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twelve
The gym was unlocked. Loud hip-hop music boomed from the speakers, which Constance could hear even before she stepped inside. She found Rhett, alone, on his back, lying in a pool of sweat next to the rig. “What’d you just do?” She stood over him, her hands full of the bags Sunny had helped her pack.
Rhett’s long, dark lashes blinked until his brown-green eyes shone up at her. “Twenty minutes of twenty-five burpees and fifteen bodyweight back squats.”
“Holy cow.” Constance eyed the barbell in the rack. “How much weight is that for you?”
“Two forty.”
“Holy cow,” she repeated. “I guess we’re not working out together?”
“Thought I’d get it done. No worries. I have good stuff planned for you.”
More like, you couldn’t stop yourself, Constance thought. She was beginning to understand how Rhett Santos’s brain worked. “I can’t wait.”
After Rhett had peeled himself off the floor, they made their way into the office. He leaned in close to the bags of food, drew a deep breath and let out a dreamy exhale. “Are you sure you want to work out? Can’t we just eat?”
She caught a whiff of the soap, shampoo or deodorant that was coming off his sweaty shirt—something spicy and masculine. It surprised her to realize that he smelled better to her than the roast turkey and side dishes. He also got better looking every time she saw him. Rhett was striking to begin with, but as Constance got familiar with his movements and habits, his gestures and quirks and all the little things that helped create the contours of his face and lines of his body, the better he got.
“C’mon.” Rhett waved her into the gym and pointed to the PVC he’d laid on the lifting platform. “This’ll be fun. I’m going to show you how to snatch.”
Constance’s eyebrows rose.
“The most technical lift,” Rhett went on. “The more places there are to mess up, the harder a movement is. We’ll spend half an hour on it, just to wet your feet. And then we’ll eat.” She might’ve looked hesitant because Rhett added, “It’s that, or we do a beep test.”
“What’s a beep test?”
“Running,” Rhett said. “You have a set distance to sprint, and the beeps keep getting shorter, which means you have to keep running faster, as time goes on.”
Constance stepped onto the platform and lifted the PVC. “Snatch, it is.”
Rhett laughed. “You really don’t want to run, do you?” He narrowed his eyes. “Come spring, there’ll be a lot more running in the workouts. Just to give you a heads-up.”
Constance shrugged. “Who says I’ll be here in the spring? I still haven’t joined.”
Rhett stared down at her. “Free week’s up. We’ll get you a contract before you leave today.”
“Maybe.”
He grinned a little bit, then grabbed his own PVC pipe and said, “The object of the snatch is to get the bar from the ground to overhead in one fluid motion.” He demonstrated once, slowly, then a little faster, then really fast, getting the PVC from down near his feet to over his head. “So let’s break it down. Set up position. Feet are just under the hips. Wide grip on the bar.”
Once her hands were right, Rhett instructed her to retract her shoulder blades and bend her knees, hips going straight down. “From here, we’re going to roll that bar down to midshin. Keep the tension in your hamstrings. Keep your shoulders forward of the bar.”
Constance got to midshin. Rhett came beside her and, touching her only with his fingertips, had her raise her hips a little. Just keeping correct form in a still position was hard work. She felt sweat trickle down her back, despite the chilliness of the gym.
Instruction after that was a blur of commands and tiny pieces—flat back, elbows out, chest up, engage the lats, squeeze, extend, shrug, pull under—all of which ended up getting Constance’s bar from the ground to over her head. Never in her life would she have thought something so simple could be so complicated.
Rhett’s eyebrows rose. “Not bad. Keep the bar closer, though. It should be able to lift your shirt.”
Constance tried again, and was rewarded with, “Not horrible,” which she had learned was Rhett’s way of saying she was improving.
“You’re pulling a little early, though, which is common.” Rhett went through the movement again. “Delay the second pull. Then the arms look a little like a scarecrow.”
Constance thought of Daddy’s scarecrow, still out in front of the house, with its bent elbows, forearms hanging down and creepy grin.I’ve got to become Daddy’s scarecrow, she thought, and rather than reflecting on the irony she imitated Rhett’s movements, going slowly and getting quicker by her fifth try.
On her last setup, Rhett approached and grazed his fingertip, light as a feather, beneath her chin. “What’ve I told you? Eyes at the horizon. Don’t look at the ground. You’re not going that way.”
A zip of electricity ran through Constance’s body, starting at that gentle brush of his finger and going all the way deep, deep inside her core. She got an all-over little shiver that felt completely new. It was so powerful for a moment she forgot where she was.
