Noah drops to the ground, does one pushup, but then the other one drops down in front of him, eye to eye.
“Last one to twenty goes home?” Green Street suggests. “Now.”
He might be a little younger, but he’s bigger. Maybe an inch taller, but broader too. Like he was an athlete.
As a Motocross racer, Noah would try to keep his weight down.
“You sure?” he grins.
“I’m sure. You ready?”
“Almost.” Noah looks up. “Quinn?”
I find her in the mirror.
“Lie down on my back,” he instructs her.
Excuse me?
She stops mid-exercise, and I think I see her gaze dart to me, but it was too quick to tell. “No.”
“Please?”
He says it so fucking gentle, and even after all this time, I know Quinn hasn’t changed. She finds it hard to disappoint people.
My muscles burn as I watch her set the free weights down, lower to him on the floor, and press her chest into his back. The tips of her shoes rest on his heels as she layers her forearms across the back of his shoulders.
“Like this?” she asks, and I wait for her to look at me again. She doesn’t.
Noah smiles. “Perfect.”
“Set?” the other one snips.
“Go,” Van der Berg announces.
Everything tenses as I watch both young men dip and rise, pushing their body weight—and in Van der Berg’s case, Quinn’s too—up off the ground.
Again.
And again, both bobbing up and down with damn near the speed of a bullet.
Quinn smiles, her stomach probably flipping because that’s what happens when we ride rides.What the fuck…
Looking across to Green Street, her eyes shine. A few people stop to watch, one taking out his phone and filming.
“Hey,” Lance blurts out at my side. “You’ve been doing that same exercise for about a hundred reps.”
I pause. Huh?
I remember the bar in my hands and drop it, just noticing how hard I’m breathing. My arms are on fire.
I turn my head over my shoulder, watching with my friend as Noah bounces and she starts to slip.
“Hold tight!” he shouts, excited.
She clutches his shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut and laughing, even as he slows around number twelve. The other one outpaces him and Van der Berg winds down more and more, losing strength, but he and Quinn beam anyway, even knowing they’ll lose.
Smart kid. He didn’t need to win, and Green Street knows it as he finishes first but isn’t happy. Van der Berg didn’t need to prove his manliness. He created an experience with Quinn. His own. His and hers.
