Page 22 of The Weight Of It All

Ten

The few days that followed were great. I mowed through my in tray at work, chatted with people on my lunchbreak, and had several text conversations with Reed.

It was absurd how excited I was for my Friday morning session at the gym, and if anyone had told me four weeks ago I’d be looking forward to exercise, I’d have busted something laughing.

Or maybe it wasn’t so much the exercise as it was the personal trainer.

I couldn’t deny that I liked Reed. He was everything I was not: confident, gorgeous, fit. Desirable.

But he was also lovely and charming and funny and intuitive and kind. He was the type of person who would help people when others weren’t looking, not for any kind of financial gain, but because of the kind of person he was.

Was he being nice to me out of pity? I didn’t think so.

It wasn’t like him to do that. Was he being nice to me because it was his job?

Well, that I couldn’t be sure of. He smiled at everyone like he smiled at me, didn’t he?

I didn’t know who else he called or texted or shared recipes with or went shopping with.

As I walked into the gym, I had to wonder if my infatuation with him was real or purely for my own ego. It didn’t hurt that he boosted my self-confidence or that he starred in my dream last night, naked and glorious, and demanding…

“Hey.” Reed smiled as he walked over to me.

He had obviously just finished with another client and said goodbye as they left.

He then focused on me and rocked up on his toes.

Jesus Christ, could he somehow tell I’d had a sex-dream that included him last night?

How is that even possible? Why did he have to look at me like that, and why did I blush?

“Hey.” I nodded, remembering every detail of what he did to me in my dream. “You were great by the way.”

He half laughed. “What?”

Fuck.

“Sorry, I mean you look great, by the way.” I felt my cheeks redden further.

“Uh, thanks?” He was clearly a mix of confused and amused. “You too. Love the new gym clothes.”

“Oh, thanks.” I cleared my throat and decided to start the whole conversation over. “So, what torture routine are we doing today?”

“Yes, right,” Reed said, looking around the gym. He clapped his hands together. “Today we’re doing more running and some core strength.”

“Excellent.”

He started walking over to the treadmills. “That didn’t even sound too sarcastic!”

“I know. I believe the conversion has begun.”

He put his hand on the treadmill but stopped and stared at me. “The conversion?”

“Yes, the brainwashing conversion to the dark side. You know, of the gym people? Those who actually like exercise. ”

Reed’s smile was slow spreading. “Ah, that conversion.”

I nodded knowingly. “Scary, huh? First there was cardio, then dieting. Who knows where it will end.”

He chuckled. “I’m really glad to hear that, Henry. You’ve done really well to get this far.”

“Thanks to you.”

He held my gaze for a while, then looked away with a bit of a laugh.

He let out a breath and turned his focus back to his job.

“Okay, so to get the blood pumping, we’ll do a slow jog but with no stopping.

This is about pace and consistency. You’ll want to slow to a walk, but I want you to push through it and keep jogging, okay? ”

I cringed. “I take back everything I said about liking this.”

He smiled victoriously. “No you don’t.”

He was right, though. I wanted to stop. I wanted to slow it down and walk a while to give my lungs some reprieve. I worried my feet would trip on the conveyor belt.

“You got this, Henry,” Reed said beside me. He wasn’t jogging with me this time but standing next to the treadmill, watching my every move. “Just pick a spot on the far wall and stare at it, clear your mind, and let your body do its job.”

And strangely enough, that helped. It did clear my mind, and without consciously thinking about it, my legs kept moving and my lungs kept pumping.

I could feel the sweat roll down my back, and it was good to know I could push through my own limits.

I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but here I was, jogging my heart out.

Proof that I’d made a decision to get control of my life back, and it was working.

Reed reached over and pressed some buttons and the machine started to slow down so eventually I was walking. And puffing and panting, but I was also smiling. “I did it.”

“You did. You just ran three kilometres, nonstop.” He checked the treadmill screen. “In twenty five minutes, eleven seconds.”

I took a few deep breaths. “Is that good?”

“Very good. For you, that’s excellent.”

“For me?” I stepped off the treadmill on unsteady legs and wiped my towel over my face. “How fast can you do it in?”

“Well, that’s not important.”

“Yes it is.”

“It’s not a race, Henry. The only person’s time you need to beat is your own.”

