What was my goal?
“I just want to be pretty,” I finally answered, my voice just above a whisper. I had let my eyes fall to the floor, just like I did with my parents the night before, and when I lifted them to meet his again I slightly regretted it. His brows were pinched together over the bridge of his nose and he shook his head before quietly scribbling in that damn notepad of his.
I imagined he was writing something along the lines of, “No chance. Never happening. Poor girl.”
“All right.” He stood and I followed, though I wasn’t sure what we were doing just yet. “Let’s go do your first workout. It’ll only be a twenty minute toning session today and then I’ll have you do twenty minutes of cardio. This will be your easiest day. You’re set up to train with me for two hours every day of the week except for Wednesdays and Saturdays. I’m working on your meal plan and I should have that ready by tomorrow’s session. Until then, I’ll give you the name of a fitness app to download to your phone so you can start logging your meals. Log everything, even if it’s bad. You have to be honest for this to work.” I was nodding feverishly, hanging on his every word. “You’ll weigh in once a week and we’ll take your measurements once every three weeks. Here,” he handed me a business card from a small stack behind the computer. “My cell number is on here. You can call me anytime, day or night, if you have questions about what you’re eating or anything else related to your training.”
I took the card, startling a little when our hands touched, then he was on the move. “We’ll start with legs. Do you know the proper way to do a squat?”
And I didn’t. I didn’t have the slightest clue how to properly execute a squat, a lunge, a calf-raise or anything else he showed me in that insane twenty minute session he put me through that day. But the way he looked at me, the strange way he appraised me when he thought I wouldn’t notice, had me wondering if my attention should even be on my form at all.
There had always been mystery in Rhodes’ eyes, I remembered that from when we went to school together. There was danger. There was ice. But that day, there was another element that I never expected to see.
Curiosity.
I just couldn’t figure out why.
I thought I knew what sore was, but I had no idea. Muscles I didn’t even know existed were aching, making me groan every time I had to stand up. Or sit down. Or really move in any way at all. I’d only trained with Rhodes three days but already I felt like I was dying a slow, muscle-torturing death. Even after having all of Wednesday off, I still couldn’t walk, and worst of all — I had to leave for the gym in an hour.
Might as well start drafting up my obituary.
Waddling into the kitchen, I pulled the snack-sized pack of celery out of the fridge and grabbed the jar of fat-free peanut butter I’d bought to pair with it. It wasn’t anything I really craved, but I was determined to stick to the meal plan Rhodes had designed for me. I even went shopping and meal prepped myself instead of letting our in-house chef, Christina, take care of it. Meal prepping was a new adventure for me, but Rhodes tried to make it easy and Christina helped when I asked. She had been cooking for me since I was in diapers and I think she almost took offense to the fact that I wanted to do this on my own. Still, she supported me. I was going to be leaving for college at some point in the next year — well, maybe at least — and I wanted to be able to eat without her when the time came. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but I had an entire summer off from school to focus on the habits I needed to make a lifestyle.
That’s how Rhodes had explained it — a lifestyle. He kept telling me that I wasn’t on a diet and I wasn’t on some get-skinny-quick fix, either. His goal was to help me change my lifestyle, to teach me how to live my life in a healthier way. And even though I knew my main goal was to see the look on Mason and Shay’s faces when I looked amazing in a bathing suit at the senior send-off party, I was kind of intrigued by his bigger plan. After all, it wasn’t all about Mason. It was about me. It was about my life and my future.
As I bit into my fourth stick of celery, Dale walked into the kitchen. He lifted a brow when he noted my plate and I frowned. “Don’t even go there, Dale.”
He threw his hands up and laughed a little. “I’m not saying a word. Who am I to judge if you want to eat plants?”
I stuck my tongue out and took another bite, the celery and peanut butter crunching between my teeth as he reached in the fridge for a beer. He popped it open and leaned back against the counter. Dale was tall, his hair jet black and his eyes almost the same color. When he stood next to my fair-skinned, blonde-headed mother, their differences were on full display. “In all seriousness, I’m really proud of you, Nat.”
“Thanks,” I murmured, looking down at my plate. “I don’t feel like I’m doing anything special yet. Nothing is changing.”
He chuckled. “It hasn’t even been a week. Give it time.” Taking a drag from his bottle, his smile faded and he assessed me more seriously. “You know you’re beautiful, don’t you, Natalie?” I rolled my eyes and thought about throwing a celery stick at him, but refrained. Before I could say anything, he set his bottle down on the counter and crossed his arms. “I mean it. You’re a gorgeous girl. Mason is an idiot and he should have realized that by now, regardless of the trainer.”
Dale was great at being a dad, even though he didn’t have to be. Still, I could tell he wasn’t any more comfortable handling my first break-up than I was. Dale and I were close, but we never really talked about girl stuff like that. I knew I was insecure, I knew I was dramatic, but Mom was always the one to help me through the high school insanity — not Dale. He watched me closely as I finished my last celery stick, not sure what to say back to him.
“Well I don’t see it, I guess.”
He smiled again, making the tension melt a little. “Not yet. But you will.” He grabbed his bottle and tilted it toward me in a cheers. “Have fun at the gym.”
