I shook off the feeling of the house as I made my way to the Rover. I wouldn’t say I was necessarily excited about going to the gym, but I wasn’t dreading it, either. I was nervous to see Rhodes, but anxious to workout. There were plenty of things I wanted to get my mind off of, and unlike my mother, shopping wouldn’t help. But, working out might.
On my way to the club, I dialed Willow. She answered on the first ring.
“Okay, I’ve decided you can’t hate me. Because you’re my best friend, Nat, and if you hate me, my life will plummet into a downward spiral the summer before college and I’ll never come back from it. I won’t get in the early admittance program, I’ll probably fail out of college my first year from sheer depression, and then I’ll live the rest of my life trying to be a carny at the Poxton Beach fair and wondering where I went wrong that fateful night years ago.”
Willow was breathless by the time she finished spouting off her story and I couldn’t help but laugh. “Lo, I’m not mad at you.”
“Oh my God,” she said, exhaling a long breath. “I’ve been freaking out all night. I’m so sorry. Whatever happened, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have forced you to go out with everyone. I don’t know what’s going on with Mason and his chick but I’m sorry I pushed you. We don’t have to hang out with anyone else the rest of the summer. Just me and you. I promise. I’m so sorry.”
“Lo,” I cut her off. “It’s fine. I promise. I’m good.”
“What happened?”
Sighing, I gave her the cliff note version in the five minutes I had left before I would pull into the club. She cursed the entire time and vowed to strangle Shay the next time she saw her, which made me laugh more.
“So did you just go home? Did you call Dale? Or your mom?”
I hesitated. “Um…”
Willow waited a moment before speaking again. “What? What is it?”
“Well, don’t freak out, but I may or may not have gone home with Rhodes.”
“Oh. My God.” She said the first word with a punch and the second two altogether. “Shut up.”
I cringed. “Well, he kind of found me. And—”
Willow squeaked, drowning out my explanation. “I need details. Now. All of them.”
This time I laughed. “You’re going to have to wait. I’m pulling up to the club for my training session. But,” I started just as she began whining. “My mom wants to go shopping this evening. Come with us?”
“Like that’s even a question. Call me when you’re on your way. And I better get every single detail with you making me wait like this.”
With that, Willow ended the call and I tossed my phone in my gym bag and trudged into the gym. When I entered through the double glass doors and saw Rhodes running on the treadmill, sweat pouring down his face and drenching the top of his shirt, the nerves I was feeling earlier rushed back in full force. His eyes lifted as soon as I entered and he killed the machine, wiping himself with a small white towel as he made his way toward me.
“You’re late.”
“Sorry,” I murmured. “My parents were… well, it doesn’t matter. I’m here.”
He nodded, and I waited for him to rip into me. About last night, about being late — anything to get him to just get it over with before we started. But, surprisingly, he didn’t.
“Do you know how to check your heart rate?”
I scrunched my nose. “I mean, I watch it when I’m on the treadmill or the Stairmaster.”
“But do you know how to check it without a machine?”
I shook my head.
“Okay,” he started, moving closer to me. “You know how I tell you to get your heart rate up to at least one-hundred-and-sixty beats per minute when we’re doing treadmill drills?” I nodded. “That’s because at that rate, you’re in the hard-core cardio zone. If you’re between one-forty and one-sixty, you’re in cardio. One-twenty to one-forty, fat burn. Anything over one-eighty is max effort and anything less than one-twenty is warm up.”
I was looking at him like he’d just told me I have a thigh gap.
He chuckled. “I’ll get you a chart. But, the point I’m trying to make is that you should be able to do this on your own, without a machine. You should always monitor your heart rate to know what zone you’re in, regardless of if you’re working out outside or on a treadmill.”
“Okay, so how do I do that?”
Rhodes took my wrist and my stomach dropped, but I didn’t let it show. Turning my arm so that my palm faced upward, he pressed two fingers into my skin on the thumb side of my wrist. “Using two fingers, push hard between the bone and the tendon over your radial artery right here. Then, count how many beats you feel in fifteen seconds and multiply by four to get your heart rate.”
“You can feel my heart right now?”
His eyes lifted to mine and the slightest smile curled on his lips. “Yeah. Yeah I can feel your heart.” For a moment, he stayed staring at me like that, but then he cleared his throat and dropped my wrist. “You can check it on your neck, too, but I like the wrist way myself. Try it.”
I did, and I was embarrassed by how fast my heart was beating while we were just standing there. I knew he had felt it too, which only deepened that embarrassment further.
“Got it?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. I don’t want you to have to depend on the machine.” He paused, then pulled something from his pocket. “That being said, I got you something.”
He opened his hand and revealed a small white box with a watch depicted on the packaging. It was kind of bulky, but it was pink and feminine at the same time. “What is it?”
“It’s a lot of things. It’s a heart rate monitor, a watch, and a GPS system. It can log how far you run when you run outside. It’s waterproof, so even if it’s raining, you can still wear it. And it has a voice-memo feature so you can record how you’re feeling at certain times during your workout. You can track your workouts each day and look at data that compares how many calories you burned over the weeks and months and what your average heart rate was. And you can even toggle a setting for it to coach you while you train.” He shrugged. “It’s kind of like a mini me on your wrist.”
