“Are the twins why you do dips in your room?” I ask as he crosses over to the dip bars, which look a lot like waist-high invertedU’s that are a few feet apart and held up by a base. “Keeping the triceps in shape for all the handstands you’re doing to keep them humble?”
He stops next to the bars, and his playful grin makes my stomach wobble in the most inconvenient way. “That would be a good reason to do dips, but that’s not why I have this.”
“Is it for keeping the guns in tank top shape?” I wave at his arms. “Because you’re definitely doing that.”
He steps between the two bars and tosses me a cocky smirk that’s going to be the death of me. “Sort of.”
Before I can ask what he means, he grips the bars and pulls himself up into a handstand.
“Holy shit,” I exclaim as he does a move where it looks like he’s walking down an imaginary set of steps until he’s holding himself at a perfect ninety-degree angle, like he’s planking in midair.
The amount of core and arm strength needed to pull off a move like that is unreal, and I’m in utter awe as he “walks” back up the staircase so he’s once again in a handstand, then he carefully lowers his feet back to the floor.
“I mostly stick to stuff like that.” He pushes his long hair back from his face with a casual swipe of his hand. “I prefer full-body work over isolation. It’s more efficient.” He picks up the bars and carries them over to his closet. “I’d show you more, but I was just finishing a workout when I heard Derek being a dumbass in the hall, and I can’t pull off my more impressive moves right now.”
“What the fuck do you call what you just did?” I ask incredulously. “You don’t considerthatimpressive?”
He comes out of his closet and closes the door behind him. “Not compared to what else I can do.”
I sit back against the couch and shake my head. “You’re not even exaggerating, are you?”
He drops onto the cushion next to me, close enough that our legs are only about an inch apart. “Nope.”
“I’m so lucky I don’t have any delusions about what I’m capable of,” I say as he picks his tablet up off the coffee table.“And I’ve already come to terms with never being able to do even half the stuff you can, otherwise I’d feel very inadequate and inferior right now.”
He chuckles and turns on his tablet. “Sounds like someone took my advice about it being better to know your limits than it is to push yourself to the point of failure.”
“It was solid advice,” I say as he tosses me a smile that makes my insides feel funny.
We lock eyes for a few beats, and there’s a softness to his gaze that I’m not expecting, and I’m not even sure it’s really there.
It’s no secret that I’m a mess over everything that’s happened, but I really need to get my act together and stop projecting my issues onto Anthony.
I don’t exactly have a lot of friends right now, and I really don’t need to be scaring one of them off because I can’t get control of the stupid crush I have on him.
“For tonight,” he starts, switching into homework mode. “I was thinking it would be best if we nailed down the points we want to make during our presentation and figure out what format we want to present in. Then we can focus on the details later. How does that sound?”
“That sounds good,” I say, happy to fall in line while he takes the lead.
A little niggle of awareness prickles at my brain, and it takes way too long to realize that I forgot something pretty important. “Oh my fucking god,” I mutter and lift my eyes to the ceiling in exasperation.
“What?”
“I’m such a moron,” I say on a frustrated groan. “I left my stuff in my room. I had a feeling I was missing something when I left to come over here, but it never occurred to me to bring my laptop or textbook or even a damn notebook.”
“Strike one,” he says in a low voice, and all the negative things I was just thinking and feeling about myself melt away in an instant.
“I can take notes and send them to you when we’re done,” he says, still looking at me intently, like he’s daring me to say something bad about myself to get another strike. “It’s not a big deal.”
“You don’t mind?”
“Remember what I said about offering things and meaning it?”
I nod, and my cheeks flush hot with a blush.
He shifts closer and holds the tablet at an angle so I can see the screen. The move puts him right next to me, and I do my best to ignore the crackles of electricity that detonate on my skin as the side of his body presses against mine.
“I was looking through one of my old communications textbooks,” he says, switching us right back into homework mode. “And I found a few things in it that we can apply to our topic.”