I groaned, my muscles protesting at just the sound of the word. Dale chuckled and made his way back into the living room as I grabbed my water bottle and shoved it in my gym bag before heading out the door.
It was a beautiful May afternoon, the sun blazing high in the sky with a gentle breeze rolling in from the east coast. I knew the beach must have been absolutely packed. Rolling down the windows in Dale’s Range Rover, I tried to enjoy the weather and relax my mind as I drove the short fifteen minutes to the club. When I pulled up, Rhodes was waiting for me outside, his arms and ankles crossed as he leaned against one of the front pillars.
He was wearing a dark pair of sunglasses, but still his brows were furrowed over in a squint as he watched me exit the SUV. When I reached where he was leaning, he stood straight and uncrossed his arms, giving me full access to gaze at his chest muscles stretching out the tight fabric of his navy blue shirt. Thank God I was wearing sunglasses, too.
“We’re working outside today. Did you bring a towel?”
I reached into the front pocket of my gym bag and pulled out the towel I’d packed, waving it around slightly like a white flag of surrender.
“Good,” he assessed, walking toward the back of the building without checking to see if I was following. “You’ll need it. Lose the shades.”
I swallowed, but followed quickly behind him, removing my sunglasses and tucking them in my bag as he did the same. It was my fourth day with Rhodes, yet he still hadn’t said more than a few words to me. I’d tried conversation a few times, but to no avail. He was cold, reserved, and not the least bit interested in becoming my friend.
Not that I could really blame him.
He was beautiful. Crazy? Maybe. Intimidating? Definitely. But, beautiful nonetheless. And beautiful guys like him didn’t befriend girls who looked like me.
Still, he was my trainer. My parents were paying him for his service. The least he could do was provide it with a smile, right?
We started the session with a three mile jog around the club property. We ran up and over the
hills of the golf course, through the garden, around the tennis courts, and finished with a sprint up the stairs leading to the top balcony of the space used for weddings and events. I had to stop at least ten times along the way, but each time I did Rhodes would scream at me to keep going and threaten me with added distance. The beautiful day I had been admiring in the drive over felt more like my own personal hell halfway through the workout. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, I was completely spent.
“Nice job,” he said simply, wiping the sweat from his face as I chugged from my water bottle. He leaned over the railing for a moment, his gaze caught somewhere across the course. I was panting so hard I had to take short breaths between sips. I felt like I couldn’t drink fast enough and he was just standing there all calm and collected, like we had just watched a movie rather than ran for almost an hour in the Carolina heat.
“Don’t drink too much too quickly,” he said smoothly, lifting himself from his leaning position on the rail. “Take a few minutes and meet me downstairs when you’re ready.” Without another word, he turned and jogged back down the stairs we had just run up. I watched the ridges of his back muscles move in sync as he disappeared from view.
I wasn’t one for cursing, but I could think of at least seven swear words I felt like yelling out to the entire club in that moment. Instead, I focused on my breathing and sipping water until I felt a little calmer before walking down the stairs to join Rhodes. He was setting up some sort of obstacle course with tires, ropes, boxes, and bars.
Good Lord.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t worked out before training with Rhodes, but I’d never experienced anything close to his methods before. I realized at that point that my high school gym classes were a complete joke. Even the Zumba classes that had kicked my butt when Mom and I took them paled in comparison to the sessions I had with Rhodes. He was fierce. He surely had a goal in mind for me, whether I did or not.
“How do you do that without dying?” I asked, nodding toward the path we’d just run.
He shrugged, dropping another, slightly taller box down beside the one he’d just placed. “I just do.”
I fidgeted with the bottom of my t-shirt, waiting for more of an explanation that never came. Sighing, I tried again. “How many days a week do you train?”
“Seven.”
“So you don’t have a single day off?”
“Nope.”
“That’s crazy.” He didn’t respond. “What got you into fitness?”
He paused after placing a weighted plate on the taller of the two boxes, his arms bracing himself on either side. Turning toward me slowly, he locked his eyes on mine as his mouth flattened into a thin line. Small beads of sweat dripped down the ridges of his nose and jaw and I watched them with fascination, wishing I had my camera with me to capture that shot in a stunning black and white monochrome.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“I asked four.”
“That’s a lot.”
I scoffed, but he didn’t give me a chance to argue further.
“Let’s start here. Grab these ropes.” He gestured down to two, thickly woven ropes that were anchored to the thick pillar below the stairs we’d just climbed. I slowly bent to pick them up and held one in each hand facing the tied end. They were heavier than I expected and I immediately worried about where the workout was heading.
Rhodes stepped up beside me with his arms outstretched, mimicking the position I was holding the ropes in. “These are battle ropes. They’re going to work a lot of different muscles simultaneously and give you an all-over workout. We’re only going to do ten minutes, but it’s going to feel like hours.” I swallowed, gripping the ropes a little tighter. “Start like this,” he instructed, standing with his feet shoulder-width apart and bending his knees slightly before lifting both of his hands up and bringing them down with force. “It’s a simple double wave. Just lift the ropes with both hands and bring them back down as hard as you can, making a wave.”