I smiled, but my stomach was caught in a wave, dipping and surging over and over again. Rhodes was giving me a gift, and I had no idea how to react. “Wow.”
He shifted on the heels of his feet, shrugging as he ran his free hand back through his damp hair. “Yeah, I mean it’s just something I like to give my clients to help out.” He tossed it to me quickly. “Go ahead and put it on and I’ll show you how it works.”
I did as he said, but I couldn’t help the disappointment I felt when I realized it wasn’t just something he’d done for me. But why was I disappointed? He was a trainer, giving a workout-related gift to the person he was training. It made sense that he would do it for everyone.
I was overly annoyed with my emotions.
Once we’d toyed with it and figured out how it worked, we set in on the day’s training schedule. We weren’t talking much, but that was mostly because I could barely breathe, let alone talk. Rhodes went a little harder on me each day, but the crazy thing was — I was beginning to be able to handle it. In fact, I almost wanted him to push me harder. The adrenaline, the rush of endorphins, the ache in my muscles — I kind of loved all of it.
Who was I?
“Tomorrow’s our last workout before your second weigh-in on Sunday,” he told me, tossing me my water bottle as we finished up the final round of weights. “I’m going to do one of my more advanced sessions with you, if you’re up for it.”
I nodded, though in my head I was trying to figure out how it could get more intense than it already was. “Bring it.”
He almost smiled, but opened his mouth and tongued the inside of his cheek instead, staring at me amused. “You’re so going to wish you hadn’t said that. Bring your watch. I can’t wait to see how many calories we blast.” He winked before turnin
g toward the showers and I let out a long, slow, shaky breath.
I was relieved. He didn’t bring up the night before, he didn’t ignore me or lash out at me, and if anything I’d even go as far as to say he was nice to me. I didn’t know what to think about the watch, but I decided not to dwell on it. I had two girls waiting on me to unleash their inner shopping beasts and I did not want to keep them waiting.
Packing up my bag quickly, I made my way out to the car. On my way out, I passed by several women, two of which I knew were Rhodes’ clients. I swallowed as I passed them, his words from the night before ringing loud in my ear.
“I’m not a good person, okay? I train and screw around with other people who are just as shitty as I am.”
One of the women, a tall, blue-eyed redhead, eyed me cautiously as I passed, almost as if I didn’t belong there. And I guess in a way, I didn’t. I didn’t really belong anywhere. But I was trying to figure out who I was, exactly, because I needed to know that before I could find out where to place myself. So, I held my chin up and strolled past them without cowering away.
A smile met my lips when I realized neither of the two who I knew Rhodes trained with were wearing watches like mine. Something told me Rhodes had lied.
But for once, I was okay with it.
Willow made me spill all the details when we went shopping that night, and of course she overanalyzed everything — that was her specialty, after all. She was convinced Rhodes was into me, which was the most ludicrous thing I’d ever heard. When she turned the conversation back to Mason, anger rolled through me.
All summer I had been working to get him back, but that night at the fair when he’d neglected to stick up for me, I realized I didn’t even know the guy I was fighting for anymore. So, I shifted gears. Did I still want him to see me when I dropped my weight and looked amazing? Yes. But now, it was less about getting him back and more about showing him that I could do whatever I wanted, whether he believed in me or not.
Willow co-signed.
The next day, Rhodes came through on his promise, completely murdering me in the gym. But it was worth it when I weighed in on Sunday. I had lost another eight pounds, which meant I was already down nineteen pounds in just two weeks.
It was hard for me to wrap my mind around that. It had only been two weeks, yet it felt like years. I could already feel my body changing, yet at the same time I found it hard to believe that I could have already lost almost twenty pounds. But the number on the scale didn’t lie.
Another week went by and I felt myself start to fall into a routine. Eating right was beginning to be less of a chore and more of an instinct. I still craved sweets and sodium-packed easy meals, of course, but it was easier to fight off those cravings when I knew how hard I had to work to get that same number of calories in that chocolate bar to show up on my watch.
The watch had become an obsession for me. I loved seeing my heart rate sky rocket when I was working hard and the “calories burned” number climb right along with it. Rhodes scolded me when I drained the battery in the first few days. I accidentally left the voice memo function on after I had noted how much easier I was breathing during a run and it killed the battery life. But, I was getting the hang of it, and it was by far the best gift I’d been given in years.
Rhodes and I hadn’t hung out since that night of the fair, but training with him was becoming fun. He was different with me than before, showing me a softer side. He wasn’t a tiny meowing kitten by any means, but he wasn’t the pit bull I’d become used to, either. He talked to me more and listened to my concerns, helping me see the finish line in sight when I couldn’t. He wasn’t cooking for me anymore or running into me outside of the gym, but we were falling into a comfortable zone. Trainer and client. Jedi and Padawan.
On the flip side, Mason had texted me more than ten times since the night of the fair. The texts ranged from apologies to just asking how I was to reminding me of inside jokes we had. I’d yet to respond, but mostly because I wasn’t sure what to say. Or think, really. Where my body was making progress, my mind seemed to be falling deeper and deeper into a confusing pit of feelings. I wanted to decipher them, but I kept my focus on training and eating right. Thoughts and feelings could wait.
