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“No,” he said. “Research it. A hot shower is good for relaxing muscles after they’ve been injured, but you weren’t injured. A cold shower causes vasoconstriction. This means that the blood vessels contract, flushing lactic acid built up in tired muscle tissues. Constricted blood vessels also reduce inflammation that comes with heat, bringing about some inflammatory-related pain relief and decrease in swelling.”
“So you’re telling me my hot shower caused this? My brain hurts too so I’m trying to process it all.”
He had to lighten up on the lecture or educational tone with her. “Super hot long shower you said.”
“Yes, like twenty minutes in there all over my body. I did it again this morning and it felt so good.”
“How did it feel once you cooled down?” he asked, trying not to picture her in the shower naked.
“Not as good. I wasn’t as relaxed.”
“Because the heat helped, but then everything will swell again. Motrin is reducing that. Ice is better.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not doing it again. Sorry.”
“Okay,” he said. “And what is this about dinner then?”
“We are dancing around each other. Not like slow dancing at the wedding, but something more. I know it. You know it. We are both taking steps and feeling the other out.”
“If you say so,” he said. There was silence and he felt like shit. Guess he wasn’t good at joking. “I’m kidding.”
“I’m not so sure,” she said. “Wish I could see your face to know for certain. I feel like I’m making a complete fool out of myself at the moment.”
“Sorry,” he said. “You’re not. Why did you ask me to dinner? That is the better question.”
“I want to get to know you more. I thought you did too. There is part of me that worries how Raina would feel about this.”
“Does she know you were here last night?”
“No,” she said. “That is why I was thinking we were both bouncing this ball back and forth hoping to find out what the other thought without coming out and asking.”
“But you asked,” he said.
“I did. I don’t like games.”
“I find that refreshing,” he said. He wouldn’t add more. Not now. And for that reason alone he would have said yes to dinner with her, but the fact he’d been wanting it before this conversation was overriding the rest of it.
“You didn’t answer me,” she said. “Really, I’m not sure I can do another workout like that. If it was just one part of my body that hurt I might be fine. But my entire body is what is making this so hard. I had to wear a dress today because I was afraid that I might not be able to bend over to pull my pants up when I went to the bathroom. Do you know how mortifying it is to even think that?”
He couldn’t hold the laughter back. “I know you’re joking.”
“Sadly, I’m not. I mean I knew I could pull them up. I wouldn’t walk around with them around my ankles, but I might have made some odd noises trying to do it and didn’t want anyone to wonder what I was doing in the bathroom stall by myself.”
It was the humor in her voice this time. The one that was funny with a touch of something else mixed in. Something almost sexual.
Or maybe he was reading into that more than anything.
“Dinner sounds good,” he said. “I’d have to check my schedule.”
“Oh, don’t you sound all important.”
Yeah, there she went again. He wasn’t sure the last time he talked to a woman and wanted to laugh this much. He never thought he was dull or boring or stuffy. Sure, he was rough around the edges. He’d always been that way. Maybe that was why he ended up with women that weren’t right for him though.
He tended to date those he was exposed to and that meant those that showed up at his gym.
It wouldn’t hurt to try something different.
“I’m a wanted man, what can I say? Sounds like you fit in that category.”