I lifted the ropes as high as I could and brought them back down with as much force as I could muster, turning to Rhodes for approval. He nodded, his brows bent in that beautiful way that I’d begun to realize was a signature look of his, and I continued. Immediately I noticed my arms burning, but the more we worked, the more the burn spread throughout my entire body. He had me change positions every minute to everything from an alternating wave where each arm worked opposite the motion of the other to shoulder circles, which were exactly what they were called except with heavy ropes that made my upper back and shoulders burn like they were on fire.
“Let’s finish with snakes,” Rhodes said after what must have been about nine minutes but what felt more like nine days. “You’re going to get into a squat,” he said, illustrating the move. “And move your arms out and then together, but not all the way crossed, making snake-like waves across the ground.” He lifted his brows to ask if I understood and I nodded, turning back toward the anchor. I did my first attempt and laughed out loud at the failed result. When I looked over at Rhodes, his eyes were brighter, the wrinkles in his forehead leveled out. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d say he was almost smiling.
“Here,” he said, moving behind me. I stopped breathing as his strong hands found my middle, somehow making me feel small as he lowered me into a squat. Slowly, he snaked his arms up under mine and gripped the ropes just above where my hands held tight to them. His hard chest was pressed against my back, our bodies sticking together slightly, and his breath was hot on the skin of my neck. “Like this.” He moved our arms out and then back toward each other and I watched how the ropes mimicked the movements of a snake, trying to focus on anything other than the buzz I was feeling from being so close to Rhodes. I felt him swallow, the muscles in his arms tensing as he waited for me to do the move with him.
When he was sure I had it, he stepped back, straightening himself as I finished. He eventually called time and I dropped the ropes and stood, shaking out my legs. I was breathing hard, though I wasn’t exactly sure if it was from the ropes. I peered up at Rhodes, hands hooked on my hips as I tried to steady my breathing. He was watching me closely, that same curiosity buzzing in his eyes. I felt like he had a question for me, and I begged him to ask it — to say anything at all. The air between us was charged with an unexplainable energy, and I wondered if he felt it, too.
But he just cleared his throat and motioned to the boxes he’d set up earlier. “Grab water if you need it. We’re doing box jumps next.”
My eyes fell to the ground and I retied the messy bun high on my head as my cheeks heated. Foregoing the water, I followed him to the box jumps, which I wasn’t able to successfully complete. I was terrified of falling on my face and it felt like my feet were glued to the ground each time he demanded I jump. We moved on to the next part of his make-shift obstacle course and continued through it until I was so drenched my light orange shirt was stuck to every curve of my body. Rhodes clapped me on the back like a football player and told me to take an ice bath, then he turned and disappeared inside the club and into the small gym office.
I did take my first ice bath that night, right after drinking the disgusting powder-based post-workout shake Rhodes told me to buy. As I sank down into the freezing water, ice cubes shaking and shifting as I lowered myself in, I hoped it would cool much more than just my aching muscles.
Thursday’s workout was tough, but Friday’s was absolutely brutal. Rhodes seemed pissed off, for whatever reason, and apparently taking out his frustration on his clients was his favorite pastime. So when Saturday finally rolled around, I was beyond thankful for my day off from training. Spending Saturday night with Willow was just what I needed, though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to lift myself out of the booth when the night was over.
Hookah wasn’t really my thing, but I loved going to Rook with Willow. It was a small, dark hole in the wall with plush maroon couches and acoustic music — sometimes played by a live artist. There wa
s something about the vibe that helped me relax, even with the smoke clouds around me. When Willow called me wanting to go out, I was far from excited, but she promised just the two of us. Girl’s night. And that was pretty much the only kind of outing I was okay with at the moment. Plus, I owed her an explanation for shutting her out after the Hay Stacks incident. So, I caved, and after the hard part was over and I’d apologized for ditching her, I finally relaxed and started to enjoy myself.
Willow was going on and on about the program she applied for at Appalachian State when the waitress brought us our second hookah. She had already been accepted in the fall, but the program she was waiting to hear back from was an early acceptance program that would kick-start her academic career and set her up with some of the best professors and smaller, more intimate classes. Plus, she’d get a full ride if she was accepted. She said if, I said when. Willow was too intelligent not to get accepted. In fact, she could have landed a full ride pretty much anywhere in the country, but — just like every other normal kid in Poxton Beach — she wanted Appalachian State. Part of me wanted to go, too, if only to have at least four more years with my best friend.
“I’m just so nervous,” she said for the fiftieth time, taking the first drag from the new hookah set up on the small wooden table in front of us. “I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted in my entire life, Nat. What if I don’t get it?”
I shook my head, wishing I had a bank of intellectually deep phrases to pull from like she always did. I wanted to calm her, but I could only laugh. “You’re going to get in. I know it, you know it — everyone knows it. You got your acceptance letter to Appalachian State months before anyone else and you were Valedictorian. This kick-start program committee would be absolutely freaking insane not to accept you. And when you do get in, I’m going to cry for days wondering how the hell I’m going to make it through the rest of the summer without you.”
Summer Romance Boxset - Weightless, Revelry, On the Way to You Page 4
