I’d needed the same when I met Makhi. There are times I think he provokes me on purpose, and there are times I let him because I know why he does it.
“Yeah.” He straightens and uncrosses his arms. “I’m going to wash up from the cell. See you in a bit.”
He leaves, and I continue my workout, but my thoughts keep swinging back to Byrdie. Letting yourself get distracted while lifting isn’t just a bad idea; it’s downright dangerous.
I’m wiping my face with a towel when a small sound pulls my gaze to the open doorway. Just in time. I catch Byrdie peeking in and almost immediately turning away.
“You can come in,” I call after her.
She’d seen me in here earlier, before she went on a ride with Makhi. When I asked if she wanted to come in or talk, she shook her head and said no.
After a two-second pause, she returns, her eyes lingering on my chest for a second too long before sliding to my face. “Nance said that Nash was back.”
I’d been about to put my shirt back on, but after that look, I decide to keep it off.
“He’s gone to wash up. He’ll be down soon enough.”
“Oh.” She turns to leave.
“You can stay.”
She looks at me. “I don’t want to distract you and for you to drop a weight on your head.”
I flash her a grin. “Unlikely, but I appreciate the thought. How was your ride?”
She shrugs. “Okay.”
I watch her closely. If Nash was speeding like a lunatic with Byrdie on his bike, he won’t know what hit him when I get through with him. “Makhi likes to speed.”
“He wasn’t going that fast,” she says, sounding disappointed.
I slide over on my bench and pat the seat beside me. “Come sit.”
She gnaws her bottom lip, and I fight the urge to adjust myself in my pants. “Aren’t you working out?”
“Done now. If you’re bored, I can teach you a few things. I promise it’s a little more fun than cleaning,” I tease, prompting a smile from her.
As she crosses toward me, her wary gaze travels over the weights, and she scrunches her nose. “No thanks. I couldn’t do it.”
I give her shoulder a playful nudge. “The weights only look intimidating if you don’t know how to use them and you’re thinking of starting with the heavy ones. I was the same when I first walked into a gym. If you want to learn, I can teach you. We’ll start light, work on technique, and only when you’re comfortable and can use them safely, we can go heavier.”
She looks at my arms doubtfully. “Weren’t you always this big?”
“I was like a weed before the army.”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and I grin at her.
“Really. Started working out before I joined the army at seventeen, then I bulked up a bit more during basic training and kept it up. It’s more discipline than talent, like most things in life.”
At the mention of the army, her right hand flies up, long tanned fingers fumbling with my dog tags she wears on a chain around her neck. “I still have?—”
“No,” I gently cut in. “I don’t need them back just yet.”
She looks down. “You nearly didn’t get them back at all.”
I will never forget how I found her, curled up in a ball in the middle of the desert, where someone had dumped her to die. She had her hand wrapped around my dog tags, the only source of strength she thought she had.
I don’t know if she clung to life long enough for us to find her in time because of those dog tags, but I have never been more grateful that I gave them to her so she had something to cling on to.