The problem was, when Mason texted me, I still felt that same pull to him that I always had. I knew my priorities had shifted and the lifestyle change I was making was for me, but I couldn’t figure out if Mason was still driving part of my desire to train harder, too. I would be lying if I said I didn’t still have moments where I wanted him back, and part of me hoped he was thinking the same about me, too. Still, I longed for the old Mason — the one I wasn’t sure still existed. I wanted our comfortable date nights in, our crazy nights out with our friends, the way he smiled sideways at me as he tucked me under his arm. I missed it.
When I wasn’t training or hanging out with Willow, I was still watching Lost, and I was in the middle of season four on the Saturday evening before my third weigh-in when Willow called me with news I wasn’t prepared for.
“I got in.”
She said the words with a mixture of excitement and caution, and it took me a moment to realize what those three syllables meant. She meant the kick-start program. When the news settled, I bolted up from where I’d been lounging on the couch and switched the phone to my right ear.
“Oh my gosh, Willow! Congratulations!” I swallowed hard, powering off the television completely. “I’m so happy for you.”
And I was. I really was. But at the same time, I was selfish. Willow was the only friend I had in Poxton Beach — the only true friend, anyway — and with all the drama going on with Mason and Shay, I didn’t want her to leave. I knew that made me a crappy friend but I couldn’t help it. I needed her.
Willow let out a breath. “Oh God, I’m so happy you’re happy. I was nervous to call.”
“Why?”
“Because…” her voice trailed off. “I just know you have a lot going on right now. I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you.”
Reaching for my egg-shaped lip balm on the coffee table, I ran it over my lips to buy me a minute before I exhaled a long breath. “Are you kidding me, Lo? You’re my best friend. And this is amazing news. Can I come over to celebrate?”
“My parents are taking me out to dinner, actually,” she answered.
“Oh. Well that’s okay. Can I come by tomorrow?”
“Well…” Something in my gut told me I wouldn’t like what Willow said next. “I won’t be here tomorrow. They want me to come up for orientation on Monday and Mom wants to leave tomorrow to make the drive.”
My stomach sank along with my shoulders. “Oh. Okay. Well, we’ll just get together when you get back. When do you leave for the program?”
I heard Willow swallow. “Three weeks.”
“Three weeks?” I repeated back to her in a high shrill I didn’t know my voice was capable of making. Clearing my throat, I tried to calm down. “That’s so soon.”
“I know.”
We were silent for a moment, and I knew I was making her accomplishment seem like something she should be sad about. Which was dramatic and immature, and I was trying to be better at both, so I forced a smile. “Well, we have a lot of shopping to do in three weeks if we’re going to get you ready for college.”
Willow squeaked. “Oh my God, Nat. I got in! I’m going to the advanced program at Appalachian State!”
We both screamed together and I felt a surge of pride for my best friend. I didn’t want her to go, but I was proud of her. She deserved every bit of success I knew she would achieve.
I just wasn’t sure where I fit in her new plans.
Or what my plans would be.
“Gotta go, we just got to the restaurant. I love you!”
“Love you too, Lo.”
When we hung up, I stared down at the phone in my hand, the heavy silence of the empty house giving me goosebumps. Mom and Dale were out of town for the week traveling for busine
ss and to see a few family friends. Other than Christina, all our other help was off for the week, too. I was alone, and the one person I would call to comfort me was the one currently causing the pain.
I had no right to be upset that Willow was leaving — that much I knew. Still, whether that was the case or not, I felt like a part of me was being ripped away. Willow had been my best friend since we were toddlers. We never went more than a week without seeing each other. We were supposed to go to college together — it was always in our plans. But she was going to college and I was staying in Poxton Beach.
I had no idea how to handle that.
Even worse, it was my fault I was staying. I could have joined Willow a couple of months later in the fall, but I hadn’t so much as looked at how much the application fee for Appalachian State was, let alone apply. Because at the end of the day, I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was lost. I was idle. And the world kept spinning on without me.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about my options, because I had. The truth was that the biggest part of me really wanted to go to an arts school, if I was going to do the college thing at all. But admitting that to myself wasn’t nearly as hard as it would be to tell Mom and Dale. They would want me at Appalachian State. With my best friend going there, it shouldn’t have seemed like such a big deal to me to not go, but it was. I didn’t want to be like everyone else in Poxton Beach. In fact, I wanted out of the town altogether.
The shock of that admission hit me in the chest and I exhaled a long breath.
I flipped through my contacts, landing on Mason’s number and staring at it. My thumb hovered over the call button, my breath labored as I tried to figure out what to do. I needed to get out of the house, I needed to be with someone, but I knew Mason wasn’t that someone. I could call Christina, but she was with her boys, and I didn’t want to pull her away when she was finally getting some quality time with them now that Mom and Dale were out of town.
Summer Romance Box Set: 3 Bestselling Stand-Alone Romances: Weightless, Revelry, and On the Way to You Page 11
