AllFreeNovel
Share Us
His touch was light and professional, but it still sent something oddly electric through her core.
Rhett came alongside her to observe. She executed her squat, surprised at how much the addition of a featherweight pipe could challenge the movement. From an orthopedic standpoint, that shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did.
“Hips down, back straight. Pretend you’re pushing a car door closed, Constance.” He shook his head. “This isn’t going to work.”
Constance rose up and brushed the sweat from her eyes. “Is it really that bad? It feels a little awkward, but—”
“Squat’s fine.” Rhett shrugged. “You’ll be able to use weight before you leave today. I’m talking about your name. I can’t keep calling you Constance.”
Constance drew the PVC off her back and settled it between her feet, like a cane. “What?”
“Do you have a nickname?”
“No. Why?”
“You’re lying.” Rhett scratched the back of his head, ruffling his dark hair. “Somebody calls you something other than Constance. And I can’t keep calling you My Pretty Pony. People will think we’re into some weird S and M. We need a new nickname.”
Constance pointed her chin in the air as heat rushed her cheeks. She didn’t want to lie again so she blurted, “Don’t you dare call me Connie.”
He wrinkled his nose. “No worries there.”
She didn’t know whether to laugh or get pissed. She was kind of in between both. Maybe he lacked a filter. More likely, he just didn’t mince words.
“Not Connie. You’re more of a...” Rhett paused, looked her up and down and said, “Stanzi. That’s who you are.”
Stanzi.Nobody had ever called her that. She liked it. She liked it so much she felt that electrical sensation zip through her core again.
“Come on over to the rig, Stanzi.” Rhett waved his hand as he strode to a racked barbell. “This is quite a bit heavier than your PVC. Let me see five.”
Constance ducked beneath the bar and settled it on her meager upper traps, where it rested more on her C7 than her muscles. “What if I don’t like Stanzi?”
Rhett fixed her hands. “Close grip,” he said, then tapped her heels with the PVC. “Widen your feet a little. There. Good. Go.”
She visualized bumping that car door closed and sent her hips back as she settled into the bottom of the squat. She rolled forward a little on her toes, but listened to Rhett’s cue to keep her weight in her heels and chest up as she drove up out of the bottom.
“Not horrible,” he said. As Constance made her way into her second, then third squat, he finally answered her question. “Doesn’t matter if you don’t like it. You don’t get to choose your nickname.”
“Is that right?” Though she couldn’t argue with him. She’d been called Cici her whole life because that’s all Sunny could pronounce when she was a little girl. Constance had never liked nor disliked the name Cici. It’s just who she was. She swallowed down the ripple of excitement at the idea that this man was giving her an opportunity to be someone else altogether.
Constance finished her five squats, the last one making her sweat beneath the armpits, then settled the barbell in the rack. “That’s a two-way street, though.” She faced Rhett, all bundled up in a hoodie, arms crossed over his chest. “What if I give you a nickname and you don’t like it?”
He gave that barely there smile. “Good luck shortening my name. You deserve an award if you succeed.”
“I could just call you Santos.”
“You and the entire United States Marine Corps.”
“Well...” Constance swallowed down the unusual tightness that had filled her throat and willed her heart to slow. She faced the rig and clasped the barbell. She didn’t understand this response. Lately, she had a hard time looking men in the eye without feeling some kind of aversion. That wasn’t happening with Rhett, despite his brusque manner. Josh had never been brusque. Even on the day Constance interrupted his run with that other woman, he’d been all sweet and syrupy, talking like,Oh, I had no idea you’d be coming. We haven’t run in so long. You’re just so tired all the time.Constance shook off the memory and focused. “I never back down from a challenge. I’ll find you a nickname.”
“You do that, Stanzi.” Rhett’s voice came over her shoulder. “Now go grab two of those plates over there, the ones that have the number ten on them. Then come back here and put some weight on that bar.”
By the time an hour was up, Rhett had run Stanzi through back squats and dead lifts. She was a good mover. A little bit of time and practice would take her far, especially if she was as persistent as she seemed. Deep into their training, she hadn’t complained or wimped out; she’d just buckled down and tackled the work.
Now, he would get in his own workout, then go home, wrap the heating pad around his leg and hope tomorrow was warmer.
They reached the front door. Stanzi grabbed her giant winter coat, but paused, staring pointedly at his thigh. “Do you want me to look at that, before I go? It’s the least I can do, for taking up your time today when you were supposed to be closed.”
Rarely did Rhett find himself speechless.
