It was a testament to the size of the gym that he hadn’t run into her at work since they’d started hooking up.She looked no different than this time last month—same long ponytail, same t-shirt bearing a slogan he didn’t recognize but avid book, movie, or TV fans might, same long legs covered in leggings and ending in sneakers—but now he knew what was underneath.
“Excuse me.”A group of other attendees filed into the room, putting some distance between them.
“That’s everyone,” the guest services assistant at the entrance said.It was a full house that night, and yet not crowded enough to distract from her.
He stepped to the front of the room.“Everybody ready?”
A lackluster round of assent went up.
“Didn’t quite catch that.”He raised his voice.“Everybody ready?”
This time, the room erupted in a round of loud cheers.“All right!You all know the drill—we’ll start with a warm-up.”
They started out slowly, making their way from one end of the studio to another in stretches, then progressing to sprints.Everyone flew past him by the end.
As the class broke up into three separate teams to go through the circuit, Spencer took another look at Hector’s plan for the session.So far, so good...except for the part that called for burpees.He remembered the look on Misty’s face as she’d called them her least favorite exercise early in their session, and he couldn’t have said he blamed her.He assigned the first two groups their instructions for the next two minutes, his mind racing in search of a substitute.
“And group three!You’re gonna spend the first thirty seconds doing ten jumping jacks followed by ten sumo squats, starting over again if you still have time.For the next thirty seconds, you’ll get on the ground for...shoulder taps.Repeat the set again after the first minute.”
His eyes held Misty’s as he gave the instructions.She wouldn’t know the gift he’d given her by cutting burpees out of the class, and yet he felt oddly gratified for having been able to do that for her.He also knew people would wonder if he indicated too much familiarity with her.On the other hand, wouldn’t ignoring her for the rest of the class also attract attention?The longest increments of the HIIT class only lasted two minutes, and yet they seemed interminable.
****
Misty’s heart was pounding, and she couldn’t entirely blame it on the frog jumps and twisting side planks of earlier, nor the toe taps she was currently doing.She hadn’t expected to see Spencer in any context tonight, and now here he was teaching her class.Would she have signed up if she’d known he’d be there, close enough to touch but as unreachable as in their early days?
She had no way of knowing and couldn’t leave now.Not without drawing attention to herself, not at the risk of looking like she couldn’t hack the class, and certainly not when Tish had commandeered her for the partner exercises they were doing to wind down the class.
“Eight,” Tish announced, rising from her spot on the mat.
Misty switched places with her, going into a set of push-ups as Tish started the toe taps.This time last year, she would have spent the entire set on her knees, but now, she was fully extended.She supposed she had Spencer to thank for that.
Speak of the devil...He walked past and crouched next to one of her classmates.Of course it was a form correction, the position of his arms couldn’t mean anything else, but she still fought a twinge of jealousy.
“Forty-five more seconds!”His voice cut into her thoughts.
Misty rose from the ground.“That was eight.”
“Now we’re down to six.”Tish dropped to the ground, and Misty tried to keep her spirits and stamina up for the last stretch.It would be nice to have fewer reps of push-ups to do, but that also meant less time to recover from the toe taps.Her upcoming time at the combine had given her a reputation to live up to, and she didn’t want to look bad in front of Spencer.
“Thirty!”Spencer called, moving from group to group.“Great job, Callie!You got it, Misty!”
Misty’s heart leaped at the shout-out.It gave her the extra burst of energy she needed to make it through the set of four push-ups, then to jump to her feet for more toe taps.
“Time!”Spencer’s voice rang out as Tish started the last set of two push-ups.He led them in a round of highly welcome cool-down stretches.She craved his hands on her to help her stretch a little deeper.
As Misty wiped the sweat of the hour away, the sound of slaps echoed through the room.She removed the towel from her face to see Spencer giving high-fives to everyone as they left the studio.
“Good job,” he said, smacking his palm to hers.
Was it her imagination, or was his hand lingering?She couldn’t have said, but she knew that even the tamest of touches, being this close to him again, was driving up the endorphins in a way the class couldn’t have.
Tish was waiting for her outside the studio.“So that was him?”she asked as they headed to the locker room.
“That was my guy.”Misty couldn’t help smiling.
Something about the way it came out must have given her away, because Tish’s eyes widened.“The way you said that makes it sound like he’syour guy, your boyfriend.What’s going on there?”
“Nothing while we were working together.Things didn’t take off until after our contract was up.”