“So if it makes no difference, then tell me.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Nope. Come on, weights time. I’ll give you a few minutes break. Have a drink of water, and we’ll be using the free weights today.”

He left me alone for a minute, giving me time to get my breath back and to stew over what time he could run three kilometres in. By the time he came back, my lungs were no longer on fire and I was breathing normally. I had the twelve-kilo dumbbells set aside on the flat bench.

“Lie down with your back on the bench, feet flat on the floor,” he said as he walked back over to me.

I’m pretty sure he said something similar to me in my dream last night…

He ran me through some lifting, me lying on my back on the flat bench doing chest flies and him on his knees at my side. “Keep your abs tight,” he said, touching my stomach. “Keep your arms even. That’s it, perfect. Can you feel that in your pecs and core?”

I could feel him touching me in every cell of my body. “Yeah.”

Then I had to think horrible thoughts, because lying down on a bench in gym shorts with him this close and touching me wasn’t great for modesty. A hard-on right now would be horrifying.

“Okay, do another rep,” he demanded.

Concentrating on lifting the heavy weights and not dropping them on my face worked well for killing hard-ons, and by the time I’d done another ten, I was sure I had it all under control.

But then he made it worse. “Okay, now stand up for me. Next up is bent-over rows. Like this…”

He rested one hand and one knee on the flat bench and lifted the dumbbell from the floor to his side.

Which was fine for him, albeit very nice to look at, but not so much for me.

Because being in a bent-over position with him close by sent a warm rush of blood straight to my cock.

I did as he did, with one hand and one knee resting on the flat bench, trying really hard not to imagine him standing behind me, my gym shorts pulled down just enough to give him access, and him taking me deep…

“You okay, Henry?”

Shit, shit, shit. I’d forgotten to keep lifting the dumbbell, and God knows if I’d mumbled anything out loud. I cleared my throat. “Yes. I’m super fine, just dandy.”

Super fine, just dandy? What the fuck, Henry?

“Is that Mary Poppins?”

Weights forgotten, I stood up straight and looked around the gym. “Where?”

Reed burst out laughing. “Never mind.” He took the weights from me, and it was then I noticed Emily, Reed’s closest friend, standing over near some client by the rowing machines, but she was watching us―or Reed, more to the point―and she was smiling.

Reed was suddenly beside me. “Okay, on the floor, Henry. Face down.”

“I’ve had better come on lines,” I said without thinking.

Reed just laughed. “I should hope so.” I got down on the floor, as did Reed next to me. “Plank, thirty seconds on, ten seconds off, three rounds. And go.”

“Ugh,” I whined. “Planking is ridiculous.” I had so much more to say on that subject, but planking and holding conversations was something I couldn’t do at the same time.

Reed apparently had no trouble. “So what have you got planned for tomorrow night?”

I could only shake my head, and when the thirty seconds was up, I flopped to the ground and groaned. “I can only talk when I’m not planking, so I have ten seconds to say that I have no plans for tomorrow evening, and I’d like to meet whomever invented planking and poke them in the eyes.”

Reed chuckled. “Okay, that’s ten. Up for another thirty.”

I lifted myself off the ground to resume the hellish planking position. I was starting to tremble, and Reed was doing it so easy, he looked like he could be watching TV.

“So if you’re not doing anything, I still need to make that lamb salad, and you now have to make me that Turkish tart with beetroot that you sent me the photo of, so I was thinking you might want to do that tomorrow night?”

Jesus that sounded a lot like he was asking me on a date.

“That’s thirty seconds,” he said, lowering himself to the floor.

I crumpled to the mat with an oomph , though now my inability to speak wasn’t from exercise. “I um… I’m…”

He gave me a smile that was almost sad. “Okay, that’s ten. Last thirty seconds.” He lifted himself effortlessly into the plank position, and I had to reef myself up with every bit of strength I had left.

“It’s not a date, Henry,” he said coolly. I think he even shrugged. How can he shrug while he’s planking? Is he even fucking human? “It’s no different from any other time we’ve hung out together. It’s a non-date. So it’s okay if you don’t want to. You can just say no.”

I shook my head. “Can’t. Talk.”

He chuckled and inspected the floor between his elbows until the timer put me out of my misery. I collapsed onto the mat. My stomach muscles were trying to kill me. I mumbled into the floor, “I better have abs of steel by the time I get to work.”