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.
CHAPTER 4
