“I make no promises,” I said. “And I won’t bail on Stats again.”
He looked at me then. “You swear?”
“I swear,” I said, and meant it.
We stood there for a second longer than necessary, the morning air crisp between us, the unresolved thing still unresolved.
But this time, it felt a little less heavy.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
bennet
The most distractingthing about Jason wasn’t his flippant attitude or his on-the-nose sense of humor or even the way he was the center of gravity for everyone’s gaze in whichever room he entered. The most distracting thing about him was his tight shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt.
He was late, as always, so I’d gone to the locker room, changed, and hopped onto a treadmill for a slow warm-up. I nearly lost my footing when he entered, dressed in pale blue with white trimming and with a big water bottle in his hand and a towel over his shoulder.
Maybe I was too used to seeing him in little more than sweatpants so that walking around in a cute top made him look risky.
“Wow,” he said, stopping short when he spotted me. “You’re already working. I feel judged.”
“You’re ten minutes late,” I said, gripping thehandrails until my balance came back. “I figured I’d start without you.”
He grinned like I’d paid him a compliment. “Look at you. Gym guy.”
“Don’t,” I warned.
“Mock?” He lifted his hands. “Never.”
He fell into step beside the treadmill, walking backward for a moment like he had no sense of direction. His eyes tracked the display, then my stride, then my posture. The attention made my skin prickle.
“Slow it down a notch,” he said. “Longer stride. Let your hips move. You’re stiff.”
“I went yesterday,” I said. “I’m sore.”
“That’s fine,” he said. “You’ll warm up.”
I finished my warm-up and stepped off, heart thudding for reasons that had nothing to do with cardio. Jason handed me his towel without thinking. I took it. Our fingers brushed. It shouldn’t have felt like anything, but it did.
“Okay,” he said, clapping once. “Let’s start light. Machines first.”
He led me to a row of equipment and set the weight without asking, like he already knew where my limits were. I bristled, then surprised myself by trusting him.
“Seat higher,” he said, crouching to adjust it. “You want your knees just shy of locking.”
He tapped my shin with two fingers, and my pulse jumped.
I followed his instructions. The first setburned in a good, clean way. Jason watched, arms folded, head tilted, eyes focused. When my form wobbled, he stepped in.
“Hold,” he said, and his hands were on my hips, warm and steady. He nudged me a fraction of an inch, like he was aligning something delicate. “There. Feel that?”
I did. Everywhere.
My breath went uneven. I told myself it was the exertion.
“Better,” he said quietly, close enough that I could smell his soap. “Again.”
Each exercise built on the last. Press. Pull. Curl. My muscles responded like they’d been waiting for this exact combination of pressure and attention. Jason didn’t hover, but he didn’t look away either. He corrected me with a word, a touch, a look that said he was paying attention in a way that felt intimate despite the mirrors and the clank of weights around us.