Chapter 3 #2
You’re amazing, Ethan. I just had to say it! Thank you. I think what I can do, without seeing grapes as a failure, is exercise a few minutes extra. I feel motivated. And I still have a million moving boxes to unpack haha. Thanks for checking in, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.
I hoped that wasn’t too forward—or that he thought I was flirting with him. I only wanted to be honest. He’d helped me so much already.
By the time I’d put away the grapes and moved my Coke Zero into the office where I wanted to get my workspace in order, Ethan had answered.
Looking forward to it. You have a great attitude. Goodnight.
Damn right, I had a great attitude!
I smiled to myself and got cracking.
When I walked into the gym the following morning, Ethan was clearly just finishing up his own workout.
He was drenched in sweat, hanging out over by the weights, and his T-shirt was on the floor.
God forbid he took a selfie where his abs didn’t show.
The man didn’t even need to clench to flash that six-pack.
Maybe a dozen or so people were at the gym, with another group waiting outside the spin class area, and several of them had their eyes fixed on Ethan.
I scrunched my nose, feeling so out of sorts. While they eye-fucked him, which I was sure he was used to, I kinda wanted to feed him.
As much as I struggled to believe Gray—that Ethan was supposedly arrogant—I’d have to be blind not to see how different we were.
I wasn’t talking about our physiques either.
I showed up in leggings, a loose tee, zero makeup, and my hair in a haphazard bun.
He still didn’t have a hair out of place, despite he’d just worked out, the logo across his pant leg told me he could very well be sponsored by Under Armour, and he drank from one of those shakers.
Like, I bet he had a protein shake in there or something.
What must he think of me? Personally, that was. Behind the fantastic professional facade, he had to be judging me. Right? In no universe did I fit into his circle of friends, dates, or whatever.
He spotted me when I was some ten feet away, and he got off the bench he’d sat on and picked up his tee to wipe sweat off his face.
“Good morning.” I smiled politely.
“Mornin’, Natalie. You ready to work up a sweat?”
“Absolutely.” A burst of shock tore through me when I accidentally glanced at his chest, now that I was closer. Did he freaking shave it? Oh my God, he shaved his chest. He actually shaved his chest. Why? Why would he do such a thing?
You’re being judgy again.
I knew that. Judgy bitch, comin’ right up. I sucked. I just…gah.
Nope, no more judging. I didn’t wanna be that person. I probably had tons of habits that would make others look at me like I was an alien. If he wanted to shave his chest, good for him. Or whatever.
I followed him over to the treadmills, where he’d hung a “Reserved” sign on one of them.
“I put together a program that I want you to do once a week,” he revealed. “From now on, this is what we start with. It’s twenty minutes long, ranging from slow to brisk in intervals. I’ll remind you every couple of minutes to grip the handlebars so the machine can log your heart rate.”
Oh, this was going to be torture. I hated the treadmill. I’d rather go on a hike in the mountains.
“In the spirit of honesty, this is going to suck,” I said.
“Only in the beginning.” He grinned and removed the sign, then told me to hop on up.
In a minute, in a minute. I had to change my shoes first.
In a perfect world, I’d still be in bed. Maybe reading a book. Maybe eating pancakes.
Sigh.
But nooo, I was tying my shoes and then hopping up on a treadmill, and I had a gym-bro waiting to read my stats.
“Mornin’ workouts are the worst,” I said.
He smirked. “Also in the spirit of honesty?” He messed around with the buttons on the display and started my program. “Exercising in the morning lays a great foundation for the rest of the day. You’re less likely to ruin it with unhealthy snacks if you’ve already put in the hours.”
Hours, as in plural. Jesus.
My slow walk toward hell began, and I gripped the handlebar that had these little metal plates logging digits I’d rather keep to myself.
“If you weren’t on this journey right now, what would you be doing?” he asked and leaned back against the wall in front of me.
“Honestly?”
He smiled faintly. “I always want your honesty, Natalie.”
People said that. They didn’t mean it.
