Callum was testing out dumbbells.
Then the man, Colt, who was teaching us for today, was staring at me like I was holding up his day.
And inconveniencing it greatly.
I nodded my head. “I’m ready,” I croaked.
What I didn’t know was that I wasn’t ready.
And that Colt was a crazy man.
***
I stared up at the ceiling, wondering if my heart rate would ever return to normal.
I was fairly sure that it wouldn’t.
I was also fairly sure that come tomorrow, I wouldn’t be able to move, let alone walk.
“See y’all later,” Colt barked.
I looked over at my friend and shook my head.
“I’m not going tomorrow,” I informed her. “I don’t love you enough to do this ever again.”
“Not even to get a load of that?” she pointed.
I grudgingly turned my head to see Ace squat down into such a perfect squat that an imaginary chair could’ve been sitting underneath his butt.
Not to mention he had enough weight on the bar to triple me in size.
“No,” I croaked. “Not even that is enough to get me to come back.”
That was also a lie. I’d thoroughly enjoyed having Ace to look at throughout my workout.
But I had my limits.
Not to mention I also had every intention of going to the police department tomorrow to see what was up with my application, which I informed her of in the next few moments.
“I have a meeting with the police department,” I told her. “I’m meeting with a few of the men who are the head of their crime division. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get a job.”
She looked at me sympathetically.
“I know,” I muttered, not needing to hear her words. “But I’m going to try. I worked for the Dallas Police Department for three years, doing excellent work. There’s absolutely no reason that they can say no.”
Desi snorted. “Didn’t you try to steal the assistant police chief’s car when you were fifteen?”
I had tried to do that, sort of.
But the assistant chief of police had also arrested me and taken my parents away from me, even though he hadn’t been trying to accomplish that at the time.
Really, I knew that he was just trying to look out for me.
But that day the chief had arrested me had been the day that my mother finally gave up on me. The day that they started looking for houses down in Florida and foisted me off on my grandfather.
“I was a little bad,” I admitted. “But I’m sure that he’s over it.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’s not based on the way he glared at you yesterday at the deli.”
That was true.
I’d seen him as I’d gone in, offered him a small smile, and had winced inwardly when he’d taken one look at me and narrowed his eyes, waiting for me to kick up a ruckus.
But I hadn’t.
He also hadn’t stopped watching me the entire time he’d been at the counter waiting for his lunch.
“What’s this?” Ace asked, sweat dripping down his face.
His eyes went to the pinking sky outside as he watched the sun start to rise in the sky.
I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost six-thirty and sighed, rolling over so that I could eventually get myself to my feet.
When I was on my hands and my knees, I realized that the voices around me had gone quiet.
“What?” I asked, looking over at them over one shoulder.
My eyes automatically went to Ace, who was staring at my ass.
“You have a perfect chalk print of a hand on your ass,” he said.
I felt myself flush in embarrassment.
I remembered wiping my hands on my shorts quite a few times over the last hour, there was no doubt in my mind that it was there just like he said.
“I did that,” I admitted.
He grinned. “Well, it’s too small to be any of ours. So I only assumed.”
I felt myself flush all over again.
What the hell was wrong with me?
“You also have a vagina sweat stain,” Desi murmured. “But I think they’re being nice and not telling you that.”
I looked down, and sure enough, I did have a vagina sweat stain. Or, at least, there was a large sweat stain right around where my underwear lay. It was a perfect triangle that followed the seams.
Awesome.
“Thanks for that, Des,” I muttered, feeling myself flush all over again. “You ready to go?”
She frowned. “Actually, I was going to stay a bit and work out my arms with ol’ Hulk over here.” She pointed at Callum. “If you want, you can take my car. I can walk home afterward.”
I stared at her pointedly. “I don’t know how to drive a standard.”
Desi winced. “Shit. I forgot about that. You can walk to my house and get your car.”
I looked down at my nearly dead legs and knew that I wouldn’t be walking anywhere.