Chapter 5
Jeremiah
Five-fifteen came way too early, but I was already wide awake, staring at the ceiling fan like it held the answers to life’s most pressing questions. Which, apparently, all revolved around one scrawny librarian with messy hair and wire-rimmed glasses.
I’d been doing this for a week now—waking up before my alarm, lying in bed replaying every moment of our two encounters, analyzing every word he’d said, every expression that had crossed his face.
It was pathetic, really, a grown-ass man obsessing over a guy he’d barely spoken to.
But damn it, I couldn’t get Theo out of my head.
His adorably goofy, crooked smile. The way he’d flushed when Debbie called me handsome. How our shoulders brushed for a second when we’d gathered those scattered books. The soft sound he’d made when he’d complimented my arms, then immediately tried to backtrack.
I groaned and rolled out of bed, padding into the kitchen in nothing but my boxers. Coffee first, then gym. Maybe if I pushedmyself hard enough, I could sweat out this ridiculous crush that was consuming my every waking moment.
Twenty minutes later, I shuffled through the glass double doors of the happiest place on earth, my threadbare gym where the weights were older than those shriveled men who lived in the mountains of Tibet. The familiar scent of metal and sweat greeted me like an old friend. The place was nearly empty at this hour—just me, the owner, Jax, who was perched behind the counter reading some bodybuilding magazine, and one other guy I didn’t recognize squatting far too much weight in the corner.
It was leg day . . . again.
Awesome.
Then again, maybe excruciating pain was exactly what I needed. Nothing cleared my head like the special hell of a proper leg workout. I started with squats, loading the bar with my usual weight and settling it across my shoulders.
The first set felt good. My movements were controlled and focused, the familiar burn building in my quads.
By the second set, my mind was wandering again, drifting back to wire-rimmed glasses and nervous stammering.
The third set was sloppy, a disaster of grunts and groans, punctuated by the occasional curse that might’ve made even Jax blush. I felt my form breaking down as my attention scattered.
Get it together, Jer. This is your happy place. Nothing bothers you in this temple of muscle, sweat, and abandoned dreams. Snap out of it already!
I moved to the leg press machine, cranking the weight up higher than usual. If I was going to be distracted, at least I could punish myself for it. The first few reps felt manageable, but by rep eight, my legs were screaming. Lactic acid flooded my muscles, melting them to jelly. Sweat soaked through my tank top and coated my face and arms. I was a mess.
And still, my brain wouldn’t shut up.
Why haven’t you asked him out? Why are you so intimidated by a nerd in glasses? Come to think of it, why are you so obsessed with said nerd?
I wasn’t an idiot or shy or scared to put myself out there. I knew how to ask guys out. Fine, it had been a while, but it wasn’t rocket science. Asking a guy out was simple.
Except nothing about Theofeltsimple.
Another set on the leg press. Another few inventive curses I was fairly certain weren’t real words. More grunting and unbearable quad pain.
My shirt clung to my chest and back as sweat dripped steadily onto the machine’s vinyl seat. My legs felt like overcooked spaghetti, but I kept going, driven by some masochistic need to feel something other than ridiculous frustration.
Why, Jer? Why are you such an idiot?
Maybe it was because our first meeting had been so spectacularly mortifying. It was hard to follow up “I accidentally delivered your neighbor’s sex toy to your five-year-old” with “Hey, want to grab dinner?”
Or maybe it was because I kept building him up in my head, turning a cute librarian into some kind of unattainable intellectual god who was probably way out of my league.
I stumbled over to the calf raise machine, my legs protesting every step, as though they knew what was coming and were desperate to stop me from even more agonizing torture. The weight felt heavier than usual, my calves burning after just a few reps. The gym was hot, Jax being an air-conditioning Nazi of the first order. Sweat dripped from my fingertips onto the floor mat.
By the time I moved to lunges, I was even more of a mess. My tank stuck to every contour of my torso. My abs poked through almost as clearly as my nipples. In any other context, it would’ve either been obscene or photo prep for one of thosesteamy romance novels with the “I can’t believe it’s not butter” guy flicking his hair back on the cover.
My legs shook with each step, but I kept going, pushing through another set, then another. The pain was a welcome friend—one thing I could control, one thing I could understand.
I was halfway through my final set of walking lunges when a throat cleared behind me.
