What was the harm, indeed?
Agreeing to workout withOwen was the worst idea I’d ever had for so many reasons, mostly because I hadn’t mentally prepared myself for what seeing him shirtless and sweaty would do to me.
No, that’s a lie—well, not the entire truth anyway.
While Owen’s glistening bronze skin was surely distracting, I hated to admit he’d been right. I wasn’t particularly strong, and the workout he’d created for us put me through the ringer, working muscles I didn’t even know I had.
Oh, but Owen knew, and he tortured me for an hour.
I should’ve known better than to think he’d take it easy on me.
Then again, I didn’t want someone to take it easy on me, had prided myself on doing the exact opposite whenever possible. Take the night before for example. It would’ve been much easier to keep my mouth shut and not share with Owen the darkest, most embarrassingly painful story of my entire life. But Iwantedhim to know, wanted him to understand whereI was coming from where this thing between us was concerned. And he’d taken it all in stride, simply being a calming, stolid presence next to me while I dumped the whole thing in his lap.
My crush for him deepened in that moment. Actually, it was well past a simplecrush.
When I walked into the gym, Owen stood in the center of an empty expanse of rubber floor mats, rapidly jumping rope. I had to snap my mouth shut to avoid drooling. He was dressed head to toe in Detroit Mustangs gear, a black ball cap flipped backward. The ends of his hair were already damp and clinging to his neck. Vibrant orange shorts hung low on his hips, displaying the band of his boxer briefs. His tee was black, the Mustangs logo so faded from wear it was practically nonexistent. The sleeves were ripped off, presumably by him, the bottom half missing to reveal the peaks and valleys of his lower abdominals.
God, I wanted to press my tongue into those grooves, to taste the salty perspiration off his skin.
There was this guy on TikTok who posted thirst traps of himself sweaty and lifting weights, and like…if Owen spontaneously grew a mustache? I’d be taking him for a ride without a second thought.
“What are you doing?” I asked, forcefully shaking myself from my trance. “Is this your idea of a workout?”
“I’m warming up,” he said, his breath relatively even despite how quickly he was moving. “Grab one and join me.”
“Okay…” I trailed off, moving over to the collection of hooks on the far wall and selecting a rope that seemed about right for my height.
I rejoined him and said, “Now what?”
“Now jump.”
So I did, thinking it couldn’t be all that difficult if kids routinely participated in the activity.
I was humbled quickly.
It had been a long damn time since I’d used both the muscles and coordination skills necessary to perform such a task, and after the third time of catching the rope around my ankle and nearly eating shit, Owen—who, mind you, could barely stop laughing long enough to get the words out—took pity on me and told me to do jumping jacks instead.
Now that he was no longer playing, Owen told me he liked to participate in what he called “functional” strength training versus the traditional kind that required lots of barbell and pulley machine usage.
Instead, he asked me to grab a couple dumbbells from the racks at a weight I felt confident I could repeatedly lift over my head, then once again met me in the center of the gym.
“So first,” he said, hefting his own dumbbells—more than twice as heavy as my measly ten pounders—up to his shoulders, “we’re going to do squat to overhead presses, or squat thrusts.”
He demonstrated the movement, his thighs straining against his shorts as he dropped into the squat, straightened back up, simultaneously pushing the dumbbells over his head, then returned them to the neutral position at his shoulders.
His biceps bulged deliciously, and I struggled to concentrate around mental images of him manhandling me in bed.
“When you reach the top of the movement”—he held the dumbbells overhead again—“I want you to squeeze your glutes together. Keep your belly button pulled in, core engaged, andavoid rounding your back.”
“Okay,” I said, bobbing my head, my ponytail swishing, attempting to get myself in the game. “I can do this.”
“That’s the spirit,” Owen said, grinning. “We’ll start with three sets of ten reps. I’ll do them with you.”
Though I used my leg muscles regularly to run, it was nothing compared to the hell squats unleashed. By the end of the first set, my quads, glutes, and shoulders were on fire. I wasn’t sure how I’d make it through two more rounds, nor how I’d survive an entire workout with this man.
As though sensing my struggle, Owen said, “You can switch those out for lighter weights if you want.”
And give him the satisfaction? Absolutely fucking not.
