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Hobbs walked over and planted his hands on his hips. “Whatcha doin’?”
Tabitha looked up at him, startled. She had these really big dark brown eyes that reminded Hobbs of blackstrap molasses, all shiny and sweet and old-fashioned. His grandma, the only sane person in his family before she died, used to make a mean molasses cookie. “I’m, um, practicing pull-ups,” she said.
“Interesting. Would you like some help?”
“Please.”
Hobbs set the box upright.
Tabitha planted her foot and untangled the other from the band. “Thanks,” she said, once she’d jumped down. She faced her pile of equipment, casting anxious glances at the other members who were turning back to their workouts.
“What’re you working on?” Hobbs knew he should walk away. Tabitha was already embarrassed and he’d already decided to sit in the office and ignore everyone—especially her. But something about the image of her hanging there by one foot, doing the splits midair while she twirled in the band, kept him smiling and rooted.
Tabitha twisted her lips. She was the sweet and innocent type, but she wasn’t a fool. “I just grabbed some stuff,” she admitted. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t want to go to church.”
“Who does?”
“I’m trying to become stronger.” Her smile fell. “Trying to be good at something.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “You are. You just have to give it time.”
“I’m even messing up massage school.” She sighed. “I’m not brainsorbrawn.”
“What’s giving you trouble in massage school?” Hobbs had a hard time believing it. She seemed like a natural. He watched Tabitha bend in half and wrap her arms around the backs of her knees. If there was one thing Tabitha had on her side in the gym it was flexibility. The fluidity of her joints matched the quiet patience of her personality; only someone good at coaxing, diligence, waiting it out, had that kind of bendiness. Hobbs had seen her do the splits and lay her entire torso down on the floor. She’d called it a pancake, which made him hungry.
Tabitha peeked up from her knees. “Like memorizing all the bones and all their little grooves and divots. Just why? I won’t be massaging bones.”
“But you need to know where all the muscles connect, right?” Like he knew anything about massage school. But, logically, that made sense.
“Yeah.” Tabitha straightened and surveyed her mess of equipment. She had a look in her eyes like she knew she’d overcomplicated things.
“You’re just pushing time around.” Hobbs leaned one shoulder against the rig and crossed his ankles.
“What?” She arched an eyebrow.
“You don’t know what you’re doing, you have no clear focus or goal, so you’re just pushing time around. Like moving a pile from one room to the other instead of really cleaning up.” When she didn’t protest, Hobbs added, “You don’t need all this stuff.”
“Okay.” Tabitha clasped her hands behind her back and arched, stretching her chest. She had a ballerina’s body, or what Hobbs thought of as a ballerina’s body. All legs and arms. “What do I need, then?”
A sudden thought of Victor, asleep at home in his living room, and a possible image of his father, sick in a hospital bed, flashed through Hobbs’s mind. He had better things to think about than Tabitha’s problems. This was not his business. “You got study materials somewhere? On the bones?”
Tabitha froze for a second. As if she sensed the sudden tension, Trinity, who’d been like a ghost up until now, raised her head, ears perked. Then Tabitha’s shoulders relaxed and Trinity laid her head back down. “I have an app on my phone. A quiz that I constantly fail.”
“Pull it up.”
Tabitha gave her equipment one more glance before she went to the little blue gym bag she had next to Trinity and dug around. It struck Hobbs that Tatiana, struggling beneath a loaded barbell in the corner, never had her phone more than a hand’s reach away, including during workouts. The screen even sported a huge crack to prove it, which resulted after a heavy jerk that Tatiana missed and bailed and the bumper plates had landed right on the phone. Tabitha, on the other hand, seemed to not even know where her cell was.
“Got it.” Tabitha held up her mobile, triumphant, like she’d found buried treasure. She fiddled around, then handed it over, pointing at the screen. “That’s the quiz.”
Hobbs hit Start and the first question was a picture of a shoulder blade, with an arrow pointing to a bony prominence and four choices underneath:A) Coracoid Process; B) Supraspinous fossa; C) Acromion Process; D) Superior Border.He flashed Tabitha the picture on the phone and then read Tabitha the choices in a voice that he hoped sounded like a game-show host.
Tabitha froze, her brows knitting and her teeth worrying her bottom lip. “Can I see the picture again?”
Hobbs held up the photo. “Ten seconds,” he said. He started snapping his fingers.
Tabitha briefly covered her mouth with her fingertips, then blurted, “Acromion process!” Despite the loud music, everyone in the gym turned to regard her outburst.
Hobbs suppressed a grin, clicked her choice and watched as the screen turned into a big redX, with the correct answer below. “Ohhh noooo, I am sorry.” Hobbs did his best Alex Trebek imitation. “The correct answer was thecoracoidprocess. Too bad. Ten burpees.” He pointed at the floor.
