“How you feeling?” Hudson asks.
“Are you talking to me or Mitch?” I croak.
Hudson cheekily swipes of his thumbs against the skin of my stomach. “You, silly. Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine… just a little lightheaded, I guess.”
“It’s probably your blood pressure dropping. Go and sit down, I’ll bring you over some water.”
On wobbly legs, feeling like a newborn baby giraffe, I teeter over to the closest bench and sit down. This wasn’t in the plan; this wasn’t in the fucking plan at all.
“Are you okay?” someone asks me, I don’t register who. “That was going to be a pretty nasty fall before Hudson saved you.”
“I don’t need saving,” I mutter, mouth dry as if it’s full of cotton wool. Probably because of the lie I’ve just told.
“Maybe not all the time,” Hudson’s voice swims beside the voice of the stranger. “But you needed me back there, otherwise you’d be sitting here with burns on your hands from the floor and grazed legs. And that’s if you’d been lucky.”
He’s got me there and we both know it.
Muscles and ligaments can be fickle things, easily tearable and painful to heal. I would basically be out of my job if I’d injured myself with the weighted barbell.
Pressing my lips together, I crack open my eyelids, testing to see if the world has stopped spinning on its axis.
Hudson crouches down beside my legs, showing off his toned thighs and calves, not that I should be looking, while one of his hands finds a home for itself on my kneecap. “Alright?”
All I can do is nod.
“Here.” He thrusts a blue reusable water bottle at me. “Have a few sips of water and…” From his back pocket, he retrieves a slightly squished protein bar. Chocolate flavoured with chunks of dried raspberry dotted throughout it. “Take a few bits of this too and get your sugar levels back up to where they should be.”
With his eyes on me, causing my skin to flush, I uncap the water bottle and place my lips to the spout. It feels oddly intimate to be drinking from the same place Hudson’s lips touch.
It’s the closest thing to kissing him that I will allow myself.
The cool water slips down my throat pleasantly, followed by the sweet taste of chocolate and tart fruit as I take the offeredsweet treat, already unwrapped by Hudson’s nimble fingers, and sink my teeth into it.
“Better?”
I nod, unable to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth because my entire focus is being taken up with the fact Hudson’s hand is still on my body, the tips of his fingers resting on the inner portion of my kneecap.
“Giselle?”
“Better.” I force the words past my lips. “Thank you, Hudson.”
The smile, pearly white teeth on display, he sends my way has my stomach swooping low, like I’ve just been thrown down the other side of a rollercoaster.
“You’re welcome.” He squeezes my knee and finally,finally, allows his hand to drop, putting more space between us.
I’m equal parts relieved and disappointed.
“Finish up the protein bar and the water and take it easy for the rest of the day, okay?”
I swallow back a mouthful of water from his bottle. “Okay.”
Hudson glances over his broad shoulder at the treadmill section of the gym and then back to me, his eyes tracking the bob of my throat as I gulp. “I have another client due in a few minutes, but I can stay if you need me…”
“Go.” I wave my hand flippantly. “I’m fine, Hudson, really. I’m a big girl, I’ll be alright.”
“I know you will, I just—”
