Is this okay?” I poked my booty into the camera, as he bit his lip, thirsty as ever.
He sat back on a bench, sipping water from a bottle. “More than okay. Turn around again and bend over this time. I need to double-check.”
“Focus,” I said, trying not to laugh.
“I am focused.” He stood, dragging a mat across the floor with his foot. “So I only have three rules. You don’t think about anything for the next hour. You do what I do. You breathe. Deal?”
I blew out a long breath. “Deal.” I walked into my living room, turning on a few more lights and propping my phone up on my TV stand. I rolled out my pilates mat that’d been collecting dust in a corner since I moved to Seattle. Once I was ready to begin, I stood, waiting for my first set of instructions.
“Go ahead and give me a shake. Gotta let go of some of the tension in our limbs.” He shook his arms, shoulders, and chest as if he were made of loose wire, then grinned. “You look like one of those inflatable things at the car dealerships along the highway.”
“I’m adding a rule. No jokes,” I said flatly. He walked me through a few more stretches before we jumped into the real workout—high knees, jumping jacks, jumps. I hardly had time to think about the room with beeping monitors or the way the mother’s hands shook when she asked me if her child was going to be okay.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“ A little,” I admitted.
“Good. Now we can get to work.” He widened his stance. “Pretend you have a boxing bag in front of you. Give it quick jabs, right then left.”
I smiled despite myself, then “hit.” The first few were sloppy. The next few found a rhythm. Right, left, right-right. I kept up with Khalil’s cadence as he boxed the bag in front of him. I started making little sound effects with each hit. He chuckled on the other end as I snorted, the sound surprising both of us.