“I’d probably have a big cappuccino cooling on my nightstand while I worked in bed,” I admitted. “I’m so lazy sometimes that I literally bought a laptop to keep on my nightstand. Easy to reach when I wake up.”
How was that for honesty?
“You still have to get out of bed to make coffee.”
Yeah, and that was why I’d contemplated keeping my coffee machine on my nightstand too. I hadn’t actually done that, but those thoughts existed.
“By the way, what kind of work do you do?” he wondered.
“Jewelry design,” I said.
“Huh.” He was like most men, slightly surprised because it wasn’t the most common profession, but disinterested because he was a dude. “So, you have your own online shop or…?”
I nodded and eyed the display as I had to pick up the pace a little. “Yessir. A few brick-and-mortar shops too.”
I’d recently opened my fourth, actually. In Chicago.
“That’s cool.” He probably didn’t mean that. “How are you feeling right now?”
So far, so good. “I’m at that point where it’s totally fine, but I’m dreadin’ the fact that I have sixteen more minutes to go.”
He didn’t laugh or find me funny. Instead, he folded his arms over his chest and said, “That feeling is what makes a lot of people give up. It’s why we procrastinate and make excuses to get out of whatever errand or task we don’t wanna perform.
” He nodded at the display in front of me.
“I want you to try to focus on what you’ve done and not what you have ahead of you.
Four minutes of walking is four minutes of making your back stronger. Every minute counts.”
I let out a breath, one part of me wanting to tell him to stop sounding like a fucking motivational speaker, and the other part…knew he had a point. I did tend to see the mountain of work I had ahead of me, rather than the stretch I’d already walked.
What I hadn’t done could be taken away from me, but nobody could erase the work I’d actually put in, no matter how small it was at the moment.
Gym-bro was right.
“You wanna curse me out?” His smirk was back.
“Only half of me,” I huffed.
He chuckled. “I’ll ask again in ten minutes.”
Oh, please don’t.
Gray wasn’t wrong. Sometimes, I had zero verbal filter.
And this guy kept saying he wanted honesty and straightforwardness.
It was time to pick up the pace again, and I could feel my heart pounding a little faster. But it was the pain in my back that bothered me way more. For every step I took, I felt it creeping forward, one stabby twinge at a time.
Ethan finished his no-doubt-gross protein shake, and I wasn’t too out of breath to ask questions yet. Sue me, I was curious how far off the mark I was.
“Do you have wheatgrass, protein, and spinach in there?” I asked.
He cocked a brow and screwed the cap back on the lid. “No, no, and no. Cold-brewed green tea, ginger, and lemon.”
Huh.
I wasn’t that far off; he still fit the stereotype requirements, but the ingredients were kind of interesting to me. “Why cold-brewed?”
“I can’t stand lukewarm, and if I prepared it the way I liked—as in hotter than lava—I’d kill all the antioxidants.”
Double-huh.
“Are you profiling me?” he asked, amused.
I let out a chuckle, my breathing labored, and shrugged a little. “I guess I’m curious about how the other side lives,” I joked.
For a hot second, it looked like he was caught up in the humor and was about to say something, but he stopped himself. Maybe as if he was reminding himself he was with a client and couldn’t say whatever he wanted.
“My lifestyle is definitely not for everyone,” he said instead. “But I chose to pay a high price for—well, all this.” He motioned vaguely to himself, and I lifted my brows a little. It was the first time I got a tiny glimpse of his Instagram persona.
A sharp pain in my lower back derailed my thought, just as well, and I winced and reached behind me to rub the base of my spine.
Ethan pushed away from the wall and glanced at the display. “You in pain?”
“Yeah.” I did my best to regulate my breathing. It was fucking embarrassing to be so out of breath at—
“Okay, now we know. You’ve been walking for six minutes,” he said. “Next week, that pain won’t hit you till later. It’s the upside of starting at the bottom—you’ll see so many improvements in a short period of time, Natalie.”
“Does that mean I can get off the treadmill now?”
He laughed. “That’s funny.”
Fucker.